Agenda and minutes

The Reverend A Milton, Vicar of All Saints and St. Mary’s, Huntingdon, opened the meeting with prayer.

To receive from Members declarations as to disclosable pecuniary, non-disclosable pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests in relation to any Agenda item. See Notes below.

No declarations were received.

To consider the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Devolution proposals and accompanying documents.

Further to Minute No. 17 of the meeting of the Council on 29th June 2016, the Council considered a report by the Managing Director (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) on proposals to establish a Combined Authority across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to which was attached Appendices relating to the draft Orders, outcome of the formal consultation exercise and outline costs and funding.

In commencing the debate, Councillor P D Reeve questioned the legality of holding the meeting as the draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2016 had been supplied to Members less than 24 hours prior to the meeting and asked that the meeting be postponed. In response, the Managing Director explained that, after seeking legal advice, it was determined that as the substance of the Agenda papers had been published within the legal timeframe and therefore the meeting could proceed.

Members were acquainted with a presentation by the Executive Leader, Councillor R B Howe on the Devolution programme. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is appended in the Minute Book.

Councillor Howe reminded Members of the background to the Devolution deal that included an annual £20m fund over 30 years totalling £600m to support infrastructure, housing, skills and transport in the Combined Authority area. Attention was drawn to the priority infrastructure projects identified for the District, including the St Neots Masterplan to develop housing, jobs, infrastructure and education to support St Neots in developing a self-sustaining economy. Other infrastructure developments included upgrading Harrison Way, St Ives, A141 upgrade Spittals Interchange to Hartford and new river crossing to alleviate pressure on the local roads.

In highlighting the ambitions for Devolution, Councillor Howe explained that it had the capacity to grow and double the size of the economy in the area, accelerate house building, deliver improvements to connectivity both in terms of transport and digitally, provide a technically skilled workforce whilst improving the quality of life to alleviate areas of deprivation.

Attention was drawn to the consultation results and the specific results for Huntingdonshire, whereby Councillor Howe reported that the IPSOS MORI telephone survey reflected more reliable results than the online poll.

Members were appraised with the financial details that there was £1.2bn of new money to invest in the area and the potential to levy further funding to supplement the initial deal. The Shadow Combined Authority had agreed that the costs of running the office and Mayoral election costs would be funded through the deal and not levied onto each local authority.

Councillor Howe drew Members’ attention to the governance arrangements, whereby the Combined Authority would have representatives from the seven local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) plus the Mayor as the Chair. A Cabinet would be created with defined responsibilities allocated to the members and an Overview and Scrutiny Committee appointed consisting of non-executive councillors nominated from the respective Councils.

In referring to the draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2016, Councillor Howe highlighted the recent changes that had included transport  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.