Agenda

To approve the minutes of the Council Meeting held on 20^th July 2022.

To disclose or draw attention to any interests in accordance with Leeds City Council’s ‘Councillor Code of Conduct’.

To receive such communications as the Lord Mayor, the Leader,  Members of the Executive Board or the Chief Executive consider appropriate.

To receive deputations in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 10.

To consider the report of the City Solicitor on appointments.

To consider the report of the Chief Planning Officer presenting to Council the 2021-22 Plans Panel annual report.

To deal with executive questions in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11.

To receive the minutes in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 2.2(i).

This Council is concerned by increasing reports of housing developers delivering new homes that are not up to the required standards of the new occupiers. This can be individual houses or issues across whole developments that are left uncorrected by the same developers time and time again, leaving residents frustrated and potentially out of pocket.

Council is further concerned that hard-working plans panels are working through detailed planning applications and applying appropriate conditions only for this work to be ignored or not fully implemented. Council therefore believes residents on new developments are being treated as second class citizens through a failure to enforce planning conditions and through a lack of ambition in the use of conditions, for example, to introduce brown bin collections on new developments.

This Council calls for a refreshed, robust and proactive planning enforcement policy to correct any perceptions of under delivery in the application of planning conditions and to include the naming and shaming of developers who are repeat offenders by publishing their names through the Plans Panel Annual Report or appropriate committee.

Council calls for a report to be brought before Executive Board at the earliest opportunity setting out this new approach and the timescale for its introduction.

This Council is alarmed at the prospect of a year long economic recession, consumer price inflation predicted to reach 22%, and the prospect of the average annual family energy bill reaching £5600 in January 2023.

Council recognises that the major responsibility for responding to the escalating cost of living crisis to improve the prospects for Leeds citizens lays with national government, and we will use our local leadership role to seek to maximise the effective delivery of government policy as it develops.

Council also notes the “Understanding and addressing the cost-of-living crisis” paper agreed at the Executive Board meeting on 27th July, and the spectrum of ‘Food, Fuel, Housing and Digital’ poverty activity the Council is involved in.

This Council believes that the scale of potential fuel and food poverty on citizens, and the unsustainable fuel and inflationary pressures on local businesses, call for a scale of localised focus and effort similar to that which was set up to confront the social and economic impact of the Covid Pandemic.

Council therefore calls on the administration to make immediately available to community committees a significant injection to well-being funds to specifically respond to the needs of their community in the face of the developing economic downturn. Such an investment will direct the experience of elected councillors as community leaders to the task of supporting local businesses, engaging charities and volunteers, and creating partnership initiatives to better support those suffering from fuel and food poverty both this year and next.

This Council is very concerned the Government continues to allow raw sewage to be dumped into rivers flowing through Leeds.

Council is shocked Environment Agency figures show raw sewage has been pumped into Yorkshire’s natural environment once every 18.75 minutes since 2016 and the number of spills has increased by over 100,000% in that time.

Council notes that the Government’s failure to implement effective regulation, as well as Government cuts to the Environment Agency budget since 2010 have reduced the amount of surveillance of water companies aimed at stopping pollution in rivers and caused an increase in raw sewage dumping. 

Council calls on the Government to end this disgraceful practice by allowing unlimited fines, holding water company bosses legally and financially accountable for their negligence, and by toughening up regulations that currently allow the system to be abused.