Issue - meetings

To deal with any questions on notice from Members of the Council, in the order in which they have been received.

A period of up to 15 minutes is allocated for the asking and answering of questions.  This may be extended at the discretion of the Chairman with the agreement of the majority of those present.

Having reconvened, the Chairman informed Members that due to personal circumstances that the Monitoring Officer had had to leave the meeting.

The Chairman then advised that four questions on notice had been received for this meeting.

Question submitted by Councillor R. Hunter

“Ahead of the publication of the play audit, will you confirm that Council will continue to invest in maintaining all Council owned playgrounds where there is community support for keeping them, including pocket parks?”

The Leader of the Council responded that “Ahead of the publication of the play audit being considered formally in November, it is confirmed that the council will continue to invest in maintaining all council owned play equipment. The play audit and its investment strategy will be debated in November. In due course it is hoped that there can be an agreed spend on children’s play equipment for the next ten years.”

Question submitted by Councillor D. Nicholl

“On behalf of Council, will you write to the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust to ask what steps they are taking to ensure the reintroduction of parking charges at the Princess of Wales Hospital will not impact on the accessibility of NHS care?”

The Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing and Strategic Housing responded that “Thank you for your question. I recognise that access to NHS care is incredibly important for the residents of Bromsgrove. In order to highlight this issue in the most effective way possible, I would suggest that this is an issue that should be raised at a meeting of the Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (known as HOSC). Unlike Bromsgrove District Council, Worcestershire HOSC has powers in relation to scrutiny of health services. This includes the power to make reports and recommendations to relevant NHS bodies, health service providers and the Secretary of State on health services in the authority’s area.

Bromsgrove District Council has a representative on the Worcestershire HOSC, which is currently Councillor Bakul Kumar. I am aware that Councillor Kumar provides regular updates to our Overview and Scrutiny Board on the work of HOSC and he can also raise issues on our behalf at meetings of HOSC.

In this context, I would suggest that Councillor Kumar, as our representative, should be asked to raise the issue highlighted in your question at a meeting of the HOSC as soon as possible.

It should be noted that meetings of HOSC are open to the public to attend to observe proceedings and you may wish to attend some of these meetings to learn more about the issues that they discuss.”

Councillor D. Nicholl subsequently asked the following supplementary question:

“Thank you for your answer.  I’d like to avoid the kind of situation at the Queen Elizabeth where someone may have to pay £10 for parking.  So, my question is, how do they set the price?  However, I recognise that this might be best raised by Councillor Kumar, as our HOSC representative, so I will speak to him about  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51