Issue - meetings

(a)       Older People (Councillor Mrs. M. Bunker)

(b)       Sponsorship Funding (Councillor P. M. McDonald)

(c)        Takeaways (Councillor P. M. McDonald)

The Board considered the three scrutiny proposals which had been included on the work programme.

With regard to ‘Sponsorship Funding’ it was reiterated that the existing policy was still in its infancy and input from the Board in reviewing the policy would be helpful.

There was a lengthy discussion in relation to the topic ‘Takeaways’ as some Members believed it was an area worth pursuing whilst other Members disagreed. 

Some Members believed there were too many takeaway outlets in certain locations across the District and the number of takeaways needed to be controlled in order to protect the character of a particular area.  Other concerns mentioned relating to this topic were crime and health issues.

However, the Board was informed that there was a difficulty in comparing against other authorities which had local policies relating to takeaways as it was understood that such policies had been adopted under the old planning system rather than under the new Local Development Framework.  Taking into account the advice from the Head of Planning and Environment Services that national policy guidance and market forces also needed to be considered, it was questionable as to what could be achieved if the primary aim of Overview Members was to control the number of takeaways within a particular area. 

To assist the Board in coming to a decision, it was suggested that Members could request further information from the Planning Department to enable the Board to discuss which areas around hot food takeaways could potentially be investigated further so as to ensure Members achieved viable outcomes.

Within the same report, it was also proposed that the topic ‘Older People’ should be examined and it was suggested that a Task Group should be established to undertake the investigation.

RESOLVED:

(a)    that ‘Sponsorship Funding’ be investigated by the Board to assist officers in ensuring the existing policy was fit for purpose; and

(b)    that a Task Group be established to investigate the topic of ‘Older People’.