Questions are invited from Elected Members about items on the Cabinet agenda. 15 minutes will be set aside for Member Question Time, if required.
Notice of any Member question must be given to the Monitoring Officer by midday Friday, 29th November.
Minutes:
Two questions were received in advance of the meeting.
The following question was submitted in advance of the meeting by Councillor Lancaster:
As an extra £100 thousand was allocated to gully cleansing this year and seeing the damage caused last week in the borough by heavy rain, Does the council believe the system in place is working?
Responding, Councillor O’Brien, Leader of the Council reported that when we receive severe rainfall weather warnings our Streetscene team carry out additional checks of all known flooding hot-spots including trash screens and culverts. We also put in place on-call teams to respond to any reports of localised flooding. During Storm Bert our teams worked brilliantly to deal with flooding incidents. However, whilst gully cleaning is important, this alone will not prevent flooding during these extreme rainfall events. Rainfall is increasing in duration and intensity due to the climate change crisis we are facing. It is an unfortunate fact that many of the existing drainage systems, most of which are the responsibility of United Utilities, were never designed to take these increases in rainfall. The extra resource will allow approximately 20,000 additional gullies per year to be checked and then cleaned if required.
The Leader committed to sharing graphical representations of this during the extreme weather event following the meeting.
A further supplementary question was submitted:
Councillor Lancaster advised that four sites in Radcliffe North and Ainsworth Ward residents have highlighted concerns during the storm two properties were flooded one on Turks Road and three in Ainsworth. Councillor Lancaster was asked to flag the matter with Neil Long, Assistant Director of Operations, Councillor Quinn and Councillor O’Brien.
The following question was submitted in advance of the meeting by Councillor Birchmore:
A recent email to myself and other Councillors regarding the Star Academy school in Radcliffe provides the following explanation and new schedule:
· The DfE have confirmed that there are delays to the programme start date due to inflationary pressures resulting in the cost exceeding original estimates.
· The additional cost uplifts require further internal DFE approval following their due diligence processes before finalising the timing and costs of the construction project.
· The DfE have advised that the approval process is anticipated to be completed in January 2025.
· The anticipated handover of the completed school building is July 2026.
We have seen several completion dates pass and now a second-year intake will have to spend the whole year in temporary accommodation. How sure is the Council that the proposed completion date will be met to avoid a third-year intake going into temporary accommodation and what is being done by the Council to avoid this situation?
Responding, Councillor Lucy Smith reported that further to the enquiry the Council can confirm that it continues to have regular meetings with its partners the Star Academy Radcliffe and the DfE in regard to the delivery of the new free school at Spring Lane, Radcliffe.
At these meetings a number of areas are discussed, and both the
Star Academy representatives and the Council continue to have
robust discussions to ensure the delivery of the school is on track
for September 2026. Following the most recent discussions this week
there is no change to that approach and the DfE are currently
finalising the contractual agreement with its delivery contractor
Morgan Sindall. While the Council and Star Academy do not have any
involvement in the contractual agreements and management between
the DfE and Morgan Sindall, the Council continue to ensure that
milestones are met and assist in supporting the DfE in their
delivery in any way it can. There is no information to suggest that
the current project delivery of the new school is under any threat.
Should such concerns become apparent council officers would of
course raise such concerns through the appropriate channels taking
any potential action available to support and reduce the
risk.
Further discussions took place regarding the notice and updates received to Councillors. Members were informed that the Council has regular updates with the Department for Education and when information is communicated it is given to the School and Council at the same time which can increase queries from residents before all Councillors are aware.
A request was made for the Leader, Councillor O’Brien, Councillor Smith to invite the Senior Manager for Star Academy to a future public meeting.