Agenda item

The Chair of Council, Councillor Duncan Anderson, made the following announcement:-

“The Vibe Café downstairs has now reopened, and I hope everyone will get some use out of it, so that it stays open.”

The Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, made the following announcements:-

“I would like to provide a brief update on our South Yorkshire Airport City programme. I can tell the Council that we are still progressing positively, and I remain hopeful that we will secure the airport this year.

The procurement exercise to find an operator is ongoing and this will continue as planned, with the aim of having an airport operator appointed in the Spring. I remain hopeful that we can agree to and sign a lease with the airport landowners, as a council we are actively working to achieve this and when I can share more then I will.

Members will be aware that this Council is asking South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority for funding support through an Outline Business Case that is being considered next month. Once this gains support, then a more detailed business case will be put forward, it does however provide another positive step in our ambition to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport. As I’m sure members can imagine this is a complex and detailed piece of work and quite rightly, we are ensuring it is done in the correct manner and this takes time.

I ask for patience from our Councillors, members of the public and our business community. Saving and reopening our airport is my number one priority and we are following our carefully managed plan to give us the greatest chance of success.

I would like to congratulate and welcome Ken Guest as a labour councillor for the City of Doncaster, Ken is a dedicated community champion within the ward and fought an honest and positive campaign and actually increased the labour vote share winning with over 56% of the votes. I’m sure you will be a brilliant advocate for Rossington and Bawtry alongside your fellow ward Councillors.

I would also like to welcome Bev Chapman as our newest labour Councillor. Bev, you are a dedicated Councillor for your ward of Mexborough, and it is a pleasure to have you join the labour community. We have secured significant regeneration funds for Mexborough, and it will lead to an incredible transformation over the next few years.”

Councillor Joe Blackham, Cabinet Member for Highways, Infrastructure and Enforcement, made the following announcement:-

“At the meeting of Full Council in September last year a motion was passed relating to investigating the implementation of a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) Environmental Weight Limit Restriction Order on the A635 between Hickleton and Scawsby, I would like to inform Council of the outcome following initial consultation with statutory consultees of South Yorkshire Police, The Road Haulage Association and National Highways. These statutory consultees are not prepared to support the measures proposed.

There has also been the recent government announcement of Network North in October where they reallocated funding from the cancelation of phase 2 of HS2.

As this is the only named scheme within this fund, I would expect this puts us in a good position for this new government funding.

This Council and the communities of Hickleton and Marr have understandably been seeking a bypass for their communities to resolve the ongoing impact of traffic problems for many years and it was feared not to be forthcoming. However, we now have an opportunity to bid for the funds required to finance the bypass.

On the basis of the Government announcement and the lack of support from statutory consultees in relation to a potential TRO it is vital that City of Doncaster Council put every effort in pursuing this vital opportunity to deliver the bypass and therefore propose to stop any work on investigating a potential TRO Environmental Weight Limit Restriction Order.

I must emphasise that if we were to continue down the route of exploring a TRO, then this could be detrimental to our case for a bypass.

We have already been in dialogue with both the Department for Transport and Transport for the North to undertake work in preparation of the positive opportunity of government fully funding the A1-A19 Hickleton bypass. I will keep Council informed of progress over the coming months.”