Agenda item

The Chair of Council, Councillor Linda Curran congratulated Damian Allen on his recent appointment as Chief Executive and welcomed him to his first Council meeting as Chief Executive.

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

“At the Full Council meeting on the 6th June, I called on Doncaster to play its full part in combatting global warming and the bio-diversity crisis, and emphasised that what we do now matters for future generations; we must ‘go long-term’ with this, it’s imperative.

I announced that we would:-

• Refresh our long term plan for the Borough, ‘Doncaster Growing Together’ to reflect this climate change emergency and other key long-term priorities, to create a cleaner, greener, safer and stronger Borough for both our residents and future generations; and

• In order to do this, a ‘Doncaster Talks’ listening exercise would take place over the summer across the Borough with residents, businesses and local organisations.

I would like to provide an update to Council on the progress we have made since then.

Firstly, regarding climate change and Biodiversity, I am really pleased by the cross-party support in wanting to tackle the climate change and bio-diversity crisis we face and the need for action now, in the medium term and longer term.

It is important to remember that Doncaster has some stunning world-class green and blue assets such as Humberhead Peatlands, Thorne and Hatfield Moors, Quarry Park, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Potteric Carr and Loversall Carr. Going forward, it is vital that these areas are enhanced and protected.

We want to be radical and look for example, at how we can support initiatives like the Northern Forest by planting more trees, and explore re-wilding opportunities to support and enhance our biodiversity.

Team Doncaster has agreed to create a cross-sector partnership group, which will be Chaired by Ed Miliband and involve lead members from Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny.

This partnership group will advise Team Doncaster on:-

• A robust baseline starting position for CO2 emissions in the Borough;

• The ambition for achieving net zero emissions;

• Best practice from across the country and beyond, and

• Recommendations on what actions we can take in the short, medium and long term.

The group will report back to Team Doncaster in spring 2020.

As I mentioned last month, I’m proposing to bring a climate and bio-diversity emergency Motion to Full Council in September, and I will be asking the group to meet urgently, and provide me with initial advice with regards to this Motion, particularly the net-zero emissions ambition for our Borough.

My second update is on the ‘Doncaster Talks’ engagement exercise. I am pleased to announce this engagement exercise is now live and will run until the end of September.

Based on examples of best practice and testing with community engagement, the questions will focus on the:-

·         ‘Here and now’ lived experiences of residents, and

·         Their hopes for the future.

We would like this exercise to be as broad and inclusive as possible and Elected Members are encouraged to support and help populate the calendar of community events and pop-up stalls in their Wards.  The messages gathered will be reported to the Team Doncaster Summit on the 8th November, as well as through a variety of other channels, including the media.

These messages, together with the recommendations from the Partnership Board, Chaired by Ed Miliband, will be used to inform the refresh of the Borough Plan, which is to be launched in March, 2020.

And finally, the focus on communities will become even sharper.  I have always believed that a key part of delivering our Growing Together Plan is to ‘go local’:-

• Recognising all parts of our Borough have a huge part to play in making it a success;

• Strengthening and connecting the locality working of the Council and its partners to improve service delivery, and improve overall well-being;

• Building on community strengths and collaboration to enable more improvements in well-being to be delivered by communities themselves; and

• Celebrating community successes.

Many of these are already in place to support this approach, but there is much more to do.  To develop it further, we need to explore the role of local Elected Members within this new locality model.

I am therefore delighted to announce today that Overview and Scrutiny will lead a cross-party group to look at Area Governance to provide recommendations to Cabinet by December this year on:-

• Genuinely locality based model of oversight, governance and decision making which supports the delivery of the Borough’s priorities; and

• A governance framework that provides clear accountability whilst creating the space for local autonomy and creativity.

The new arrangements will be piloted first and my target is for them to be formally launched in the 2020/21 Municipal Year.

Finally, I would like to send out a message with regards to the previous Chancellor’s comment that tackling climate change will cost over a trillion pounds.  I see tackling climate change as an opportunity for Doncaster and this country, to bring new manufacturing and engineering jobs to places like Doncaster that have never fully recovered from the destruction of our industries under Margaret Thatcher.

What we need is a Green Industrial Revolution with huge investment in new technologies and green industries, and I believe with cross-party support, we can deliver this locally for the people of our Borough.”

Councillor Jane Nightingale, Cabinet Member for Customer and Corporate Services, made the following announcement:-

“The great news for Doncaster this week is that CityFibre, one of the leading providers of full fibre connectivity, has chosen Doncaster to become one of their Gigabit Cities.

This means as part of their current £2.5 billion investment to cover 20% of the UK, they will bring faster and more reliable connectivity direct to homes and businesses in Doncaster, meaning on-line tasks that take minutes, will only take seconds.

The coverage will be announced as soon as it is available and the Council continues seeking investment to increase as much coverage across the Borough as possible.”