Agenda and draft minutes

None.

RESOLVED that under Section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, the Press and Public be excluded from the meeting on the grounds that it would involve the disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 14 of Part 4 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

To consider a confidential report by the Democratic Services Manager (copy enclosed). The report is about a review, requested by Councillor Peter Scott and four other non-Cabinet councillors under the Council’s Scrutiny ‘call-in’ procedure, of a decision in respect of gypsy and traveller site provision taken by the Cabinet on the 25^th September 2018.

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained that the Committee had been convened to consider a call-in of a recent Cabinet decision which had approved undertaking pre-planning consultation and subsequent full planning applications for the provision of both residential and transit Gypsy and Traveller sites on the Green-gates Farm East site, on the outskirts of St. Asaph.

The Scrutiny Co-ordinator introduced the Democratic Services Manager’s confidential report and appendices (previously circulated) which presented the request made by five non-Cabinet members, under the Council’s Call-In Procedure Rules for Scrutiny to review Cabinet’s decision of the 25^th September in relation to proposed sites for future gypsy and traveller provision in the county.  Committee members were advised that the criteria relating to the call-in of a Cabinet decision had been met and that the basis of the call-in was that “a better site had not been considered”.  The call-in request included a specific example of “a better site”.  As the lead signatory to the request to call-in the Cabinet’s decision Councillor Peter Scott was invited to address the Committee to explain the grounds for calling-in the decision and to provide additional background information relating to the request.

During his introduction Councillor Scott advised that he had attended the Cabinet meeting on 25^th September 2018 in his capacity as the local member for the area where the proposed sites were to be located.  He explained that at that meeting he had aired his views on why the Green-gates Farm East site was not appropriate for development as either a residential or transit site for gypsies and travellers.  He also explained why he thought other sites, which in his view were better sites, had not been given due consideration by Cabinet before they reached their decision, hence his reason for initiating a call-in request to seek Scrutiny to review Cabinet’s decision.

Responding to Councillor Scott’s introduction, the Lead Member for Housing, Regulation and the Environment advised that the process to determine whether there was a need in Denbighshire for either a residential site, a transit site, or both, had been on-going for a number of years.  Denbighshire, similar to all other local authorities, was required by law to undertake a needs assessment to determine if a need existed within the county for such sites.  If a need was identified the local authority would, therefore, be legally obliged to provide such sites within its geographical boundaries.  He explained that Welsh Government (WG) grant funding was available for developing both residential and transit sites provided that local authorities identified preferred sites, undertook pre-planning consultation on them and received Planning Committee approval for the developments in time to submit bids for the grant funding ahead of the closing date on 28^th February 2019.  If all of these were achieved the proposal would be to develop the residential site during the 2019-20 financial year and the transit site during 2020-21.  The Green-gates Farm East site had already been identified and approved by Cabinet in April 2018 as the preferred site for the development of a residential site.  As the WG’s guidance on ‘Gypsy and Traveller Capital Site Grant’ was specific that both residential and transit sites should not be co-located, significant effort had been made to try and identify and secure a separate site along the A55 corridor for development as a ‘transit’ site.  However, due to the short length of the A55 which traversed Denbighshire and the fact that sites had to be within three miles of a primary school, potential suitable locations were limited.  Details of the other locations considered were included  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The meeting concluded at 12.20 p.m.