Agenda item

The Chairman thanked members for passing on their best wishes to her following the recent floods which had occurred in Wainfleet, her electoral Division.

Executive Support Councillor B M Dobson made the following announcements:-

·         Executive Councillor C J Davie was engaged in an Executive meeting and he would be speaking on his behalf, for his self and for the portfolio team.

·         He thanked the Chairman for her efforts to support those residents in Wainfleet who had suffered the devastating floods in June. These events were a reminder of the impact that the environment could have on an area. He referred to the role of the Committee in considering both the impending risks and the mitigating efforts to prevent or reduce the impact of such natural adverse events.

·         He referred to the Government's announcement on 5 July 2019 of the outcomes of the Future High Streets Fund bids and the disappointment that no Lincolnshire high street had received funding. Each district council felt that they had worked hard on the bidding process to little effect. The Government needed to work with strategic authorities, like the County Council, rather than creating wide bidding rounds that led to high levels of competition and a scatter-gun approach. This was something that Councillor C J Davie would be pursuing through his role on the Local Government Association’s Economy Board.

·         The Executive was pleased to accept the recommendations of the High Street Working Group. These encouraged the Council to develop stronger links with district councils over high streets and would lead towards better use of digital technology to make the high streets places to live, work and enjoy as much as they were places to shop adding that today’s committee report on broadband might trigger some more detailed thinking on this subject.

·         Executive Councillor C J Davie would be hosting a “Welcome to the Summer” event at the North Sea Observatory. He would be encouraging more than 70 attendees to work together to promote the area and to cross-sell the various attractions to visitors throughout our coastal districts. Tourism operators on the coast had told us that they had high expectations for a positive summer of visitor activity.

·         Team Lincolnshire were collaborating with South Kesteven District Council on an event for investors in Stamford in the following week. The annual Lincolnshire Enterprise Partnership conference on 12 July would provide an excellent opportunity to engage in debate about the future of business in the County with 300 people due to attend.

·         Executive Councillor C J Davie and Executive Support Councillor B M Dobson had been working with Executive Councillor Mrs P A Bradwell OBE, Debbie Barnes OBE, Head of Paid Service as well as the economic development team on new skills initiatives. The Council would shortly be investing additional funding in raising the amount and quality of information about local careers to schools for pupils, teachers and families as this initiative was vitally important for our workforce of the future.

·         The Council was delighted to receive confirmation of Foreign Office funding to support a trade mission to Hunan, China in November 2019. This followed directly from the report to the Committee received at the last meeting that provided us with the opportunity to take businesses out to the market of Hunan. The Council was working with Hunan officials to establish direct business-to-business contacts so that the visit was valuable to all who attended.

An independent inquiry, undertaken by Norfolk County Council on behalf of the County Council, had been set up to examine the recent flooding in Wainfleet. The Government's Chief Scientific Adviser would be conducting a peer review to assure the quality of the inquiry. The Council was responsible for investigating all flooding events affecting residential properties and in addition to the flooding in Wainfleet there had been floods in other parts of the county and as a result there would be 38 investigations in all. This Committee would receive the results of the Wainfleet investigation in due course.

In response to a question whether other agencies had carried out their responsibilities in the recent flooding incident, it was stated that the inquiry would examine the causes of the incident at Wainfleet, including the response of other agencies. It was also stated that surface water flooding could not be predicted in every instance and many farms had been affected. It was noted that funding provided under the Bellwin formula would help district councils. It was agreed to respond to the Committee in connection with the technical definition of internal flooding.