Issue - meetings

L Roberts introduced the report to the committee and thanked Councillor England for pointing out an inconsistency in the report, she confirmed that a report would be going to Cabinet in November. The project was started in February 2020 but Covid-19 has had an impact on its progress. The companies that were working on this project had to furlough their staff and the council’s programme manager’s contract was not continued as he was unable to continue the work required of him. There was also the additional task to ensure remote working was in place and move processes to work from home effectively across all services. The tender for the project was sent out to three companies and the local firm Aitchison Rafferty have been appointed to carry out the surveys of the garages. Obviously, they have also been affected by covid-19 but have agreed a start date of 6^th July and based on the number of surveys that need to be carried out, they expect to have completed it by the end of August. The garages team have done extremely well in lockdown, they are working from home and coming into the office when required. They have dealt with 263 eform enquiries, made 93 offers, 60 commencements and 56 terminations. The council’s surveyors have not been able gain access to properties due to social distancing so they have managed to do carry out inspections of 756 garages so there are approximately 6000 inspections left for Aitchison Rafferty to carry out. The lockdown period has been used productively but have been impacted by third parties furloughing their staff.

Councillor Bassadone asked how many garages were currently vacant.

L Roberts said she did not have that information to hand but would circulate the information to the committee
                                                                                    Action: L Roberts

Councillor Bassadone asked if there was a large number of vacant garages.

L Roberts said she knew approximately 30% of the total garages were vacant. The team will need to monitor the impact of covid-19, garages might be the first thing household’s return due to a reduced household income.

Councillor Freedman ask if any comparisons had been done with the same period last year.

L Roberts said it had and it was roughly the same as last year. Obviously, it is too early to tell the impact from covid-19 but will be monitoring on a weekly basis to identify trends.

Councillor Adeleke had a few questions. Firstly, he asked if the team were still accepting applications for garages, secondly, asked if L Roberts could expand on the definition of the external programme manager and thirdly, asked if intervention was required to avoid a decline in applications for example, some garages are not compatible with modern vehicle sizes.

L Roberts said garage applications were still being processed and the team were receiving a steady stream of enquiries. The external programme manager was a contractor being paid a day rate and was signed up for a period of time to complete the work.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47