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Minutes – Full Council – 19 February 2025

The agenda and papers for this meeting are available here: Full Council – 19 February 2025 – agenda and papers

The minutes of this meeting are presented below.

You can also download a PDF copy of the minutes here: Minutes – Full Council – 19 February 2025

Papers received after publication of the agenda for circulation with the minutes (PDF download only):

MEETING OF COUNCIL

Minutes

Date: 19 February 2025

Time: 6.00pm – 7.29pm

Location: The Council Chamber – The Council House • North Street • CHICHESTER • West Sussex • PO19 1LQ

PRESENT: The Mayor, Councillor Quail (SQ), the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Loxton (SL), Councillors Apel (CA), Butler (AB), Corfield (MC), C Gershater (CG), J Gershater (JG), Knight (SK), Miall (RMi), Moore (RMo), Scicluna (AS), Squire (KS) and Vivian (JV).

ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: Deputy Town Clerk (DTC), Council Services and Support Manager (CSSM), Communities Officer, West Sussex County Councillors Hunt, Oakley and Sharp, Chichester District Councillors Brisbane and Brown, Steve Tilbury (Planning Consultant), Ella Pope and Hayley Campbell (West Sussex County Council’s (WSCC) Waste Prevention Team)

IN ATTENDANCE VIA ZOOM: Town Clerk (TC), Planning Adviser (for the Neighbourhood Plan item)

86. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies were noted from Councillors Chant, Kondabeka, McHale and Pramas.

Councillor Hitchman was absent.

87. DISPENSATION REQUESTS

No requests had been received.

88. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST BY MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL IN MATTERS ARISING ON THE AGENDA FOR THIS MEETING

No declarations were made.

89. WASTE PREVENTION

Presentation by West Sussex County Council’s Waste Prevention team.

Ella Pope and Hayley Campbell gave a presentation on WSCC waste disposal and collection duties and their efforts to reduce waste.

They reported that WSCC currently have no landfill sites and that the small amount of waste that cannot be sorted and processed in Sussex was sent to a landfill site in Surrey. Their key message was to use and consume less and to avoid buying plastics where possible.

Members were reminded that Chichester District Council’s (CDC) kerbside collections took waste in various categories including small electrical items, textiles and coffee pods (must be pre-booked). Information on composting, food waste reduction was provided, as was information on anti-litter and related campaigns (e.g. purple sacks being issued to local volunteer groups).

Council were also informed that the CDC app allowed users to look up bin collections, book services, report fly-tipping and missed collection.

Members were advised that 40% of all waste was food waste, 70% of which was edible, so this would be a big focus of the Waste Prevention Team’s campaigns in the coming year.

90. NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN

The Chair introduced the Planning Consultant, Steve Tilbury, who had been commissioned by the City Council to produce a review of the City Council’s Neighbourhood Plan progress and materials to date.

Mr Tilbury outlined his background and recapped the conclusions of his report on the Chichester Neighbourhood Plan (CNP) that had been circulated with the agenda.

A long discussion followed in which Mr Tilbury outlined the reasons for his conclusion, these being that, at present, there were so many existing policies and documents that covered the City it was hard to see a space that the CNP could effectively occupy and there did not seem to be a clear driver for producing one.

Councillors asked if it would be possible to produce a very simple CNP in the short term in order to benefit from increased CIL contributions.

Mr Tilbury advised that this could be a risky strategy and it could result in the community being misled about what was important in the community and in planning terms. He expressed the view that it would be better to wait and prepare a detailed plan or not do it at all.

Council RESOLVED that at this time they would not seek to pursue development of a CNP but would consider the matter again once the planning and local government framework was clearer.

The vote was eight in favour of the proposal and five against.

91. MAYOR’S ANNOUNCEMENTS

No announcements were made.

92. UPDATES ON ITEMS FROM THE LAST MEETING NOT COVERED BY THIS AGENDA

Minute 66a – TC advised that Councillors who had not attended the in-person Equalities and Diversity training would be provided with the slides from the course and the opportunity to undertake a similar course online.

Minute 68 – Council NOTED that this action has been completed.

93. PUBLIC QUESTIONS

No questions from members of the public had been received.

94. MINUTES OF COUNCIL

Council APPROVED as a correct record the minutes of the Meeting of Council held on 18 December 2024 and the Extra Ordinary Meeting of Council held on 22 January 2025.

95. MINUTES OF COMMITTEES

Council NOTED the minutes of the following Committee meetings:

Property Sub-Committee – 28 January 2025

Planning and Conservation Committee – 30 January 2025

Finance Committee – 5 February 2025

MC requested that her attendance at the Finance Committee meeting held on 5 February 2025 be noted.

RMi clarified the current position regarding projects and committed funding related to the City Council’s CIL allocation.

NOTED that there had been no meeting of the Community Affairs Committee since the last meeting of Full Council.

96. ANNUAL REVIEW OF CITY COUNCIL POLICIES AS PER STANDING ORDERS

Council NOTED the annual review of the following City Council Media Policy (March 2024) as per Standing Orders.

Council REQUESTED that a working group comprised of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, TC and Communications and Civic Support Officer be established to look at the issues of communication and a report be brought back to the April 2025 meeting.

Review of variable Direct Debits, Standing orders, and online banking arrangements.

Council RATIFIED the list and NOTED that there were currently no banking standing orders set up on the accounts.

97. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEVOLUTION

TC advised that a letter had been sent to the Leaders and Chief Executives of West Sussex County and Chichester District Councils outlining areas the City Council believed they could assist with in service delivery following on from Local Government reorganisation and English Devolution.

Members were informed that the letter had included a request for meetings as soon as possible with the programme teams at the relevant authorities to start early discussions on how this could be achieved.

Following a short discussion, West Sussex County Councillor Hunt clarified that a recently launched consultation regarding the proposed Sussex and Brighton Strategic Mayoral Authority was being run by HM UK Government with responses due by 13th April 2025.

Post meeting note: Consultation available here – https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sussex-and-brighton-devolution/sussex-and-brighton-devolution-consultation

Members noted that this is before the next scheduled meeting of Full Council and RESOLVED to establish a small Working Group of Councillors to look at devolution issues and report on the implications to full council.

AGREED that the Working Group would comprise of the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor and Councillors Miall and Vivian.

98. CITY COUNCILLOR TRAINING

Further to minute 92, TC advised that she had contacted Chichester College and that the workbooks from the equalities training would be made available to all councillors including those who had been unable to attend the training.

She further advised that West Sussex Association of Local Councils (WSALC) had recently changed their training provider and that links would be shared outlining the courses that were now available.

Members were informed that City Councillors and Officers could also access training courses via Mulberry and Co (the City Council’s internal auditors), National Association of Local Councils (NALC) and the Southern Training Consortium.

TC advised that she would send the relevant links to the course with Members on her return to the office the following week and that Councillors should advise TC or DTC of any courses that they wished to attend.

99. ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

Council discussed options for the Annual Parish, noting that the meeting was currently scheduled for 28 April 2025.

Council agreed this was a good opportunity to engage with the public over issues related to devolution and local government reorganisation as part of raising awareness and building support for the City Council taking on new services or assets in the future.

Council NOTED the date and AGREED that an Annual Parish Meeting Working Group be formed to work on the program.

Post meeting note: TC has suggested that the planning for the Annual Parish Meeting be rolled in to the work being undertaken by the newly formed Working Group that would be looking at the City Council’s Media Policy (minute 96 refers).

100. CHICHESTER DISTRICT COUNCIL HOUSING STRATEGY CONSULTATION

Council AGREED that they would respond to the consultation as individuals, but a Council response would not be submitted.

101. CALENDAR OF MEETINGS 2025/2026

CSSM advised that a small change had been made to the originally distributed draft calendar. The change had removed the February and April 2026 meetings of the Finance Committee and replace them with a single meeting of that Committee in March 2026.

AGREED to adopt the Calendar of Meetings for 2025/2026 as given in the draft distributed at the meeting.

102. REPORTS RECEIVED

NOTED the reports that had been received after the agenda had been published would be circulated with the minutes of the meeting.

103. QUESTIONS

Noted that no questions had been received from Members of Council pursuant to Standing Order 8.

104. ITEMS FOR INCLUSION ON THE NEXT AGENDA

  • Devolution
  • Media policy

The Chair moved to the Supplementary Agenda.

105. PUBLIC BODIES (ADMISSION TO MEETINGS ACT) 1960

RESOLVED that the public and press be excluded from the meeting for agenda item 2 due to the confidential nature of the business to be transacted.

106. UPDATE ON THE DARK SPACES LIGHTING PROJECT

TC summarised the report that had been circulated by the Project Manager proposing two pilot lighting projects at the Oxmarket Gallery and along the path between New Park and Litten Gardens.

Council RESOLVED to accept the two Officer recommendations given in the report, namely that the pilot projects be started immediately and that Officers be delegated to accept funding from the CDC UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) allocation if the project could be completed by the end of the funding window on 31 March 2025.

AGREED that the project be funded from the Dark Spaces CIL allocation in the event that the UKSPF funding was not available.

The Chair returned the meeting to the published agenda.

107. COMMON SEAL

RESOLVED that the Common Seal be affixed to any documents necessary to give effect to the resolutions passed at this meeting.

DATE OF NEXT ORDINARY MEETING: 30 April 2025 at 6.00pm

The meeting closed at 7.29pm

ACTIONS ARISING FROM THIS MEETING

Minute ref.ActionAssigned to:
92 and 98Slides from Equalities and Diversity training to be distributed to all CouncillorsTown Clerk
97Draft Terms of Reference for the Devolution Working Group to be issued and the first meeting arranged.Town Clerk
98Details of available training courses to be distributed to CouncillorsTown Clerk

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