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Agenda item

Member Questions

No Member Questions have been submitted prior to the publication of the agenda.

 

A Member of the Council may ask the Leader or a Cabinet Member a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affects the Cotswold District. A maximum period of fifteen minutes shall be allowed at any such meeting for Member questions.

 

A Member may only ask a question if:

a)       the question has been delivered in writing or by electronic mail to the Chief Executive no later than 5.00 p.m. on the working day before the day of the meeting; or

b)      the question relates to an urgent matter, they have the consent of the Leader to whom the question is to be put and the content of the question is given to the Chief Executive by 9.30 a.m. on the day of the meeting.

 

An answer may take the form of:

a)       a direct oral answer;

b)      where the desired information is in a publication of the Council or other published work, a reference to that publication; or

c)       where the reply cannot conveniently be given orally, a written answer circulated later to the questioner.

Minutes:

Councillor Cunningham asked a question to Councillor Spivey which had been submitted in advance of the meeting. The question was as follows:

 

In your role as the Cabinet Member for Communities and Public Safety, would you agree that the threat of flooding is a constant concern for some residents of the District?

In my Ward, Fosseridge, villages like Evenlode, Broadwell and especially Bledington, have suffered the terrible consequences of flooding in recent years. This is in part a consequence of their proximity to the Evenlode river, which has a long history of catastrophic impact on communities such as Moreton in Marsh and downstream settlements.

With that in mind, would you please confirm that you will be supporting the initiative to set up a CDC-coordinated working group that will, amongst other things, fully investigate the potential impact of large-scale development in places such as the Moreton Fire Service College. Developments that are being considered in the current Local Plan update, prior to thorough investigations into the possible impacts of the increased pressures on the Evenlode River and its surrounding communities.

 

Councillor Harris provided the following response of behalf of Councillor Spivey:

The Council is alive to the threats posed by flooding and increasingly so in a warming world where the threat of storm events is increasing.

Development proposed by the Council in its Local Plan is subject to flood risk assessments. The government provides useful guidance on what these should include and examine.

To date the Council has prepared a district wide (level 1) assessment and once sites become known and the emerging local plan advances to the next stage and the Council will prepare site (level 2) assessments.

Furthermore, the Council has invested in a Water Cycle Study.  The study will assess the planned scale, location and timing of planned development within the district to ensure new development does not negatively affect existing water and wastewater services and to identify measures to avoid the deterioration of water quality in receiving waters.  The study will also help to identified where infrastructure upgrades are required to accommodate planned growth.

The Council has updated its flood and water management Local Plan policies to ensure flooding issues are duly addressed through the planning application process too. See policies CC5 - Managing Flood Risk (formerly EN14) and CC6 - Water Infrastructure Management (formerly INF8) contained within Annex C of the Cabinet papers.

From 1 February 2024 at your.cotswold.gov.uk, local communities are encouraged to review and comment on these updated policies and to highlight areas in the district that requires additional / upgraded infrastructure.

The Council welcomes the proposal to establish a working group to consider strategic growth at Moreton-in-Marsh. It would seem completely reasonable for this group to examine the impact of growth on its environs.

Councillor Cunningham in a supplementary question asked about the proposals within the Local Plan Update consultation and whether there was any scope for amendments due to concerns over water management.

Councillor Harris said that officers would note the concerns, and reiterated the importance of getting people to feed into the consultation so that the policies could be scrutinised. However, it was highlighted that the Forward Planning Manager would be happy to hear any concerns from Members.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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