An update from Martin Tett Leader of Buckinghamshire Council
| 24 July 2024 As promised, I am writing with a further update now that the new Government has set out its legislative programme in last week’s King’s Speech. I want to highlight the key elements of this which affect Buckinghamshire.As I also said in my last update, it’s been a really active period for the council in the run up to the summer break, so I wanted to give more detail on some of that work and also some of the summer activities that are available, hence sending another quite long newsletter to you so soon after the previous one! |
| The King’s Speech This is the way that a government sets out its priority policies and the legislation it intends to bring forward to support them. This King’s Speech contained no less than 40 proposed new Acts of Parliament. These covered a wide range of different public policy areas that impact us all nationally, and many of which will have specific implications for Buckinghamshire too.
New Bills cover proposals from major policies on economic growth, planning reform and devolution to buses and schools. There are proposals to limit landlords’ ability to evict tenants. Given the large number of rented properties in Buckinghamshire, that will be significant. There is a Children’s Wellbeing Bill that provides for breakfast clubs in all schools. We will need to see how that will operate and who will pay for the additional costs involved. There will be a new schools’ curriculum which must be taught in all state schools. Well publicised during the election, there will be VAT levied on all independent schools. You can read the full detail of what is being put forward by going onto the Government’s website. Planning Reform I wanted to highlight the area of policy that I believe will have the greatest impact on our area, particularly where planning and development is concerned. The speech included confirmation that the Government will bring forward a new Planning and Infrastructure Bill. We don’t have all the detail yet but from what Ministers have said there appear to be two key aspects to this new Bill which will have major impacts on Buckinghamshire. Firstly, the reimposition of ‘top down’ housing targets. This is for the number of houses actually built, not granted permission. Councils do not build houses, that is done by private house builders and some social housing providers. We do not know the actual size of these targets yet but, given the overall target of 1.5 million during the rest of this Parliament, we anticipate they will be very large. Councils will have to allocate enough land to allow for all this target, and more, to give scope for the rate at which the houses are actually built. The role of local councils and local people in deciding where these houses are built is also likely to be substantially reduced. Of course, the houses will require appropriate infrastructure such as roads, schools, doctors’ surgeries, energy, water and waste water, digital networks etc. However, it is unclear how all of these will be funded and built in the timescales. Also how does this fit with existing approved Local Plans? The second key aspect is the move by government to have local councils reallocate much of the Green Belt, a so called ‘Grey Belt’. There is no definition of what constitutes ‘Grey Belt’. Currently about a third of Buckinghamshire is Green Belt and much of this is also in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). At present the law gives protected status to land designated as Green Belt. The Green Belt was designed to preserve in perpetuity the beauty and openness of the countryside and prevent towns and villages merging. Importantly the Green Belt is about ‘openness’, not about being parkland. It is current council policy to protect and maintain the Green Belt whenever possible, although we accept that there will always be exceptional circumstances where Green Belt can be released. It will have to be seen how Green Belt release will be required and what role will be given to councils in this process or whether developers will be able to take the initiative. Economic growth There is also a clear focus on economic growth through the new Bills being put forward which of course, we recognise is much needed on a national level and an important focus locally too in supporting and building our local economy and securing a bright future for Buckinghamshire and future generations here. We are currently refreshing our strong local growth plan that has been developed through the Buckinghamshire Growth Board. This outlines how our county can make a significant contribution to the UK economy as a whole through our local industries and local plans. Devolution We welcome further confirmation on the intent to progress the devolution agenda too. I was written to by the new Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner last week and look forward to further discussions about how devolved powers will work here after having a devolution deal for Buckinghamshire announced by the last government. Tackling the litter louts Onto other priority areas for our residents and I’m really pleased that I can now confirm we have adopted a bold new policy to tackle littering head on – including introducing much higher penalties, which are due to come into force this week. We’re not shying away from this; we want people to sit up and take notice, so we are launching an attention grabbing new anti-littering campaign called ‘For Bucks Sake’. We will also be issuing penalties of £500 for people who are caught littering. Like you, I am fed up and disappointed by the sheer amount of litter that I see blighting our beautiful county and disrupting nature, especially on roadside verges. It’s the same stuff – empty drink cans, cigarette and vape packets, fast food wrapping, plastic bottles and containers, and it’s getting worse and worse. I cannot believe that some people think it’s OK to chuck their rubbish from a vehicle, yet many people seem to be doing this – and think they can get away with it. Not anymore. We are among the first councils to use these new powers of higher fines – and a quicker route to catching and punishing the culprits. We are also using a powerful new weapon in our armoury – dashcam footage. We will be leading the way on this by directly appealing to people to send us any footage they might have of littering – captured in a way that is of course, safe and legal. We are inviting people to upload footage and photos to our new webpage if their dashcam has captured someone in a vehicle chucking litter out of the window. With car registration details, this will provide us with the evidence we need to trace and fine the culprit. The new policy will also allow us in the coming months to prosecute through the civil process meaning it will be the vehicle owner who will be liable, whether they threw the litter or not – this should encourage drivers to ensure their passengers do the right thing, and hopefully encourage passengers not to risk the driver being given a penalty for littering! I hope that the new approach and penalties will prove a powerful deterrent.
Have your say I wanted to draw your attention to some important consultations we have at the moment that we want to invite you to comment on to ensure you are a part of shaping these policies. Of particular note, we are proposing some changes to our library service, including introducing longer opening hours, and extending some self-service aspects, whilst retaining face to face contacts during core hours. We are also currently consulting on our Housing Allocations Policy for social housing tenants and our draft Air Quality Action Plan. These are really important council services and policies to many of you, so please do visit our ‘Your Voice Bucks’ webpage to comment and be involved in the decision-making process. Summer break We have reached the end of another school year and the start, for many, of the summer break. I’m sure many of you have holidays planned, whether at home or abroad, and I hope you can also make the most of the array of wonderful walks, events and attractions we have on our doorstep here in Buckinghamshire. We have many low-cost and free activities and events on the Buckinghamshire Family Information Service website so I urge you to take a look if you want ideas on keeping children – and adults alike – entertained! There are also full details of how to access all aspects of family support and advice on these webpages if you need it. I also wanted to affirm our continued support for local families over the summer too. We know juggling finances over the summer months can be tricky. We are running our Holiday Activities and Food programme across the summer for families who get benefits-related free school meals, so those children have access to free childcare and a healthy meal all provided within the scheme. We have also issued £50 food vouchers to eligible families too, to help with food costs over the summer. I remain very conscious that for many households the cost of living still presents a significant challenge and I hope this support makes a difference. Well done to schools and students I also want to thank all school staff and school leaders for their hard work over the last academic year and wish all the very best to students, particularly those awaiting exam results in the coming weeks. I’m really proud of the achievements of all of our schools that we celebrated in our recent School Awards. We have a higher level of children and young people attending good and outstanding schools than the national average and this is testament to everyone involved, families, students and the tireless efforts of teachers and all who work in schools. I hope you can enjoy a well-earned break in the coming weeks. Proud of Bucks! Last, but not least; nominations are now open for our annual ‘Proud of Bucks’ awards. Is there someone who you think is a community hero worthy of more recognition? These awards, being run through our sixteen Community Boards, aim to shine a light on the incredible contributions of the unsung heroes in our communities across the county so please take a look how to make a nomination if you have someone in mind! I hope you have a great summer and that we can finally see the back of the rain! Stay safe and well, Yours,
Martin Tett Leader of Buckinghamshire Council |
It is hard to believe that it is little over a week ago that we were watching the results from the General Election. The new Government, with its very large majority, looks set to be in power for at least five years. It has a determined agenda of change, which will most likely bring significant implications for Buckinghamshire.
We will find out more in the King’s Speech on Wednesday 17 July, particularly with regard to their objective of requiring large scale house building, potential amendments to the Green Belt and stimulating economic growth. When these details are known I will write again to update you.
During the General Election period electoral law prohibited me writing these newsletters. Now the election is over there is a lot to catch up on. Besides the new Government, I also want to tell you about the major new anti-littering policy we will shortly be introducing. So, stand by for several newsletters in your inbox over the next few weeks and please feel free to share them with friends and neighbours, or better still suggest that they sign up to receive them directly.
Your Council Tax and our budget
I wanted to start with a quick update on how we spend your Council Tax and the overall state of our finances. You will all have seen that local government everywhere is very hard pressed; we are no exception. This year we must save £41.3 million. This is on top of the £75.4 million already saved since the council was created in 2020. This remains very challenging. Whilst we are embracing new technology and looking to redesign processes and become more efficient, there is no getting away from the fact that we will be reducing what we do and the resources we have. We are having to take some tough decisions to stay solvent which will not always be popular, be it increasing parking charges, changing library staffing or reducing some highways services.
I’m often asked; ‘what do I get for my Council Tax?’ Most of the council’s expenditure, some 71%, is on four legally required services. The early financial result for the first three months of the year show that we are spending more than our budgets on Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, Home to School Transport and looking after homeless people. This is concerning. We will continue to monitor these costs and will need to see what must be done to bring us back within budget.
Grass cutting and verge growth
I’ve had a huge amount of correspondence about growth of verges, hedgerows, and weeds in recent weeks. I think we owe many residents an apology. Whilst most people value the presence of more plants and the positive impact it has on biodiversity, it should never risk road safety or make towns and villages look ‘tatty’. In rural areas we have reduced grass cutting to the legal requirement and there is an appeal to seeing more wild-flowers and long grasses by the roadside. However, in towns and villages we are still committed to two grass cuts a year. This year however, we were taken by surprise by the very wet and sunny weather. This led to far more vigorous growth than normal across the county. We have brought in extra grass cutting teams and accelerated the programme but frankly some areas have remained uncut for far too long. We will learn from this and plan ahead for similar weather next year.
Also, safety is paramount so we carry out three ‘visibility cuts’ around road junctions throughout the growing season. Such is the level of growth this season that we know in some areas we’ve needed extra cuts in these locations too, so we’ve brought in additional crews to make sure these are covered. It is important that you tell us if there are individual sites where additional cutting is needed for safety reasons and we will carry these out if they’re reported to the council. We have already responded to around 150 such requests this spring and will always prioritise any requests where visibility and safety is an issue.
Weed spraying
These growing conditions have inevitably also led to high weed growth in our towns and villages. The appearance of our towns and villages and the state of our pavements is really important to me so, as I wrote back in May, we have re-instated a second cycle of weed-spraying and will carry out two full cycles of weed spraying across the county over the coming months on all public pavements, as well as ‘siding out’ in some targeted places. This is the process of clearing the edges of pavements where weeds and vegetation have grown through.
We use Glysphosate to spray weeds; this chemical is not harmful to people or animals and can be used safely close to water courses.
I know from talking to people throughout the general election campaign how important these local issues are, which is why we’ve taken action and are working hard to tackle what has been ideal growth conditions for all plants and weeds.
Summer roadworks
Over the past two months I have driven around the county a great deal. Like many of you, I have frequently been stuck in roadworks. It will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly travels on our road network that we’ve had a sharp increase in roadworks in recent years. The number of works permits requested by utilities firms such as water, electricity, gas and broadband, has gone from about 20,000 a year to 60,000-70,000 a year over just the last three years. Coupled with our own programme of investment in local roads, it all means more work and more disruption on our network.
We have always tried to use the generally quieter summer months to programme some of the most disruptive works, including some of our larger scale improvement schemes. However, we’ve reached a stage where even the summer will see more disruption than usual this year given the demand for works. In particular, HS2 is closing the key A418 into Aylesbury at Stone across the weekends in July and for two weeks in August. We have no power to stop this as national government has passed special legislation allowing all works associated with the project to proceed, but we continue to press them to mitigate and minimise disruption where we can. We have worked hard to secure an offer of a free shuttle bus service from them from the end of July; more details on dates and times will follow so please look out for this information, plus the details on diversion routes and timings.
Of course, none of us wants more roadworks but with aging utilities pipes, demand for higher speed broadband and a major investment programme planned on the road network, the associated works are unavoidable. I know I’m delivering bad news on some level, but I do want to be upfront and advise people to check their journey before they travel, using your regular sat nav or route planner, and for specific information on who’s carrying out the roadworks and their duration, you can check the council’s website.
I hope that by warning of possible and more frequent delays this will allow you to plan accordingly. This is a situation that frankly is not going to ease up post summer either, but you do have my assurance that we will do what we can to co-ordinate works where possible and to hold utilities firms to account, making sure they’re working within their permit agreements. We’ve added extra staff into our teams who will be out inspecting works sites to check this.
There was a proposal from the previous Government to substantially increase the fines we could impose on utility companies who broke their permit conditions. We will have to see if the new Government carries on with these changes; I hope so.
Gullies and drains
We had hoped for much drier weather by now after the exceptionally wet winter and spring. However, the very wet weather has continued. This has meant that the amount of water in the ground, the ‘ground water’, continues to be very high. Rain will quickly result in more flooding as the ground cannot absorb the new rain. We have instances of this across the county and in towns such as Chesham. We know it’s critical that all agencies with responsibilities for flood management use this time to plan for next winter, given the terrible flooding we witnessed in some parts of the county over the last winter. As I’ve said before, as a council, we have a role in co-ordinating some of this work, which is largely the responsibility of the Environment Agency or individual water companies, such as Thames Water, depending on the causes of flooding in any particular area.
We are doing all we can to ensure this work continues apace over the summer – I know for example places like Chalfont St Peter are still experiencing impacts and problems from the terrible flooding there and we want all agencies to do what it takes to avoid any repeat and to find long-term solutions.
For our part, we have committed an extra £500,000 from reserves for repeat gully and drain cleansing and repairs to mitigate against heavy rainfall and potential flooding. It means that on top of our existing commitment to cleanse every gully, every year in Buckinghamshire, we are spending extra time and resource on 2,000 high priority locations as part of this programme of work.
From recent experience it feels like wetter weather is likely to be more of a theme and we are focussed on finding long term solutions to be more resilient overall to the impacts of heavier rainfall.
Littering
Last, but by no means least, another major issue for me is to tackle littering and the scourge of litter louts, particularly those who just chuck fast food and other waste out of their car instead of taking it home or putting it in a bin. We are about to take a decision on a really bold new policy on this, where we want to use greater powers and higher penalties to come down really heavily on litter louts, while in the process hopefully deterring others from doing the same. The new policy is due to be considered and voted on by the council’s Cabinet this week, after which I will bring you a full update on progress.
On that note, we have a busy few weeks of activity at the council before the summer holiday season begins. I will be watching the new Government’s proposal announcements and will write to you after they are announced. Also, I look forward to updating you in the coming weeks on some exciting new projects we’re progressing locally, such as town centre regeneration work in Aylesbury.
Please keep safe and enjoy the hopefully better weather.
Martin Tett
Leader of Buckinghamshire Council