Agenda and minutes

Councillor Paul Foster, Leader of the Council, welcomed everyone to the meeting and touched upon the challenging times ahead and the critical part the Leyland Board will have in the COVID-19 recovery.

Apologies were received from:

u  Mike Otter - Farington Parish Council

u  Jim Ashcroft - J&J Ashcroft

u  Rosie Jenkins - BEIS

The minutes of the last meeting held on 19th February 2020 were agreed as a correct record.

Following the last meeting a nomination for Chair has been received from Jennifer Gadsdon.   Profile of Jennifer attached.  The Board is asked to formally appoint Jennifer as Chair of the Board.

Following the last meeting a nomination for Chair has been received from Jennifer Gadsdon from Birchall Blackburn.  A copy of Jennifer’s profile had been included with the agenda. 

Councillor Paul Foster thanked Jennifer Gadsdon for putting her name forward as Chair, and the Board were asked to formally appoint Jennifer as Chair of the Board.  No objections were received and Jennifer was formally appointed.

Jennifer Gadsdon thanked everyone for attending the meeting and for their support.

Jonathan Noad, the Council’s Director of Planning and Property thanked everyone for their involvement and provided an update on the Town Deal. 

Consultation of the draft Town Centre Masterplan has now been undertaken, with the results shared under Item 7.

Guidance from the Government has now been received regarding submitting our Investment Plan, with clear instructions set out in the link below (please cut and paste into your search engine if link does not work):

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/892781/Towns_Fund_further_guidance_16_June_FINAL.pdf

Consultants have now been appointed for the first phase of the Investment Plan and are tasked with looking at the key issues and preparing supporting evidence for the need. 

It was noted that we can now go for more than £25M due to recognition of COVID 19, but if we do decide to go for more there will be a different process which will involve much more scrutiny from Central Government.

The fund is 90% capital so we are looking for projects that can make an impact.  We need to recognise Covid and bring in the short/medium and longer term responses.  Long term sustainable economic development is what they are looking for.

Submissions are to be received at either the end of July, Oct or Dec/Jan.  Jonathan recommended that we aim for the October submission date to allow for enough time to revise our plan if required by Central Government.   Everyone was happy with this and there is a 4 week window to put this in writing.

All bids will be considered on a town by town basis and there will be no detrimental effect if our submission is not included in the first tranche.

Government have appointed Arup & Partners to support all Town Deals and will meet with Steer and partners in the next couple of weeks to help with the submission.

Companies appointed by Central Government to assist Arup & Partners are Future Gov/Grant Thornton/Savills & Nicholls and we are encouraged to make use of them.

Christina Shepherd from Central Government Cities & Local Growth Unit is the NW Deputy Area Lead and has been appointed as our Town Lead. 

Katherine O’Connor from BEIS is the Deputy Lead for Lancashire.  A 5 year programme is understood to be the timeframe for spend once funding is legally committed.

Steer Group and White Young Green have been working closely together on the initial assessment and Neelam Mehmood from consultants Steer Economic Development gave a presentation to the meeting to consider the options and agree which ones to take forward as part of the Government Bid.

The recommended shortlisted projects for the Leyland TIP are as follows:

·         Skills & Start-up Hub: A business focused skills and start-up hub in the town centre, ideally near Hough lane.

·         Market Building Regeneration: Regeneration of the market building to create an improved leisure and night-time economy offer

·         Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain: Job creation and business start-up/ growth opportunities by tapping into the advanced manufacturing supply chain in collaboration with Uclan/the EZ.

·         Town Centre Transformation: A transformation of Hough Lane &/ Church Place to improve the quality of place, linking to the market building to define a centre

We now need to decide how much each option will cost and how it will drive impact.  Nik Puttnam offered to help provide estimated contractor costs.  We will then have 12 months to develop our business case and will need to be able to demonstrate deliverability and engage with the private sector.

The majority of the land needed is already in Council ownership, although ideally would need some third party ownerships being brought in.  Timeframe should allow for third party ownerships to be brought in if needed and Jonathan Noad advised that early discussions have been positive in this regard. 

It was also suggested that we need to consider threads such as:

Ø  Digital integration

Ø  Sustainability

Ø  Leisure/Cultural

Ø  Private sector funding – Grant Thornton may be able to help with private sector options.

Ø  Engagement & Delivery – Investment offers need to be encouraged to get in touch.

Ø  Community Support – Work closely with Runshaw College re youth engagement

Jonathan Noad provided a brief overview of the Consultation which ran from 17/03/2020 to 17/04/2020.

Unfortunately the COVID-19 lockdown impacted on the Consultation process as exhibitions that were to run had to be cancelled and the consultation continued on-line, together with letters sent out to all businesses.

The results of the Consultation were included within the agenda pack.

Initial feedback shows 78% supporting our approach with Hough Lane coming out on top, Market Place 2^nd, and Church Place 3^rd.

Jonathan Noad requested thoughts in the next 2 weeks once all information from the meeting had been digested.  There will be a 4 week window to put this in the October submission.  It was felt important to meet regularly between now and October.

Andrew Sparrow at Workman to be introduced to Steer/WYG – Jonathan Noad to supply the contact details.

Board meeting to be arranged outside the meeting, possibly smaller sub-groups workshops might be created to take the options forward.

Draft Investment Plan to be submitted at a Board Meeting in September to meet October deadline.