Decision details

Members considered the Project Update – Growing Fenland and CCC Capital Community Fund report presented by Councillor Boden.

Councillor Tierney said he was concerned that people viewing this meeting may wonder why Cabinet members do not ask questions when going through the agenda items. He thought it would be useful to point out for the record that this is a good sign as most of these items have already been covered in other meetings. Cabinet is a procedural process; members are engaged but have already read and understood the reports and had any questions answered. Councillor Boden thanked Councillor Tierney for this comment; which was appropriate in his role as Portfolio Holder for Communications and suggested he make this point at every Cabinet meeting for the benefit of the public; he agreed that Cabinet members have already been through these papers at least twice and ironed out any significant problems.

Councillor French updated Cabinet with the news that she attended a County Council meeting last week where they requested at least another £5m to be put into the budget for the community.

Councillor Hoy wanted to make a positive point about the business capital grant scheme. The officer involved was very helpful, did everything we asked, and it was good to see the scheme implemented well.

Councillor Benney pointed out that Chatteris has done exceptionally well in respect of the Growing Fenland project, which received £4m of funding in total. Some questions have been asked on Facebook about whether it is a good thing to move the museum, but this changes the way the council runs. Moving the museum, which taxpayers pay for, will make it self-funding from the income we will receive from renting the office and flats. In turn this will provide a surplus which can be spent for the good of the town. The £1m Chatteris has received from the funding has been spent but not wasted. Any criticism is unjust; a lot of work has gone in and he is very pleased with the outcome.

Cabinet AGREED to:

·         Note the contents of the Project Update report and theprojects which were submitted to the CPCA Board Meeting on 30.06.21 as set out in appendix E of the report.

·         Note that all of the £4m of CPCA funding ringfenced for the four market towns of Fenland has now been allocated to various projects.

CCC Capital Communities Fund:

·           No further action required

Growing Fenland:

·           Cabinet members are asked to approve the capital costs linked to the CPCA funding bids in the table below. These bids were approved at the CPCA Board Meeting held on 30.06.21.