Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillors Debby Hallett and Monica Lovatt. There are no substitutions to this committee.

To adopt and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 14 March 2016 (attached). 

The minutes of the meeting of 14 March 2016 were agreed as an accurate record of the meeting and were signed by the Chairman.

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and other interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting.  

Emily Smith declared a conflict of interest in the Branches Café application, as she had been involved in supporting the bid. She would step down from the committee for the discussion and vote, but would be available to answer questions on the subject.

Judy Roberts declared a conflict of interest in the Cumnor Parish Council application for the play area as she was a member of the parish council. She had worked with the grant application and is on the recreation committee which will be spending it. She would step down from the committee for the discussion and the vote, but would speak for the project.

To receive notification of any matters, which the chairman determines, should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances, which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chairman.

The chairman acknowledged that there was no Vice Chair of the meeting. This would be on the agenda for the next meeting.

The public speakers who had registered, would speak before their application was discussed.

To consider the head of corporate strategy’s report. 

The officer introduced the applications for both New Homes Bonus and Capital Grants.

There was a New Homes Bonus (NHB) and Capital Grants bid for the Branches Young People’s Support Service in Botley. The NHB bid was for youth workers at the café and the Capital Grants bid for equipment at the café. Both score quite well. Officers are recommending deferring the application to the next round due in order to gain further information about the bid.

The statement from the Equalities Officer raised concerns around the disabled access to the toilets.

Community benefits score is 1 out of 3 due to the limited opening hours. There is also a low score for funding, as the project has yet to secure other sources of funding.

Diane Long and Dave Goodspeed the directors of the Branches youth project spoke and answered questions from the committee. They were joined by Councillor Emily Smith, who had stepped down in order to be able to speak as an advocate.

·           The two speakers were qualified youth workers. The Branches would be a youth café in Westway Development for young people aged 12 – 18 or to 25 with special educational needs. The project would be a community business/social enterprise.

·           Initially the café would only open for three sessions per week for core business, but would also be open at other times for the whole community and partnerships, some of which maybe income generating. The café would use young people and adult volunteers. The aim is for it to become a resource for the whole community, run by the young people.

·           It was accepted that access to the disabled toilets is an issue for the moment.

·           Funding: the project aims to raise the capital investment by the New Year and get the community behind them. They intend to use Crowd Funding. The Café will be an enterprise generating income. For each core session they plan to generate £2.5 thousand per year. Are in a position to be commissioned for autism services.

·           The current premises in place until July 2018 and the project will then be in dialogue with Mace developers for longer term accommodation.

·           The project would be a mixture of open access and specialist referral for more vulnerable young people.

·           Both the neighbourhood plan working group and parish council have identified need for youth work for over 14s. There has been a lot of community consultation on this project.

The committee discussed the application.

A motion,  proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that the community benefit scoring would be raised to 3 out of 3, moving the project up to a high priority benefit. AGREED

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that full amount requested from the New Homes Bonus Fund.

RESOLVED

To award the full amount requested from the New Homes Bonus Fund, subject to the following condition:

·           No funding will be released until they have provided a signed copy of their lease  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.