Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Freeman & Fairhead.

Councillor Flaxman-Taylor declared a personal interest in item 8, as she was the owner of a property at Phase 1, Eastwood. However, in line with the Council's Constitution, she was allowed to both speak and vote on the item.

Councillor Wells declared a personal interest in item 12, as he was a Board member of GYBS and would leave the meeting during the determination of this item and would therefore not take part in the discussion or vote on the item.

His Worship, the Mayor, Councillor Plant, informed Council that he had no mayoral announcements to make this evening.

His Worship, the Mayor, Councillor Plant informed Council that there were no urgent items of business for consideration.

Council confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 12 May 2022 with the following amendment regarding Item 18, Any Other Business, which should read County Deal and not County Orders.

Proposer: Councillor Smith

Seconder: Councillor Candon.

CARRIED.

The Leader of the Council reported the following amendments to appointments to Committees, Working Groups and Outside Bodies:-

(i) That Councillor Candon be appointed to Policy & Resources Committee,

(ii) That Councillor Flaxman-Taylor be appointed to the Employment Panel,

(iii) That Councillor Hanton be appointed to the Great Yarmouth Events Member Working Group,

(iv) That Councillor Wells be appointed to the Norfolk Waste Partnership; and

(v) That Councillor Wells replace Councillor P carpenter on Water Resources East.

Proposer: Councillor Smith

Seconder: Candon

CARRIED.

Council received and considered the Service Committee Decision List for the period 11 March 2022 to 12 May 2022.

Proposer: Councillor Smith

Seconder: Councillor Candon

CARRIED.

His Worship, the Mayor, Councillor Plant, left the meeting during the discussion of this item, as he was a Board Member and Chairman of Equinox Enterprises Ltd and Equinox Property Holdings.

Her Worship, Mrs Deputy Mayor, Councillor P Carpenter, assumed the chair for this item.

Council received and considered the report from the Finance Director & Section 151 Officer.

The Leader provided an update to Members on the current financing provided to the wholly owned company trading as Equinox Property Holdings Limited (EPH) and made recommendations for an increased level of loan financing for the company in order to fulfil EPH’s Business Plan which was reported to Members separately on the agenda. 

Proposer: Councillor Smith

Seconder: Councillor Candon

That Council:

(i) Approves the financing for Equinox Property Holdings of £4m, from a £3m loan facility and £1m initial share capital and that this be included in the updated capital programme; and

(ii) Delegate the draw down of the financing facility to the S151 Officer. 

CARRIED.

Council received and considered the report from the Housing Director.

Councillor Flaxman-Taylor, Chairman of Housing & Neighbourhoods Committee, reported that following consideration of this report at Housing & Neighbourhoods Committee, this report sought approval, subject to a successful bid for funding via the Rough Sleeping Accommodation programme for capital and revenue funding to deliver a Transitional Housing Scheme.

The Transitional Housing Scheme would provide a self-contained home and support package for up to 2 years. For rough sleepers, and those at risk of rough sleeping, who have low or medium support needs to help enable them into settled accommodation. This scheme provides an important part of the pathway approach to ensure that rough sleepers are able to move from the streets to being able to sustain settled accommodation and to deliver a sustained reduction in rough sleeping across the Borough.

This scheme complimented the Housing First Scheme of five homes for rough sleepers with high support needs.

The scheme will be provided as a dispersed scheme on 2 sites through acquiring 6 homes providing a mix of 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom properties from a developer following their acceptance of the Council's conditional offer and the provision of 6 new homes on the Council's land, with a modular construction proposed for these homes.

Subject to a successful funding bid, the Council will seek to secure a third party to manage the homes which will be held in the General Fund and to provide the required support to our residents.

The confidential appendix provided further details on the 12 homes together with the costs of the scheme and details of the grant funding sought.

Councillor Jeal reported that he fully supported the scheme but hoped that the homeless would not have to pay the full rent payment as was the case in several hotels in his ward.

Councillor Myers requested assurance that a dedicated support worker would be put in place to assist the homeless with such issues as budgeting otherwise they would be set up to fail. Councillor Flaxman-Taylor assured Members that they would get the help they need.

Proposer : Councillor Flaxman-Taylor

Seconder : Councillor Grant 

That Council:

Approve, subject to a successful application for grant funding, the expenditure and the borrowing set out at paragraph 4.4 of the Confidential Appendix to deliver the Transitional Housing Scheme.

CARRIED.

(i) The Leader of the Council gave a verbal update regarding County Deals. The Leader asked that County Deals become a standing agenda item on all future Council agendas.

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule 12(A) of the said Act.

CARRIED.