Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Carpenter and Stenhouse.

There were no declarations of interest declared at the meeting.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 25 June 2024 were confirmed as a true and accurate record.

Councillor Wainwright referred to page 8 within the minutes which referred to a Section 79 notice being issued and asked whether this had been appealed. The Monitoring Officer confirmed that an appeal had been submitted but that no dates for a hearing had been confirmed as yet. It was agreed that a copy of the appeal submitted be circulated to the Committee.

The Committee received and considered the Executive Director of Property and Housing Assets report which provided Members with an explanation of the void costs as reported in the Quarter 3 Performance Report.

At a previous Scrutiny Committee meeting Members had been keen to understand why there had been a significant increase in the costs within quarter 3 in comparison to the previous year.

The report presented sought to provide more detail and context to the associated costs and how they have performed over the last 3 years. The report also provided information on how the service intended to ensure that there was effective cost controls in place for managing void costs in the future.

Councillor Jeal referred to paragraph 3.4 within the report which highlighted the breakdown of an average cost of a void per property and showed that this was declining. The Executive Director of Property and Housing Assets provided a run through of the cost breakdown and referred to 4.1 within the report which highlighted works that still needed to be addressed in order to decrease the costs further.

Councillor Jeal asked on average how long a standard void was taking and this was confirmed as 10 days.

Councillor Newcombe asked if costs could be claimed back if a tenant was to have a credit on their account. The Executive Director of Property and Housing Assets advised that if a tenant was to move into an alternative Council home then this could may be able to be transferred across. The Executive Director of Property and Housing Assets advised that he would look into this matter and report back.

The Committee resolved to :

Note the contents of the Executive Director of Property and Housing Assets report.

The Committee received and considered the report from the Chairman of the Hemsby Coastal Erosion Task and Finish Group.

The Chairman reported that the Task and Finish Group had looked into the questions asked by Councillor Rundle and received presentations from the Coastal Partnership East.

Councillor Wainwright commented that he he had sat on the Task and Finish Group and agreed that the Group had gone into detail in looking at the questions asked, he raised his disappointment that Councillor Rundle had not attended the meeting to add any input into the meeting but he believed that the report was fair and covered all the questions that had been asked.

Councillor D Hammond also agreed that the report was fair and answered the questions asked, but commented that she felt that this had wasted a lot of Officer time when a number of the issues were already reported on publicly and therefore available for anyone to see.

Councillor Jeal commented that erosion was happening all the way from Dover to Scotland and commented that in his opinion the funding available was unlikely to change due to the cost.

The Committee resolved to :

Note the content of the Chairman of the Hemsby Coastal Erosion Task and Finish Group's report.

Councillor Freeman advised that he would like to have an item added to the Work Programme with regard to Anglian Water Capacity.

Councillor Thompson asked for an update report to be brought back to the Committee and the Committee agreed that this should be brought back in 6 months time.

The Committee resolved to :

(1) Note the contents of the Work Programme 2024/2025.

(2) Request that consideration be given by the Chairman to include the items as detailed above on the Work Programme.

There was no other business discussed at the meeting.