Leader's Speech

Speech by Cllr Andrew Waller delivered to Full Council on Thu 3rd Dec 2009

Leeds City Region

Since my report was published there has been the Leeds City Region Summit on Friday 27th November in Harrogate at which Ministers agreed to hand over some powers, and local funding decisions to the 11 local authorities which make up the LCR. This was quite a landmark in itself and I would like to acknowledge this as I know some councillors feel that being a Liberal Democrat I am unduly hard on this government especially in its dying days.

This crucially marked the point at which the Leeds City Region has been selected to be a centre of excellence for Eco Construction, and importantly when the British Sugar site received parity in terms of funding with the controversial Eco Towns schemes.

This is testimony to the efforts of the 11 council leaders to stand firm against the Government as it sought to impose the Eco town model on the nation - and we are the only part of the country that this has happened in.

Clearly York will play a strong part in the development of the City Region as a Centre of Excellence. This will build on the trialing of new technologies in the city - Eco-Depot, Passifhaus at Boundary Close, Elm Tree Mews, and the Eco Business Centre at Clifton Moor to name but a handful. Strengthening the bid was the holistic approach to show that this involved all steps in the construction chain, skills, and utilisation of the research centres within the city region to produce the analysis of the new buildings and help to develop further improvements with this information being shared with the rest of the country. We have such a strong story to tell in this city and people who feel so passionately about the subject that it is vital that we utilise all of this experience and innovation and really make it work here.

The announcement by John Healey that the Leeds City Region Urban Eco Settlement project would share in the £10 million on offer to the second wave of eco-towns. Therefore it will not be a huge amount of money but will help to enable additional work on masterplanning and detailed design and on energy, environmental infrastructure and transport aspects of the proposals. I am personnally commmitted that we examine how this will generate local jobs at all stages of contruction.

However, we do acknowlegde that in the middle of the century 80-90% of the domestic properties will have already been built today and we need to respond to this. Therefore the City Region pilot will also include work on retro-fitting properties especially those that are termed 'hard to treat'. A domestic energy efficiency propgramme is being developed across the city region.

This will respond to fuel poverty, and will also assist in the generation of employment in this area over a long term - indeed having looked at the plethora of different grants and schemes and variety of different means by which people do or don't qualify for schemes drawing this together will be constructive - however, my own concerns are that this will once again put into stark relief the difference in funding to metropolitan council areas with our own.

There will also be support for different forms of tenure which will help to reduce the notion of dependency on home ownership which carries with it implications for an unbalanced economy relative to our competitor nations.

Tantalisingly the Accelerated Development Zone (the scheme by which borrowing is permitted on the future business rates) has been kept in the text of the agreement as an ambition and we live in hope that the Pre Budget Report announcements on 9th December - this has a huge implication for Aire Valley in Leeds, and York North West (both York North West and York Central) for levering in additional public finance to fund the essential infrastructure. I have strongly supported the case for York and I hope that the Chancellor is as supportive in his workings. It is crucial for the future development of the scheme and the economy of this city.

The pilot will also establish the City Region as an Innovation Capital which will help to develop even further the work of Science City York which has recently received the award of £19.7 million from the European Commission.

Adult Social Services Inspection

I would like to congratulate Bill Hodson and his team in York's Adult Social Services for being rated as "Performing Well" in the Care Quality Commission assessment - and also Cllr Sue Galloway who was Executive member then. The assessment of adult safeguarding services is of particular note, and I am glad to see the progress there being acknowledged.

Investment

Progress with the Energise Pool which is looking very good already before the opening on 14th December, and Joseph Rowntree School is winning awards even before it is open.

It is good to see cranes on the skyline of York showing that investment and development is still happening in particular at Heslington East.

The investment in the central Library, Yorkshire Museum, and the new Visitor Information Centre. This is substantial investment in the Cultural Quarter from the council which has levered in additional funds.

VIC - £900,000 (CYC £100,000)

Yorkshire Museum - £2m (CYC £800,000)

Library - £540,000 (CYC £340,000)

Yorkshire Forward

I think that it is worth raising my concerns about the Future of Yorkshire Forward- firstly they do need to explain by how much their resources have been pulled back by central government and secondly we need to see how their long term future is going to work out for if they are not there then what will perform the role that they do at the moment.

In contrast with the devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales where there is no question of their economic support being removed. Clearly this is an evolving picture and there is very good reason to retain a reformed Yorkshire Forward in this region to assist with the delivery of economic growth. We need to have fewer decisions made at Whitehall, and more at a local level.

I would like to move my report.