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Agenda and minutes
Venue: Council Chamber, Muriel Matters House, Breeds Place, Hastings. East Sussex, TN34 3UY
Contact: Chantal Lass tel: 01424 451483 email: class@hastings.gov.uk
Note: Due to technical issues, we were unable to make the Local Strategic Partnership virtual meeting held on the 11 May live for public to view. The meeting has been recorded, and the recording of the meeting will be available to view soon. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused and we will work to find a solution to this issue as soon as possible.
Items No. Item Introduction
Minutes:
Everyone was welcomed to the meeting.
The chair stressed that given the impact of COVID-19 in Hastings it is crucial that we have leadership from the council and other leaders from across the town. The LSP has a mandate to be able to take forward the strategic overview of the town. The meeting this morning is to see how we can move forward as a town. For Hastings, the impact is going to be profound. We know that the impact for the whole country is going to be significant, but in Hastings we know that we face a number of additional challenges, particularly with vulnerable people, who won’t be able to pick up and take on life in whatever normal looks like, going forward. As an organisation and structure, it is important that we are able to represent all people of the town. We are going to need to work differently, think differently, and it is important that weshare information, retain that overview and look to the future to think in terms of moving forward with a unity and a sense of purpose.
From this perspective, working along side the Town Deal Board, we have slightly different perspectives, the LSP has always had an overview of the town and the Town Deal Board has a very particular purpose, but it is going to be really important that the work of both of these boards come together and that we look to see how the money, the research, the influence and any lobbying can work for Hastings in a united way.
One of the things that we need to do with the LSP is to make sure that business as usual isn’t abandoned and we try to run this alongside the impact of the Covid virus. When we look at health, education, the Town Deal, it is all going to be through the lens of the new world that the Coronavirus has brought about. When we talk about business as usual, it is going to be a very different perspective. And we will be looking at education in the light of closed schools;we will be looking at health in terms of the perspective that the virus brings to us.
We are going to look it in 3 particular areas:
1) the immediate response, which has been significant in Hastings, with people pulling together and doing things they have never donebefore
2) maintenance and support for those impacted by the crisis. Where some will be able to pick up life and work with the new normal, we know a lot of residents in Hastings will need significant support for a long time to come, and particularly as lockdown starts to ease and we move into our new worldand
3) recovery and restart, which nobody knows what this will look likeyet.
Richard Watson needed to leave the meeting early but provided assurance that NHS locally/Hastings and Rother CCG continue to work hard to ensure an adequate response ... view the full minutes text for item 94.
Minutes of the last meeting - 27th January 2020 PDF 82 KB
Minutes:
Agreed as an accurate record.
Matters arising:
HBC Re-organisation – Jane advised that the HBC has undertaken a small aspect of the senior management restructure. Simon Hubbard has now left and is now working with Hastings Voluntary Action on secondment. She has been appointed as Managing Director. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, HBC needs to further review its budgets, due to costs incurred and income lost, to identify what resources are available moving forward and further work on the re-organisation will progress later in the year. Cllr Kim Forward is now leader of the council and Cllr Colin Fitzgerald is deputyleader.
Update - Covid 19 impact and response
Minutes:
A joint presentation on the response to date was given by Victoria Conheady, Assistant Director, Regeneration and Culture and Andrew Palmer, Assistant Director, Housing and Built Environment at Hastings Borough Council and Steve Manwaring, Chief Executive at Hastings Voluntary Action. The highlighted points were:
· Small business and retail, leisure and hospitality grant funding – up to the end of last week, 1,432 grant applications have been processed, totalling £16,745,000. This figure is 80% of the expected applications. Work is underway to identify businesses which are yet to comeforward
· Discretionary grant scheme – full guidance is still to be received. It is hoped that the scheme can be operated in alignment with other districts and boroughs across East Sussex, but this is dependent on furtherguidance
· There are currently 239 households in temporary accommodation, which isa significant increase from 170 during locked
· Homeless presentations continue to rise, with approximately 16 each week, mainly due to eviction, and it is expected this will increase as lockdown measures are eased. New measures to manage a potential influx of evictions are being considered
· The council continues to provide its homelessness advice and supportremotely
· Outreach to rough sleepers continues in partnership with others including the Seaview Project, the Clinical Commissioning Group housing associations, and through initiatives such as the Rough Sleeping Initiative and Rapid Rehousing Pathway
· The Hastings Covid-19 Community Hub was set up in response to Covid-19 and supports the extremely vulnerable/shielded, other vulnerable residents, those self-isolating and anyone who identifies themselves as in need of support. The hub includes a number of local organisations including the voluntary and community sector, housing associations, the borough council andothers
There are 4 sub-groups on the hub:
1. information/communication,
2. foodsupply
3. mental health,and
4. children, young people and families and the 5 areas of activityare:
1) telephone line and triage, 2) volunteer support telephone befriending, 3) resources (relief fund and other forms of funding), 4) information/communication and entertainment and 5) pathways into more specialist/acute services where needed
· There were 900 registrations as of this morning to the Community Hub telephone line. This is operated by the council, which provides an inbound phone line and outbound triage service. A memorandum of understanding and data sharing agreements are in place to enable a joint response and to ensure referrals can be madequickly
· Maintenance planning and options for continuation of the triage and other services are now beinginvestigated
Feedback is sought from LSP partners on how to deal with the response to date – are there are any gaps in provision going forward and what additional services should be provided – are we meeting the needs of local people?
Graham Marley, Chief Executive at Let’s Do Business Group, gave a presentation on the economic and business position. Highlighted points:
· From a national perspective, the economy wasn’t in great shape before the crisis and the Office of Budget Responsibility is predicting it could shrink 35% over the nextmonth
· Locally, the ... view the full minutes text for item 96.
Borough Recovery
Minutes:
East Sussex County Council is developing a recovery plan and feedback is being sought from partners by 18th May. All partners were asked to respond to the Slido survey by which will be re-circulated by close of play on Wednesday, 13th May.
Action: ALL
Town Deal Update
Minutes:
Pranesh Datta, Economic Development Manager at HBC gave an update:
The Hastings Town Deal Board met on 4th March and came up with ideas for the vision for the town. However, this was before the pandemic and there may be a need to review this piece of work. The update from the minister, Simon Clark, is still keen to proceed with the work and some councils are keen to put their plans forward for approval as quickly as possible. Government has appointed the contractor to support towns to develop their plans. It is hoped a new prospectus will be issued in late June. The Town Deal EDG will be meeting next and Pranesh can inform LSP partners of decisions on how to take the workforward.
The Town Deal Board meeting is scheduled for 25th June.
Any other Business
Minutes:
The chair thanked everyone for their attendance and asked for feedback on what worked or didn’t work and would be happy to receive comments from partners.
Choice of online platforms for these meetings seems to be quite challenging for some partners. Microsoft Office and Teams is OK for some organisations and not for others due to the licencing costs and that may prohibit some organisations from participating. Zoom is better for meetings but is not being used by the statutory sector due to security issues.
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