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Agenda item
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 retail sector was struggling before the crisis. In April 2019, 60 empty shops were identified in the town centre and it is likely that this willincrease
· The tourism and leisure sector have been significantly affected; all attractions are closed, and it is possible that the whole season may belost
· In addition, the language school business contributes around £35m to the local economy
· Manufacturing businesses are operating between 0 and 40% capacity and many staff have beenfurloughed
· Support is available through grants and loans, and businesses have been appreciative of the small business and retail and hospitality grants provided by the boroughcouncil
· Let’s Do Business Group is one of the lenders accredited to lend under the government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and had a huge number of enquiries during the first couple of weeks of lockdown. These are now reducing although it is expected these will go up again as we come out of the crisis
· The full impact of the crisis is still not known, whether there will be a bounce back and if the various support packages willwork
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