Council update

Funny old full council meeting yesterday (the first back at Parkside for over a year).

Of note was a bit of a skirmish between the chief exec. defending the 50% workforce return plan (ie a mixture of office and working from home, to be reviewed in March next year) and some of the older Tory traditionalists.  Mike was happy to support our CEO on this one, given the potential carbon savings, not to mention all the other downsides of commuting!

Then there was a motion to 'support efforts to resettle those refugees' (referring to the current Afghan disaster of 'our' making), which somewhat myopically overlooked the increasingly poor treatment of refugees in general, as pointed out by Cllr Fletcher (Lib Dem).  The Borders and Nationality bill currently making it's way through parliament will not improve matters either, but will criminalise genuine refugees (as defined in the Refugee Convention which the UK help set up in 1951 - more enlightened times?) unless they arrive by a 'direct route'.

Finally, three member's questions on notice, all related to planning matters.  Firstly, Mike had it confirmed that members would have no potential input into a Climate Change Supplementary Planning Document until after the local plan was made (2023 if all goes well).  Then Cllr Milne (Lib Dem) encouraged Strategic Planning to get on with updating their 5 year land supply calculations (currently estimated by planning inspectors to be around 4.3 years - hence encouraging speculative development).  The latest official housing completion figures are eagerly awaited from West Sussex County Council.  And lastly, Bob highlighted the need to avoid building new housing that will require retrofitting to met net zero carbon emissions, although the reply from the cabinet member for planning and development was 'carefully phrased' to avoid any explicit commitment!