High Wycombe Town Committee - Tuesday 20 January 2026, 7:00pm - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

High Wycombe Town Committee
Tuesday, 20th January 2026 at 7:00pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Mohammed Ayub
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  3. Cllr Julia Wassell
  4. Cllr Majid Hussain
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  2. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  3. Mrs Elly Cook
  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
Share this agenda point
  1. Fiorella Mugari
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  3. Fiorella Mugari
  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  5. Cllr Chris Chilton
  6. Fiorella Mugari
  7. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  8. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  9. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  10. Wendy Morgan Brown
  11. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  12. Wendy Morgan Brown
  13. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  14. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  15. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  16. Fiorella Mugari
  17. Linda francis
  18. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  19. Fiorella Mugari
  20. Cllr Arman Alam
  21. Fiorella Mugari
  22. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  23. Fiorella Mugari
  24. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  25. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  26. Fiorella Mugari
  27. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  28. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  29. Fiorella Mugari
  30. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  31. Cllr Ed Gemmell
Share this agenda point
  1. Ms. Sophie Payne
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  3. Wendy Morgan Brown
  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  5. Cllr Arman Alam
  6. Wendy Morgan Brown
  7. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  8. Cllr Arman Alam
  9. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  10. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  11. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  12. Ms. Sophie Payne
  13. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  14. Ms. Sophie Payne
  15. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  16. Ms. Sophie Payne
  17. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  18. Cllr Julia Wassell
  19. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  20. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  21. Wendy Morgan Brown
  22. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  23. Cllr Maz Hussain
  24. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  25. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  26. Cllr Catherine Oliver
  27. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  28. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  29. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  30. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  31. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  32. Ms. Sophie Payne
  33. Cllr Julia Wassell
  34. Ms. Sophie Payne
  35. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  36. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  37. Fiorella Mugari
  38. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  39. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  40. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  41. Ms. Sophie Payne
  42. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  43. Cllr Chris Chilton
  44. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  45. Cllr Chris Chilton
  46. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  47. Cllr Maz Hussain
  48. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  49. Ms. Sophie Payne
  50. Cllr Maz Hussain
  51. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  52. Cllr Julia Wassell
  53. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  54. Ms. Sophie Payne
  55. Cllr Chris Chilton
  56. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  57. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  58. Ms. Sophie Payne
  59. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  60. Ms. Sophie Payne
  61. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  62. Cllr Chris Chilton
  63. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  64. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  65. Ms. Sophie Payne
  66. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  67. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  68. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  69. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  70. Cllr Chris Chilton
  71. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  72. Fiorella Mugari
  73. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  74. Heather Morley
  75. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  76. Heather Morley
  77. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  78. Heather Morley
  79. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  80. Heather Morley
  81. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  82. Cllr Julia Wassell
  83. Heather Morley
  84. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  85. Heather Morley
  86. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  87. Cllr Arman Alam
  88. Heather Morley
  89. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  90. Cllr Maz Hussain
  91. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  92. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  93. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  94. Wendy Morgan Brown
  95. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  96. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  97. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  98. Heather Morley
  99. Cllr Maz Hussain
  100. Heather Morley
  101. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  102. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  103. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  104. Cllr Catherine Oliver
  105. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  106. Cllr Arman Alam
  107. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  108. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  109. Heather Morley
  110. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  111. Cllr Maz Hussain
  112. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  113. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  114. Heather Morley
  115. Cllr Julia Wassell
  116. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  117. Heather Morley
  118. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  119. Wendy Morgan Brown
  120. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  121. Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja
  122. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  123. Cllr Maz Hussain
  124. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  125. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  126. Cllr Maz Hussain
  127. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  128. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  129. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  130. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  131. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  132. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  133. Heather Morley
  134. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  135. Cllr Maz Hussain
  136. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  137. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  138. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  139. Cllr Ed Gemmell
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Julia Wassell
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
Share this agenda point

Cllr Mohammed Ayub - 0:00:00
Was pretty loud tonight. So welcome everybody to the high wickham town committee meeting
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:00:06
Tuesday 20th of january, so
First we will have apologies for absence, please
Thank you. We've had apologies from councillor leslie clark oba and councillor darren hayday
Okay, lovely. Thank you
any declarations of interest
No, thank you
And now we have the minutes of our last meeting for approval.
Any comments on the last minutes?
I'd like to start by saying excellent detailed minutes.
I'd like to share an observation.
It would be excellent if you could add members' names when members make comments, because
when you reach my age, you forget what you say sometimes.
and I'm reading the minutes thinking did I say that did I not say that so I would
find that very helpful if you could add the members names. So you can't get the
praise and adulation unless your name's on it Nick. My name's easy to spell as well.
Sorry can we add the names? We don't add names of who says what to the
minutes. That's not something that we do informal minute taking. There is the webcast, so people
can watch back if they wish to.
If there's no other comments, then – oh, Julia.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:01:40
At the last meeting, the inspector was here, and we had a very good debate about the problem
issue of the canisters and the inspector said he would provide cages for the
canisters to go in. That isn't minutied but I can update the committee that a
bin is going to be placed at the arc in Castlefield, another one at the
Biffa are being extremely helpful and the waste recycling centre is going to
increase the number of canisters that they can take from the public because
they are sometimes in large numbers so this doesn't preclude other locations
where litter pickers and other people can leave the canisters it's ongoing work.
Okay thank you Julia. Magid. Yeah can I just come in regarding the bin at the
have made a few inquiries and asked people in charge at the ARC Centre and they said
Cllr Majid Hussain - 0:02:45
they're still talking to the officers or the council to find out what it will involve and

3 Minutes

how often the bins will be emptied and stuff. So they're just waiting for some information
to come back, only then they will commit to it because the last thing they want to do
is, because they're going to be having a nursery there, I think in a month or two, so last
thing they want is the bills to be filled up not being emptied and it's
gonna be health hazard okay thank you very much
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:03:14
Kalil just a comment in terms of what councillor children said you could use
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 0:03:19
AI to perhaps put the names in the minutes wherever it wouldn't be a manual
process you could obviously just use that just saying that you could
obviously just make your life easier and actually put names there if you want it
to. Thank you for that point and the minutes are not verbatim who says
what they're a summary of the points that were raised and general concerns
Mrs Elly Cook - 0:03:47
and responses but I will take your comments back and feed it back to the
Democratic Services team. Thank you. Great thank you very much just before we move
then on to the next item one thing just we've had everybody well quite a few
People have commented how they would like the meeting
to run according to plan and get it done on time tonight.
Please, when you're now coming in
on these two fairly important issues
that we've got coming up,
stick to the point as much as you can,
try not to repeat yourselves, and just indicative,
we're gonna try not to have people going
much beyond two minutes.
So try to get the important points in
around roughly two minutes.
It's not gonna be hard and fast.
And also, to the extent that we're doing this debate
on these other topics, we'd prefer to get everybody talking
than having two or three people coming in again and again and again.
So as we're selecting people, if you have already spoken,
we'll be sort of putting you to the back of the queue.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:04:35
If there's people who haven't spoken that are coming forward
to try and get as many voices involved as possible.
And we're going to try to stick to the times that we've got here.
Another issue, I think, which is pretty appropriate time to talk about it.
Now, in the meeting we had with the leader,
I was asked to make an apology in relation to the town meeting.
And that is to make it clear that the High Wycombe Town Committee
was not the organiser of the town meeting which it was not and also to make it clear that any that
the town meeting was organised by residents and any councillors there were there simply under their
own auspices as councillors or as residents themselves so just make that so that it's noted
now we're moving on to item four as my screen screen goes blank but anyway it's the high wickam

4 High Wycombe Town Committee Special Expenses Draft Budget 2026/27 for consideration

special expenses draught budget and within this we're also considering the precepts which
we have to agree today. So Fiorella.
Fiorella Mugari - 0:05:32
Thank you chair. So the paper outlines what's been proposed after the budget subgroup met
in November and in January to highlight and I'll just highlight what the key points are
with respect to the budget.
So the proposed net budget is an amount of 419 ,000.
There's been a detailed exercise
to review last year's expenses
and then checking what the actuals are currently
and looking at what the run rate will be by the year end
and what the forecast is likely to be.
And the budgets have been adjusted accordingly
based on what's expected to be spent
in the next financial year.
We've also taken account of indexation
for the ground maintenance contract at 3 .6%,
a CPI, 5 % on fees and charges,
management and support charges with a 3 % uplift
to an amount of 71 ,000,
and the proposed net budget is a decrease of 13 %
on previous year, and that's mainly due to
a reduction in expenditure and an increase in income
on cemeteries, as well as the consideration
of the grounds maintenance indexation.
The council tax base has increased from 24 ,600,
has moved from 24 ,937 .68 to 24 ,648 .77.
In terms of each of the options that have been considered,
there's five options that have been put forward.
Three are decreases, one is staying flat,
and the fifth one is increasing the precept.
So each of the five options has a percentage
of precept cover consideration,
33 ,000 interest on reserve applied
based on the assumption that the reserve balance
will be 854 ,000 carried forward,
as well as reserve movement implications
at the end of the next financial year.
The paper recommends options two and four,
and these are the options put forward
by the budget subgroup following the meetings.
However, the committee may, however,
wish to maximise the council's council tax collection
with an increase of 4 .99%, which is option five.
Option five would allow funds to be set aside
to fund future investment by the committee
or any future risk that may come.
And this is given the landscape following the funding,
fair funding review shortfall of funding
for the council as a whole.
And this would align with the council's strategy
to address wider financial challenges
that may come in the future
and mitigate the fair funding reductions.
Thank you, and just before I open it up for comments,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:08:35
just to be clear, the recommended option now is?
Fiorella Mugari - 0:08:44
The recommended option is as in the paper, but just highlighting to the Committee that
there is an element of you can consider option five as well, given the strategic position
of the Council.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:08:58
Okay, in which case to inform the Committee, based on communications that I've had today,
So the financial department of Buckinghamshire Council is now recommending option five and that is that we do a four point nine nine percent increase
Just a little bit of background from the budget meeting in the budget meeting
We were at the time being recommended to to go for a decrease
The advice on that has changed
So the financial department are no longer recommending that and then within that budget meeting
as I said there were two options considered as being potentially viable, but the majority of the
members in the budget meeting at that time said we should keep our precept as
it is but that's before the new advice now to follow the 4 .99 % and keeping a
precept as it is in actual fact is a reduction of 3 .5 % because inflation well
3 .5 to 4 % inflation is above 3 .5 % so if you actually keep your precept at the
same you actually have less money available in the coming year and then
So that's just information for people
My one comment as we start up our next item that we're going to be coming to is a whole load of projects
105 altogether and that's without doing anything in a very general sense
Which will require a large budget if any of those things are going to get done
So I just want you to note that as well before we start the discussion
So please who would like to be first on the discussion? So Chris
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:10:29
Yes, so first I would like to say well done, 419 ,000 for the budget, a 13 % decrease versus
last year looks pretty good. We are offering the same services to the residents of High
Wycombe but for 13 % less money. So first I would like to say well done, thank you for
that. The one thing that concerned me was that the management recharge had increased
to £71 ,000. So 17 % of the budget that we spend on providing services to the residents
of High Wycombe is now a management recharge. So total budget goes down but management recharge
goes up. What are we doing to try and address that both now and in the future? I'd like
to see management recharge coming down and coming down as a percentage of the total budget
because we really ought to be spending the money that we raise here on services for our
residents not on management recharge.
Thank you. So if you look at page 37 of the PAC, we have an analysis over the last 10 years that
shows what the management recharges have been from 2017 until 2018. In 2017 it was 111 ,600.
We've managed to reduce the management recharge over the last 10 years to 71 ,000. So we are
mindful of the fact that we need to keep the costs down. The management recharge has always
Fiorella Mugari - 0:11:47
been topical for the committee and quite mindfully we do tend to, there's been a smooth reduction
over the years.
Yes, it has gone up in between 25, 26 and what we're anticipating now, but we will keep
a close watching eye.
So that's an estimated amount, what the actuals will be will depend on what officers produce
with respect to the time allocations that they provide.
Anybody else who would like to contribute?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:12:18
So Khalil.
A couple of points.
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 0:12:24
One, I was just looking through the Appendix B proposed cemetery charges and increase,
circa around about 50 pound.
If I've translated it correctly, I'm not really a financial person.
I understand that we've had an increase in income.
and I don't see that we're overspending our budget.
Why are we proposing an increase in cemetery charges?
Why are we not freezing the burial charges?
What's the justification for that?
And I have a second thing,
which you want me to say it now?
Perhaps.
So the second thing is, again,
I don't know if this is the appropriate time
or item to actually say it on.
And I was trying to look through
where the budgets are quoted, the town committee grants.
As obviously this is something
that has been mentioned before and I've said it myself in terms of the
underspend to be carried forward you know to future years so any underspend
so 20 ,000 pounds I believe is what the amount is and any underspend to be
carried forward so it accumulates and again we're constantly reviewing the way
that the grants are administered right and I still feel that they are still
challenging so I just wanted to propose that so that these are carried forward
I don't know if there's a you know as a proposal I propose it and somebody seconds it and there's a vote on it
I don't know how we that gets included just to be clear
So if the annual grant budget is not completed in grants that year your suggestion is that is rolled over
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:13:50
So the annual grant budget the following year has the remaining this year and next year's correct, right?
Okay, I'll just have a quick look at Wendy if Wendy wants to comment on that at all
And if not, I'm quite happy to put it to a vote
Wendy Morgan Brown - 0:14:03
Just to confirm that any under spend on the grants is rolled over into the reserves for highway
I think Khalil is trying to say that it's rolled over and kept in a bucket
for grants so that there's a possibility to give more grants in the next in the
following year.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:14:16
Wendy Morgan Brown - 0:14:19
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 0:14:23
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:14:28
Okay so if you'd like to propose it and then see if somebody wants a second.
Right, okay, Trevor's going to second it. Okay, so those in favour of rolling over
unspent grant monies into a bucket for grant monies the following year, please raise your hands.
Okay, and those against? Okay. Again, abstentions. Mabuba, abstention or against? Okay, that's fine.
against then abstentions. Thank you so that that's carried if Wendy if we're
able to action that. Thank you.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:15:24
Right. Sorry just to clarify your question was why are we increasing the fees and
charges at the cemeteries? Okay.
Fiorella Mugari - 0:15:29
It's in line with the council a position on increasing fees and charges and
optimising income.
So what the cemeteries do do is they do do benchmarking
and cheque what other competitors or organisations are doing
who are in the same field.
Where it's justified to increase, they do increase.
Where it's not justified to keep themselves in the game,
they don't necessarily increase.
But the council position is that fees and charges
needed to increase across the board by 5%.
I'll just cheque with my colleagues who run the cemeteries to see if they want to add any commentary there.
Linda francis - 0:16:19
No, we were just we were following the recommended fee increase across the council with these fees.
So, sorry chairman, so there isn't really justification. On the basis no one else is coming back, that's fine. Sorry.
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 0:16:31
There is no justification such as just literally pure benchmarking then it's just because others do it and we'll do it as well.
Fiorella Mugari - 0:16:44
It's to do with the Council overall position and just trying to make sure that we are in a financially stable and sustainable position going forward,
which we are now and going forward.
Okay, thank you. So, Aman.
Thank you, Chairman.
A comment and a question.
Cllr Arman Alam - 0:16:57
I'm always reluctant to support any increase in the precept
because at the end of the day this is money coming out of the pockets of
residents in High Wycombe and people have for the last number of years been
struggling and having a difficult time. But that said on this occasion
recognising that there is a proposal in place for various projects to take place
for the benefit of High Wycombe I can see some benefit in the increase to the
to ensure that what this town committee wants to achieve,
what the council wants to achieve for the unparished area,
that that can be achieved.
What I wanted to know was, there's a proposal for an employee
to be taken on to assist the town committee.
Is the cost of that employee incorporated into these figures
or will that be an additional cost?
So that temporary position would be funded from the reserves based on the discussion
Fiorella Mugari - 0:18:05
that we've taken up in the following paper. So it's not in the budgets.
It's probably worth – and I'll just look at Fiyera's cheque, it's correct. Obviously
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:18:17
if we underspent our precept on our special expenses, money would go into reserve, so
Okay are there any other comments now from anybody? Okay well if that's the
case then the position that was recommended by the financial department
at the Bucks Council is that we go ahead and I'm going to resummarize before I
ask you to make a decision is that we would be choosing to have the precepts
go up at 4 .99 % which is what's happening in all of the rest of Buckinghamshire
across the council's core precept and that is the level you can go to without
holding a referendum okay within the budget meeting as I say the majority had
not gone for a reduction the majority had gone for keeping the preset the same
but that was before this advice came okay and keeping the preset the same as
I've just said as I said at the beginning would mean a reduction in real
terms of three point five to four percent because you're losing inflation
That's correct. No? You're shaking your head. As I understand it, if you keep a precept,
in fact, I'll look at Fiorello then, I think, to get my... So if we keep the precept at
the same amount, effectively it's not taking into account inflation, so in real terms it's
going down.
Fiorella Mugari - 0:19:49
Well, when we built the budget, we have considered inflation. So on ground maintenance contract
and the management and support costs.
Right.
So it's been taken account of.
OK, but in terms of the actual money coming in, the value of the money coming in real terms has gone down by three point five percent.
Yes, in real terms, just on what we receive.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:20:08
Right. OK, fine. So I think that so to put to you now, then I think the first decision is do we go with the council's chosen position to raise the precept by four point nine nine percent.
OK, so if you're in favour of that, could you raise your hand, please?
Okay, those against. Okay, and abstent, oh sorry.
Fielo, what is the actual figure please?
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:20:43
Fiorella Mugari - 0:20:51
So the Band D rate, if we increase by 4 .99%, the Band D rate will be £18 and 89p. So that's
90p increase. Okay and was there any abstention there by the way? And Saf I
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:21:05
think you're in agreement did you note Saf as well? Okay thank you.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:21:12
There's a number of other recommendations at the beginning of the
Fiorella Mugari - 0:21:26
Would you like to read those out and then we will vote on those?
So there's a number of other recommendations that are at the beginning,
so let's just read those out and make sure everybody's in agreement with them.
So, Félia, read them and then we'll vote to accept them or not.
Okay, so there's six recommendations put forward.
The first is that the Committee notes the draught budget by expense line for Financial Year 26 -27,
including the elements I've mentioned of indexation
and the proposed fees and charges.
I'm not gonna read for Barton,
but I'll summarise if that's okay.
And then the second point that the committee notes
and recommends that High Wycombe Town Committee
puts forward to cabinet a 5 % increase in fees and charges
where no fee review has been carried out.
And the 5 % is in line with Buck's Council's approach,
corporate approach for fees and charges
for the next financial year.
The third recommendation is that the Committee notes the Council tax base and precept are
set out in the paper.
The Council tax base is set at Band D equivalent for financial year 26 -27 with respect to special
expenses for the unparished area of High Wycombe.
Recommendation four is that the Council tax base for Band D is noted and that is increased
from 24 ,397 .68 to 24 ,648 .7 properties for High Wycombe Town.
Recommendation five recommends option two and option four.
I think we've done that one.
And then recommendation six recommends
that the High Wycombe Town puts forward the draught budget
for recommendation to cabinet who will then recommend it
to the full council for approval.
Okay, so if anybody has any questions
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:23:21
on any of those items please speak now if not we'll go straight to a vote okay
just to cheque for number they want about the options it's option five isn't it
okay so let's go to vote do we agree then to both do the approvals and the
noting of all those so those in favour raise your hands option fires voted on
So it's everything else we're voting on now.
So, right.
OK.
Right. Unanimous. OK.
Thank you for that.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:23:58
Now, moving on to item five,

5 Priorities for Special Expenses Reserves

that's priorities for the special expenses reserve.
I just preface this before I hand over to Sophie.
We had thank you very much to all those of you that rates during the Christmas and New Year period
With your suggestions of projects in your own wards and a number of more general but specific projects not specific to wards
So thank you for that. There were 85 Ward specific plus the 20s about a hundred and five
different projects that came in from the councillors that that wrote in and so we now have to find a way of
of allocating and initially the £450 ,000 from the special expenses reserve which was
already earmarked but potentially the further monies and we've got to find a way of guiding
our officers who are the ones who have obviously the full -time jobs to get this job done and
how they're meant to do it. So that's just sort of the background. We have a vast number
of projects and suggestions which is great. We've got to get a lot of those through and
get some of them done and try and get some of them done in each of the wards
and things but now we're gonna find a way of doing it so over to Sophie.
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:25:13
So we were just going to set out the key principles that we will be working to in
doing our next phase of work on this in order to bring some more refined
proposals back to you for agreement so some of the key principles that we were
working to include obviously we understand the committee would like to
a spread of projects so there's a benefit to residents across the
unparished area so one of our key principles is looking to fund at least
one project per ward. Clearly we'll be looking to avoid any duplication of
other sources of funding or projects that are already in train so we
want to be maximising the benefit of the High Wycombe Town Committee specific
budgets so we'll be running some due diligence so that be offices in my team
in conjunction with relevant service teams so we'll be checking that projects
aren't already planned in the pipeline and or funded from other budgets so that
would include for example existing section 106 existing sill budgets or
indeed service budgets before we would be recommending it for High Wycombe town
committee funding just checking there's no overlaps there obviously checking
proposals are are feasible and deliverable and that the indicative
costs looking realistic. And then we would be looking to propose to you
allocations of the High Wycombe Town Committee SIL funding to appropriate and
eligible infrastructure projects on the basis that SIL is for infrastructure
spend. I think Claire is going to try and bring up on screen some of those kind of
priority headings. So this is the priority headings that have been
developed by looking the chair and the budget subgroup by looking at the range
of projects that were priorities that were put forward by members over the
Christmas period as we've discussed so you can see the sill kind of indicative
headings there so we would be obviously referring to those when we were looking
at the projects and then similarly in terms of the High Wycombe Town Committee
special expenses reserve the second list shows the priorities for that so that's
that principally obviously the expectation is that the infrastructure
spend the sill capital budget is used for the infrastructure expenditure and
obviously we will also be mindful of the some of the projects which are on the in
the report you can see there's projects that relate to the strategic your vision
your the kind of discussions that you've had as a group before which were also
reflected in the report so we'll be looking across all of that and coming
back to you to recommend, as I say, a refined list of specific projects for funding once
we've done that work.
Additionally, within the paper, you will see that there are two specific funding proposals
that we're putting forward for your consideration today, which is for use of the High Wycombe
Town Committee Special Expenses Reserve funding.
So the first of those is one that we've discussed at previous committee meetings, and that is
for establishing a business support specialist post
for 12 months to help coordinate the committee's work programme
and support engagement with those wider teams.
You will see in the report there's a job role summary.
That's a pre -graded established role summary
within the council.
You'll see it's got quite a wide -ranging set
of potential activities and responsibilities.
That's designed to give us the flexibility.
We know this is a new role, and we will need to mould it
to meet the committee's needs,
but importantly by using that pre -established role summary
that's already been through the appropriate
HR grading processes to make sure
it's at the appropriate grade.
That will help us to expedite the recruitment process
for that role also.
The role will be cited within Wendy's team,
so that will make sure that obviously
there's no duplication with other existing
officer activities and support in the area.
The second proposal is for some additional funding to High Wycombe Life
magazine and Heather Morley has kindly joined the committee so I'm going to
pass over to Heather to talk to that one briefly.
Sorry one second if it's okay I think if members are in agreement the way we
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:29:24
should probably deal with this is we deal with the admin post which I hope
will a fairly simple thing for members to agree or not. We move on then to the
substantive item looking at how we're going to allocate our funds and get
generally projects out the door and with great respect to Heather I'm very
pleased is here Heather will wait then to the to the end of this session and we
will then go to the High Wycombe Life magazine presentation assuming this time
okay if we ran out of time we wouldn't do is that people generally not if that
seems a sensible way of doing it yeah okay all right fine so can we consider
first the person that we're intending to employ to support us and I would like
just to ask a question because we brought it up in the budget meeting and
that person is now going to be based in High Wycombe.
Wendy Morgan Brown - 0:30:14
The base offices will be Gateway because that's where my team's based but they will work in High Wycombe so they can work with members in the unparished area.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:30:24
Okay well from my perspective and I'll open that so I think it's extremely important that whether it's four out of five days of the week or whatever
they're working but the majority of it is based in Wickham and accessible to us
there's no problem with them being in Aylesbury a day of week of course that's
fine I think they should be okay so where we had come to in terms of it in
the budget meeting was simply that we'd like to get it across get it approved
that we're having this person in the the outline of the role that is given is
pretty much a standard bucket of responsibilities that are through all
the roles within the council we don't yet know exactly what the person is
going to do because the role has never existed before.
So the idea of course is to get it across the line,
get it done.
The money will come out of our special reserve
where we have plenty of money to do it,
taking out the special reserve.
So that's the background.
Would anybody like to come in and comment
or ask questions?
Armen.
Just a question, Chairman.
So we may not know exactly what this person
Cllr Arman Alam - 0:31:17
is likely to do, but I think I can assume
that this person isn't going to be involved in business.
So I'm just wondering why the title is a business support officer as opposed to anything else
Wendy Morgan Brown - 0:31:36
It's just a standard role within the council that we've picked up the ease of
Passing it through the process to get somebody working for town committee
It's just a standard job title that we have and if I can just just help slightly there it probably means
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:31:49
Supporting the business which is Buckinghamshire Council a bit like the organisation. I'm assuming
It just doesn't give the right impression
to the general public.
Cllr Arman Alam - 0:32:00
It's my view, not everybody may agree,
but it's my view that it just gives the wrong impression.
Saf.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:32:10
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:32:13
Ms. Payne, it's probably a graded job,
so all those people at offices in that grade
will have sufficient experience,
and then we pick the best one out of them.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:32:28
So it will go through the usual recruitment process
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:32:33
and obviously offices make appointments so we will be running the usual process.
One thing that is worth noting and I think it's probably in the report somewhere
is that obviously the council has a talent register
which there's a pool of people that are on the talent register at any given time
and our policy as a council is that we seek to minimise any redundancies, for example,
where there have been restructures in other service areas and that kind of thing. So
the policy means that we will be looking at who's in that talent register
initially to see if there's any suitable matches in there.
Okay, so we've got Hazel, Julia, Trevor.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:33:14
Oh, and then Maz as well. So Hazel, Julia, Trevor, Maz.
I just wanted to ask in terms of you said it was a temporary post and I'm
looking at the document and it's got to kick against up to three months how long
are we looking for someone to work for us given that you know three months is
the normal kind of time you you know that you're embedding into the role you
don't really get a lot done so so was there a reason behind that and could it
be extended thank you the proposal that we're putting forward is actually for a
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:33:45
12 months fixed -term post with appropriate review points.
Thank you, so if it's 12 months post,
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:33:52
is there a look to extend it if it proves worthy?
So that would be an option open to you,
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:33:59
absolutely would bring it back in.
Yeah, just in terms of like,
if it was a regularly budgeted thing rather than a one -off.
My assumption is we bring that back then
to the High Wycombe Town Committee,
say in month 10 or something like that,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:34:09
decide if we're gonna want to extend it, yeah, okay.
So, Julia.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:34:19
Thank you. This was discussed in the subcommittee and I'm very happy to propose we accept this
because of the extra work that we understand and the town vision and the subgroups that
we've got will generate. So I'd be happy to propose that we accept this as it is. It is
an innovative piloting type post. So if we wanted to extend it, we would have to decide
that early on in the year, possibly three months before the end of the post, so that
the person doesn't find another job very quickly.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:35:03
OK, great. Thank you. So Julia's proposing it, but let's just go through the other comments
from the others and then we'll come back to Julia if nothing else comes out. So
Trevor please. Yeah just a simple question. Who's involved in the
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 0:35:13
recruitment process? Will the officers and the chairman be involved or what?
Officer appointments have to be made by an officer so we need to be officers on
Wendy Morgan Brown - 0:35:25
the actual interview panel however we discussed it in subgroup and we
suggested a small cohort of members may be involved but not part
of the decision making, but we'll get to meet the candidates.
If we're in that position and we've got interviews
and it's not gone through the talent register
and we've been assigned an individual to the role.
Just to cheque, when you say we've been assigned
an individual, I mean if we got down to, say,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:35:48
three people on the talent register who were all interested
and seemed quite good, is it possible for us to have,
say, a group of, say, three of us to have the opportunity
to meet the three of them and then provide our comments?
Yeah, I think that would be fine, yeah.
Okay, does that sound good?
Right, okay, fine, thank you.
Maz.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you make sure we have at least
the work two days in Wickham,
at least if they work in four days,
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:36:11
at least they're based in Wickham two days
rather than Elsbury.
I think the law people have the issues.
Recently I had, my ward wasn't part of the box opportunity.
This is the first time after four years.
And I work one of the, it was very helpful
if they're based locally, they understand the local issues.
So just checking they're meant to be five days a week part time is that right?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:36:35
Right so so that's a suit five days a week part time with the majority of it
based down here and one day maybe in Aylesbury. Okay and would anybody else
like to come in and if not we're gonna go back to Julia. Nope okay so going back
to Julia has proposed that we accept the proposal then for as presented by the
officers who would like to second that. So Saf seconding it then please all
those in favour please raise your hands. Excellent, unanimous, thank you very much.
Now we come to the discussion regarding how we are to allocate our monies and if
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:37:16
I just briefly summarise what I think was said by Sophie and she corrects me
if I get it wrong I think it's probably the best way to do it. So that the idea
is to get money out the door.
The idea is to get projects funded with with a sort of indication to try and do it.
One in each ward where there's, you know, the various wards have come forward
at least, but then move on to others to look at not avoiding duplication,
which lots of people have said in different debates that we've had,
where things are already being done by other parts of the council,
particularly or by other bodies and should be them doing it.
So and if we can get projects done by others,
then we should be pushing those projects forward to get done by them.
And then you come to section 106 which are the contracted obligations of developers
And if some of those projects can be pushed into or are already being dealt with under section 106 obligations
They are and this would be up to officers to make sure that happens
Then come down to sill as Sophie said generally for infrastructure
And has two different parts of it 85 % controlled by Buckinghamshire Council for allocation
Actually as far as I know and anywhere in Buckinghamshire, but that could be in High Wycombe
So again, we should be trying to get as much of that spent here on those projects
then we come to the 15 % of sill which is
Effectively where we are meant to be recommending what is meant to be spent
And that's the next one because it's infrastructure
So a lot of those 85 projects particularly in some of the other 20 and we'll go into that bucket
So that's the next one and officers would keep
Grading down to make sure these things are done in the most appropriate and place as far as we come down
Now there is something to introduce here.
You will see, or you would have seen,
that at the top of the sill idea,
and this will be open discussion as well,
and three, four, five of you have come forward
about the neighbourhood plan.
One of the ways that we here, or people in Wickham,
let's say, generally have more control
over what's happening in Wickham
is to have a neighbourhood plan,
which is effectively the local plan
for the unparished area of High Wickham.
now still specifically allows within the legislation that you can allocate money to the creation
of a neighbourhood plan. So that's specifically allowed. And the thinking would be to do,
because it does give a proper direction, it's a very appropriate time for doing it because
we've got the local Buckinghamshire plan coming forward. If we're already thinking about the
neighbourhood plan and then bringing it in maybe six to 12 months after the Buckinghamshire
plan. The whole thing works very, very well to get things into the right place for people
in Wickham and for some of those projects that we've brought forward, which also would
be able to be effectively facilitated, I suppose, in some way by the neighbourhood plan.
So the aim is to say, yes, we want to make sure that the sill money, the first thing
it does is fund a neighbourhood plan. The figure up there, and I look at Catherine here,
who was involved with us, and we did one in Hazelmere, which actually cost probably about
20 ,000 in the end? I think it was more than that, but we did get money from central government for that.
Cllr Catherine Oliver - 0:40:26
Okay, well let's call it 20 to 30 thousand in Hazen, this is a much bigger area, so the
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:40:32
likelihood of it costing us maybe 50 ,000, maybe that's even modest. Then we come down to prioritise
projects based on our feeling and the things that are on the screen now are not fixed in stone at
all that just indications of where we could be putting monies to give some
idea based on the fact that we've already allocated projects all the way
through the the upper levels going through other departments and other
organisations section 106 still the council 85 % syllabus 15 % and then down
to that that's the introduction did I get it wrong at all was it okay all
right it looks like it was okay so anybody now got questions clarifications
and I'll probably back off and let Sophie clarify if there's questions. Go ahead.
Sorry, Saf was first, then Trevor, Hazel, Julia.
Thank you, Chairman. I think I have to totally agree with you with the local plan. It's one
of those important things we need to get down and get dusted, and we shouldn't dither on
this because if we don't do this, a developer comes in, we're going to be stuck. So I'm
full favour of supporting the local plan and we should move forward.
Great, thank you for that. Trevor.
Yeah, thanks, you've said exactly what I was going to say. The sale and the neighbourhood
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:41:58
plan and all that going together is priorities. The other things, percentages wise, cash wise,
yes, they're good that they're fluid because we're going to evolve and we're going to be
evolving fast, so support it fully.
Great, thank you for that. Hazel.
Hi, I mean I agree with the neighbourhood plan and I think a lot of the stuff that's further down in the document about possible projects in Wickham, a lot of that could be structured into a neighbourhood plan.
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 0:42:22
If it's stuff that can't be costed, we don't know who, you know, the relationships have to be with which businesses, you know, I think having a vision in a neighbourhood plan would be better than trying to include it in any budget right now.
With the members submissions, right, I might be being naive because I'm a new
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:42:43
councillor, but to me saying we'll try and do one in every ward, looking through
this list there are a lot of things that come up time and time again. So if one
ward say likes get grass cutting and somebody else gets something else it
makes no sense. If it's coming up a lot the grass cutting I wouldn't want that
as my one thing. It's a universal thing. So I think from my perspective there's
Like a tiered list here. There's stuff that we all share. We want double yellows
Why give it to me co -filler not give it to down lead and made sense. So so for me, there's things that are universal and
Then there's things that we'd look at in addition. Like for example, I know you've got in here. I
Put in about the potential for having a mobile s ID device
I've specifically said in there although I'd want that in down the unparished
it would be an asset to the committee which would then be, you know, maybe we get two and we share that across all the wards.
And then if there's roads and wards that come under on parishes, you can't get speeding measures, then we can move them around.
I mean, I think we run a rough line when we're trying to sort of say, just try and do it per ward.
I think there is some per ward, but I think there's also universal and we need to do grass cutting across the whole lot.
we need to you know consider you know all the speeding measures as a whole lot
and also the one other thing I'd say I know I'm closing my two minutes you put
in it but you know the the other thing I would say was is that I'd really like to
see the list come back with what council deem it to cost and budget and then we
discuss if there's stuff that we'd like to drop out because it might be that we
thought that having a wonderful hedgerow in the middle of town
would cost 50p.
It turns out it's like $50 ,000.
We're like, oh, no.
So to me, it's not a final list, this.
I'd like to see it come back with all the costings, all
the stuff that you're going to do to take out
stuff that's already been considered,
already in process somewhere else, for us
to then reconfirm what we like to do.
Because it sounds like it just goes to you.
Well, I think what you said sensible.
I think the first thing is I think
it's wonderful to try and get a project out in every ward
Because there's people who put in who want a lot of projects just to make sure that no one's left out
So that's great. I think it's very good point to make you know universal projects
Obviously that will come out as well as the scoping is done and just put in one point obviously with section 106
Funding all things that are already planned
You may well find parts of things like double yellow lines in a particular area already within the scope of a section 106 or something
So that does need to be looked at first before you come down to that level
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:45:25
So but I mean very good points and the these are indicative, you know ideas to try and give some some sort of guidance
They're going to come back to us anyway
But what we can't do is sit here with 105 different projects and try and battle our way through it
So the idea is to slot out as many as we can on those higher levels, which we can't control
So no they're happening to get them crossed off the list if we can and then bring back others
That then we'll have a look at and sign off
So the idea would be officers will bring them back to a future meeting and looking for us to discuss and sign off
Is that correct anything to add? I
Think they're all sensible considerations for us
I think my only other just observation to add would be obviously the budget is finite overall
So while absolutely appreciate the kind of point about universal services
That's something that will will need to kind of factor in and we'll do that obviously in conjunction with the relevant service areas
and to give an example on grass cutting, I imagine there's a kind of set regime for grass cutting,
so if it's additionality then that's something for the committee then we can bring back for you to consider, for example.
Terrific. So, Julia and then Saf.
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:46:30
Thank you. I've got a few questions for you, Sophie.
One of them is that you're saying one project per ward,
the projects range from two thousand three hundred thousand so that is
something you would have to look at
because I don't want to be the one that gets two thousand the other thing is the
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:47:02
size of the ward so some wards are two member wards some wards are single
member wards which people wanted to have as a result of the boundary review
what's your plan for that on the neighbourhood plan the comparison with
hazelmare possibly isn't a very good one because high wickam is a very large and
diverse area, so I would like to see ward plans for each ward feeding into the neighbourhood
plan, so we don't just get a homogenous, we're all having that whether we like it or not,
because each ward is distinctive with its own needs as was exposed by Opportunity Bucks.
The next one is matched funding has been mentioned, so I would like it absolutely confirmed that
we don't have to get matched funding for these schemes, although there may be some opportunity
to do so, you know, if it was beneficial to get matched funding.
And just finally, who developed these principles? Because under previous funding opportunities,
for example, it wasn't one project per ward, there could be two or three going on at any
time with a PID project development schedule thing so who came up with this
actually thank you Julia perfectly on two minutes that was fantastic going so
safe thank you I guess my reflection on this is that we shouldn't get overly
hung up on specifics of money and kind of one project award because I suspect
what we'll find out when we go away and do the investigative work is that
there'll be some big projects that are funded in certain wards and there won't
be in others. So I think you know the overall principle is we will go away,
we will do this due diligence, we will obviously think about things like the
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:49:27
balance of expenditures you've alluded to Julia and we will bring it back to
you for consideration but we'll take those things into account. Just on the
confirmation that you don't have to get much funding for the schemes my
understanding I will take this away to double -cheque is that that isn't the case
but as you said we have discussed that that's a good principle to try and adopt
where there is obviously opportunity for us to look into whether a much funding
is available then we can do that but it's not my understanding is it's not a
requirement for the special expenses reserve budget and I just come back I
think on the on the neighbourhood plan bit and I think we're probably when we
get to the end of this discussion we might take the neighbourhood plan as a
single item vote on it and then vote on the other thing more generally I I have
to say I would I would disagree with Julia in terms of the administration way
of doing it that doesn't mean within the plan you might not have sections that
are specific to wards so you take an area and you have a specific section
with it quite specific to that ward and that may well be appropriate if we are
thinking of doing that though you just have to imagine that it might get more
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:50:33
expensive because the more the more granular you get the more work will need
to be done, which is fine. And in terms of timing, which we haven't talked about earlier,
neighbourhood plans could take a long time. If you absolutely whiz through it with the
most simple plan with only a couple of items, it will take you 18 months, but it could take
you two and a half, three and a half years, so people should just bear that in mind. This
is a fairly long -term project, but still very necessary.
Okay, so Sam.
Thank you, Chairman.
I just wanted to double cheque with Ferela.
The money from special expenses,
I know that there's some new councillors,
we can only spend that in the unparished area.
Even if you have two streets in an unparished area,
you spend it on that, not in the other bits
because it's law, we can't spend it anywhere else.
So just to confirm that.
Yes, that's correct.
The precept is raised specifically for the unparished area.
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:51:34
Thank you.
Hazel.
Yeah, so in terms of when you feed back,
could you give us an idea of when you think
you'd be feeding back and then what's the window
for then sort of look, will we get an idea
of how long it will take and when we can expect to be delivering these things within.
Yeah, thanks.
Fiorella Mugari - 0:52:02
So just checking with Wendy because obviously what we need to do is go away and talk to
various different service teams.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:52:09
So I think probably within the next four weeks we would come back to you with some initial
thoughts on it and, you know, we're happy to pick up some conversations offline if that's
helpful.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:52:16
Oh, fabulous.
So by the time we next meet we should have that list and we'd be able to progress it.
And will it have a sort of rough timescale delivery as well?
So like this would take at least 12 months or this would take at least three months or you know
Would it be able to do that?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:52:33
Conversation I think with the service area teams as well. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:52:37
Okay, great Chris. Do you know I've got you?
Going through some things quite quickly, I think the neighbourhood plan I would very much support going to a vault now
I think we can make a decision on that
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:52:50
I think it's it's it's an essential and I think rather than putting that in this pool of projects
I think we should vote on it now, right?
Why don't we just do that then would somebody like to propose that we allocate the money for neighbourhood plan SAF and Magid
I think is going to second
So do we agree that we'll allocate the first money from sill will go towards a neighbourhood plan
Circa 50 ,000 at the moment those in favour, please
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:53:13
Great thank you unanimous. Okay, so we don't need to talk about the neighbourhood plan anymore. Good point. Thanks Chris
we'll move on to the others. Okay I'd like to follow up on Hazel's comment
about there's some proposals which are the same across multiple wards, weed
spraying, double yellow lines, other things. We can't have a situation where
one ward gets spraying and another doesn't so we need to kind of make sure we
group those together and approach them together. I hope that the evaluation is
very much done, officers working with members together. It can't be a we post
through the letterbox and then get something back.
So I would hope that as you move through
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:53:52
evaluation of the project, some of them are quite specific,
some of them are quite vague.
I think there needs to be a degree of scoping
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:53:58
and clarification that's done with the officers
and the members working together.
So I hope we can do that.
And then the final thing is the percentages
in the different categories that we'll put up there.
I hope there, to those who have watched
Pirates of the Caribbean, they're more of a guideline
than a rule.
I don't think, I think if we wanted to look
at those percentages, there's some of the categories
that we would disagree with quite profoundly.
I don't think there should be money there.
I think there should be more money there.
Let's not get hung up on, there must be 15 %
on sustainable energy generation or whatever.
Let's just, let's take them as guides rather than rules.
Indicative. Yeah, so that we can get moving forward. I mean, that's the reason for it.
So, thank you, Chris. Now, just checking. So, one second, Saf, I'm putting you down,
but Saf and Julia have both spoken just on what I was saying. Anybody else like to speak first,
and then we'll go to Julia if no one else would like to speak. No one else? Right, Julia, please go ahead.
Oh, okay. Maz has jumped in. Maz first, then Julia, please.
Sorry, Julia. Just a quick, can we, when we fill this, I mean,
Can we give a deadline when we can complete all this funding is good to have a project but have a deadline when we can
Complete it because as I said you have been four years now waiting for a zebra crossing as prices has gone up now
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:55:20
Now we should find more funding right just clarification dead line when we can get one agreed. Yes
What are the many get them executed? Yeah
Yeah
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:55:34
Once we agree can we for a deadline on this have to be completed in six months or whatever date is can please do that?
I think what we can do is, so we've said we will bring them back, we'll do the work in
between the meeting and bring Liz back to the next meeting.
The wider point about agreeing a deadline for execution, I think that needs some wider
consideration and discussion with the relevant service teams because obviously there will
be a much broader, if you take whatever service team in particular, they will have a much
broader kind of programme of pipeline of work.
But what we can certainly do is make that part of our discussion with them to get a realistic
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:56:08
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:56:12
Time expected timeline for when that will be delivered
I think we do need to push it because we honestly if we leave it to them
It will be the same thing what we've been doing in last past and 12 years. I've been a counsellor
You can get the funding and you have to wait four years to complete that project
We do need to ask a deadline at least year 12 months. Why raise we do need to fall for down on that
Can I can I just jump it?
I'm just gonna jump in here on this thing and I think it's a point that Chris have raised at other times is about the
Fact that in the past there have been plenty of projects which seem to have come forward and then taken forever to get done
Or didn't get done
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:56:51
And I think maybe we can come at the end of the meeting
We put an extra item Chris for you just to summarise which is almost what you said
but re summarise and then maybe we make a point on that and just for two minutes at the end of the meeting rather than
Involve it in this conversation
Right anybody else if not going who's not talked?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:57:11
Hazel you've definitely talked so Julia, please and then Saf and then we'll finish with hazel if no one else puts their hand up
Thank you chairman
the this item is the next steps and
I know that every member here has a reason for putting forward projects
Either they've had a petition or they've been lobbied by a residents association or had
emails and I was hoping in a, for some kind of tutorial situation where the members from
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:57:47
the wards could present their evidence to the officers as to why they'd done their project.
some of us put an enormous amount of work and waited a very long time for these projects
to come to fruition or be put forward. Myself, I've got a folder on every one of the projects
that I put forward with petitions or letters or whatever and I do feel we should have a
non -committal, completely non -committal one -to -one because I know in my heart that I've put forward
projects that I think there could be another source for the money but you have to hedge
your bets don't you? So can I just put your question to the officers then so what I think
you're asking so in principle those that have put forward projects if they would like to
can you organise a meeting on zoom or in person to go through those projects with them and
let them put the case? Yes I think we would really welcome that additional level of detail
from the members and input thank you. And that was the point I was making earlier about
I think it has to be a working together thing.
It can't be a post back,
it has to be a working together as a team.
That's great, okay.
Saf and then Hazel, and we're on a close on this, Saf.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:59:04
I was just listening to a colleague over there
saying about verges and weed spraying and stuff,
paying from our special expenses.
And so we already get two from Buckinghamshire Council,
Ms. Sophie Payne - 0:59:16
and if we get another one what's stopping Buckinghamshire Council saying
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:59:23
you've had yours so there's no guarantee my taxpayers already pay for this I
don't want the money coming out of my allocation or sell or 106 or whatever
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 0:59:32
paying for grass -cutting when they've already done it through their council
tax so we have to be very very careful what we do because Bucks Council can
turn around and say all right guys you have this we're not doing it because
you're paying for it I'm gonna come to Sophie for a quick comment on it but I
absolutely agree with you I know that you know Leslie must be jumping up and
down or she'd asked you to say it because it's a sort of thing she would
say if she was here as well but I mean what we don't want to do is to find that
we're suddenly taking on obligations which should be the council's general
obligations anyway we're trying to do the additional additionality if I've
said it correctly for our residents here and to some extent substitute for what a
or town council is doing, which isn't what Bucks Council would.
So, Sophie, any comment on that?
Just to agree, and that was kind of part of the original principles that we set out, you
know, that we would cheque that we weren't duplicating what was in existing service budgets
as part of this process.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:00:24
Yeah, terrific.
Great.
Thank you.
And then, Hazel, and then Chris, you can get a last second if you want, then we're shutting.
Yeah, just out of interest, because I know we've had previous discussions where some
things have taken months and months and months to do.
I mean the the difficulty is the town council could employ someone of their own
choice to do it and we are
Ms. Sophie Payne - 1:00:48
Relying on council and I fully appreciate some of the things we're asking for there might be a million other bigger priorities at council
other
preferred contractors outside of council that we could consider using if
They come back and say sorry your priority won't get done for four years
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:01:04
Which would enable us to sort of like advise council
a bit akin to parish where if they want bollards,
they'll find a contractor, they'll get a quote,
they'll say, oh, it's 150 a bollard, we'll put them in.
Can we do something out,
is it has to go through council process
and council contractors entirely
and that's why there's a longer wait?
Or is there a way we can advise the council
that we might need to go outside of that
to speed things up, thank you.
So I think as a general point,
we need to remain within council procurement processes
and council agreed contracts.
Wendy, I don't know if you want to add any more on that.
I mean, we can take it away and explore if there's any.
Can I just add in, can we just add into the notes,
I think this will cover it for Hazel,
is that we know we have to go through
the council procurement procedures,
but should those procedures look like
they're taking a long time,
or there's not an appropriate contractor,
can we come forward with suggestions?
Yeah, so it's really contract to make a council.
Well, suggest and then put it into the procurement process.
Yeah.
Okay.
Ms. Sophie Payne - 1:02:03
Okay, right Chris last minute and we're finished on this one
Well, I wasn't sure whether you'd we talked about the the need to bring the service directors to talk about that's a blast
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:02:18
Is it an extra item at the end for two or three minutes so that we can just mention that I'm happy to add that
In right. Um, so we've been given the the principles on how money is going to be spent
I do want to come to one extra item just after this
principles on how the money is going to be spent that we try and make sure that it's spent through,
you know, we allocate these projects into points in the council where they should be
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:02:39
being dealt with before it gets to our special expenses reserve. We've got some indicative
buckets and things just to give guidance to the officers in what they're doing,
but it's still going to come back to us for the final approval and in between,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:02:55
as we've now just discussed, I think with Julia and Hazel particularly, there's going to be those
In four weeks time the offices will come back to us
And particularly today's you've got projects in there with some feedback and then we'll look forward to making final decisions the next time we're here
Okay, so that's can we have a show of hands if we're in agreement with that process as presented? Could you please show your hands?
Right, thank you very much unanimous
I think I'm just going to look to my right now on the thing. I think as a detail we
we have to be agreeing the amount of money that should be approved. There was
450 ,000 agreed in the previous by the previous committee and I and I'm looking
right as I suggest this the I would suggest that what we were re -approved
today is we re -approve a topped up 450 ,000 after the projects that were
paid for last year or in the last committee the 63 ,000 and after the
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:03:58
employee after if anything is agreed now with the high -income life so it's after
all those projects so a fresh 450 ,000 we agree and we ask the cabinet to give us
approval for that moving forward and after the neighbourhood plan quite right
Ms. Sophie Payne - 1:04:10
and after the neighbourhood plan neighbourhood plan we're hoping will be
pay for from CIL. So that's the aim. But yes, if it wasn't, I
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:04:16
think we'd all like it to be paid for anyway. So yes, after
all the agreed projects are paid for. So what we're saying
is we're approving at least 450 ,000 for the spend in the
coming period. That doesn't mean we can't add to it. I'm
actually Saf's face looking very quizzical. We can always add to
it. We can always vote to vote more in later on when we get the
project, but that's the minimum. And that's renewing what was
there last year. Is that agreed? Okay, I have a show of hands.
Sorry, Julia, do you want qualification?
Shouldn't we increase it slightly to account for what we've agreed to spend
Just for just for literally for for two minutes if anybody has a comment on that
So the proposal is we deal with all the projects that are already there
Including the other one that's coming up today if agreed and then we have four hundred and fifty thousand on top already agreed
That doesn't mean we can't increase it in the future. It just means cabinet has already agreed it and it can go out the door quicker
Does anybody, Julia's come up with a second idea.
Anybody else want to comment?
Saf?
Just want some clarification.
You said the previous committee cleared 450 ,000.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:05:27
I can't remember that though.
No, it's in the minutes of a previous meeting,
but it hasn't gone out the door, only a minimal has.
I think it's 63 ,000 has actually been spent.
So a lot of it hasn't.
So what we're just trying to say is the principle
is after all projects that have been talked about today you know have been
paid for 450 ,000 on top of that we want cabinet to agree that we can get that
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 1:05:51
out the door yep can I suggest plus the interest that we've earned on me unspent
money in the last 12 months right no I think that's absolutely fine so we've
got we've got interest so this would would somewhat do what you're suggesting
as well Julia we've got interest from last year I think it is for do you want
Can I make a comment on that, Firola?
So, just to highlight that there's no guarantees on interest going forward with interest rates expected to go down.
So, reliance on Treasury management income is not ideal.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:06:22
I think you're saying the interest from last year.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:06:25
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:06:33
So, we could say $450 ,000 plus the interest we earned on our special reserve last year, which was, Firola?
About 30 ,000.
Fiorella Mugari - 1:06:46
Okay, well about 30 ,000 so that would increase it slightly Julia and any interest that is earned this year, but we're not relying on it
Okay, right. So could somebody propose that for me, please
Right. Chris is praising it. Maz is seconding it. So all those in favour, please raise your hands
Okay
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:07:00
Safi you raise your hand or not. No, okay, that's fine. So that was all those in favour anybody against
All those abstaining.
One abstention.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Right.
So if members are happy, we're now going to move to the item.
We're going to ask Heather to come and talk for two or three minutes about the High Wycombe
life and then if we're having a debate, the whole thing will last no more than ten minutes.
Okay.
So is that okay?
Ready to?
Yep.
Okay.
So Heather, over to you.
Apologies in advance.
I was told five, so it will be five.
So why is this magazine, I hope by now this is a magazine
you are all very familiar with.
Why is it needed?
Well, how you feel about High Wycombe is probably more important
than the facts you know about this town when it comes to
Heather Morley - 1:07:54
whether you choose to engage here or not.
OK, you meaning everyone, not just you guys.
Feel comes from repeated positive assertions,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:08:02
witnessing collaborations,
Heather Morley - 1:08:04
invitations to join in with good stuff going on.
It is also to do with the quality of the images
you see of the town and the kind of overall gloss
and finish of what you're seeing.
And all of that needs to be consistent over time.
This magazine's needed as an antidote to the negativity
which is so corrosive to community and confidence.
Community is wanting to be involved with other people here, maybe helping them and
the environment also. And confidence is about, in some people's cases, whether you
actually choose to go out the door or not, whether you socialise in town and
whether you recommend Wickham to other people. Yes, there are absolutely
antisocial issues going on here but that is actually everywhere and there are so
many good things going on and such kindness here too that I've witnessed
and I'm sure you have as well.
Buckinghamshire Council magazine is great,
but it seems to be only coming out now once a year
and is very much a cross -county publication,
which is not something that builds and informs
the Wycombe -specific community.
So what does this magazine offer?
Well, it offers an unfiltered positive communication
directly into every High Wycombe home.
That includes the digitally excluded,
Buckinghamshire Council figures say that 27 % of adults in this county, sorry in
this town, have no access to any social media or any email. That's shocking, okay.
What the magazine does is it paints an attractive portrait of the town. It's not
just a newsletter detailing events, although it does do that too. I am highly
collaborative with other positive voices in the town and that's an
organised thought through thing. We can pulse, we can sound what's on High
Wickham, my Wickham and others through my wide network, deliberately so.
The magazine offers a spotlight on important areas such as creativity and opportunity.
That won't be news to anyone who knows me.
But also so much more includes faith, sport, charities, business, youth, health, nature,
just to mention a few.
And it also tells the storey of what the council is spending our taxpayer money on in its all
its various iterations, whether it's the town committee, the community board, opportunity
bucks and so forth. And really there's something for everyone from the granny to the taxi driver.
I was delighted to have a conversation with a young male Asian taxi driver just before
Christmas who surprised me by saying he read the magazine from cover to cover. He wasn't
the kind of person I thought that necessarily would, but he loved it, particularly the sport
and the faith pages.
So what's the impact of this magazine? Well, I get dozens of emails and messages of support
and praise every time an issue goes out three times a year. I get anecdotes face to face
like I'm now going to use the Arts Centre because I never knew about it before. My Dosti
ladies I spoke this time last year who Dosti recruited new members absolutely on the back
of appearing in High Wycombe Life and the ladies even some of them took the photographs
out of the magazine of them and put them in frames. Advertisers are coming back for more,
I know that, that's the advertising not the sponsors, the advertisers the people who go
through the publisher. Eight of the nine sponsors who have been involved this year and who have
come back and committed for a third year, I've got one yet remaining to tell me what
her decision is, but of the eight who've given me a decision, all eight have said yes please
for another year. My events, I don't just do a magazine, I do events as well and they
result in collaborations and people actually getting paid work out of them. That's happened
several times now. Or another way of measuring impact, a Ukrainian refugee called Anatoly
wrote in and I featured him in a post, Catherine, you know what I'm talking about, an amazing
storey. He called Wickham the Garden of Eden. People complain about Wickham sometimes on a day -to -day
basis, not Anatoly. He's come from hell and he thinks this place is absolutely perfect. Or there's
my embroidery friend, Nasbin. She's got so many more people on social media who are following her
now, simply on the back of having noticed me in the magazine. Or the front room manager, Lauren,
who's about to get married and also have a baby, which is rather exciting. She was my cover girl
for the last issue.
Wickham Pulse editor Steph is my cover girl for the next issue.
And I go on.
And these make such a difference.
And boy, do they give a boost to people who are doing such
a lot for us in our town.
That's five minutes, Heather.
Could you wrap up, please?
Oh, God.
I'm so sorry.
A few seconds if you want to wrap up.
So basically, what I'm offering you is for,
I need 27 ,000 pounds from you again.
The cost, that's about half of the cost.
They've gone up drastically.
Royal Mail has gone up by 20%.
the cost of that was a shock to everyone.
And so I'm talking about a situation where you pay half
and I get the sponsors to pay the other half,
and that entirely covers all the costs that are needed
to create this magazine.
I entreat you to give me that money because it makes
such a lot of difference and has a huge impact
on everyone in Wycombe.
Thank you. I'll take any questions.
Great. Thank you.
If I can just come back with three sort of questions
of sort of information from the information
you put in front of us.
It looks like you're suggesting that 91 ,000 people are reading the magazine,
so if you could explain that.
I'm going to give you all three questions and then you leave them with you.
That it costs 39p a magazine to deliver it to each household.
And then probably more importantly, you're talking about 27 ,000 pounds for one year,
or potentially 56 ,000 for a longer period of time.
So if you wouldn't mind explaining those three things, please.
Okay, so, oh God, I've got such a rubbish memory.
What was the first question again?
91 ,000.
The 91 ,000 refers to, so how the royal mail work
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:14:06
is they don't let you go much more granular than HP 11,
HP 12, HP 13.
So given that anybody in those three postcodes
counts themselves as being in or frankly more or less
in High Wycombe, then that's the distribution.
And it costs me a lot more if I try
to distribute in different ways.
So that does go beyond the unparished areas.
but the unparished areas are absolutely like,
80 % I'm gonna estimate of the distribution
of this magazine.
So you couldn't argue that the council,
Heather Morley - 1:14:34
the town committee rather sponsoring this
would be spending money elsewhere
because you're only sponsoring 50 % of it.
Sorry Ed, what's the next one?
And it's 39p per edition delivered.
Well no, it's more than that.
Because of these, just of today I've got an updated cost
from the publisher,
because he's been talking during January
and we're now up to the total cost for me is 54 ,500, which equates to 52p per
magazine delivered. However, when you consider a single teeny -weeny second
class stamp is 87p, I know which for me feels better value for money. There was
something else, wasn't there? Yes, quite important. You were talking about 27 ,000
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:15:14
for one year or 56 ,000 for a longer period of time. Yeah, so 27 for a year is
Heather Morley - 1:15:18
what I'm asking for.
There are different ways of cutting this.
I understand there is a will within this group
to reduce reliance on this group for funding.
I totally get that.
If you were to give me two years, that would be great,
which is hence the asking for 2 times 27.
But there may be also a longer term way of weaning me off you,
which would involve me perhaps more realistically getting
larger and larger chunks of funding from other parties who
I've been approaching a number of other parties.
I've got one in particular in mind
that has recently become in a position
that this is possible,
but it's gonna take a little bit longer
than simply one year or so forth
to get that money from them.
Okay, who has questions, please?
Julia, Saf, anybody else?
Julia, Saf, Hazel, Arman, Maz, okay.
And Trevor as well.
Sorry, go ahead Julia.
Thank you Heather.
Recently I, well, one of my interests in the magazine is how it fits together with other
forms of communication.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:16:41
I mean recently because of the toilets closing in High Wycombe I went round all the toilets
I could in Bucks and different places and I happened to pick up their magazines for
their local area like Aylesbury Life for example and I could see that that relied very heavily
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:16:56
on advertising so I am wondering whether it should be advertising and advertising type
articles that start to taper out statutory funding now. So, I think that's a good idea
I am inclined towards giving something but not what is asked for, but could that slack
be taken up by more making it more advertising with articles by the advertisers on relevant
topics like health and wellbeing for example? Thank you.
Okay so I've looked quite a lot into this and magazines that you get free through your
box tend to fall into two categories. Either you get the council 100 % funded
version which is what you get in Aylesbury or in Marlowe for example
where they're quite editorial rich but you can see that the council has pretty
much fully funded those publications and they do pull in some advertising bearing
in mind I've already got a quarter of my magazine as advertising with quite a lot
of sponsors already involved at a price I know is as high as I can realistically ask
them for.
Heather Morley - 1:18:16
So those are great magazines often and they give really good information away.
If you go and live somewhere like Jerrod's Cross, for example, you're going to get free
glossy magazines through your letterbox, which will be about 90 % advertising and some really
generic pretty boring articles about jam -making recipes or things you should be doing in your
garden at this time of year.
and nobody wants paper to be wasted on that kind of stuff.
And I'm certainly not about to put my hand up and spend my
precious time doing all of that, you know, it just goes against
everything I want to do.
So, yeah, I'm trying to increase the amount of advertising or
sponsorship that goes into the magazine.
But if I get, I'm already at a quarter percent advertising,
if I go much more than that in terms of sheer advertising,
that comes at the expense of editorial quality.
and this is not principally a newsletter, this is principally part of a marketing
campaign if you like to improve people's entire perceptions of Wickham and if I'm
gonna get everybody from the taxi driver to the granny...
Okay, we're gonna have to move on to more questions for you.
Sorry, sorry.
That's right, okay, that's fine, you may get a chance to say some of these things to other people's questions.
Thank you.
Hazel, coming from a business background and listening to you what you've just said, it doesn't make sense.
You know, if somebody, if you've got a business
and you need to sell your product
and somebody's paying you money,
you've just said, oh, I'm using any quarter
of my publication to get money in.
When you can do 50%, you'll get more money in.
The other thing is, Hazel, I'm not being rude or anything,
but you've been here third time or fourth time
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 1:19:53
asking for money.
First you came, I think the community board
gave you money and you said that was it, I needed money to get this off, we paid you.
Then you came again and now you've come again. It just doesn't make sense. If you're doing
this you need to be self -sufficient and need to make money and pay because we can't endlessly
keep on giving you money left, right and centre. We need to see something positive.
Okay, it's Heather not Hazel by the way. In terms of the funding of the magazine,
quarter of the pages are advertising, quite a lot of the other pages currently are sponsorship,
which is advertorial, which is not quite the same thing as advertising. Specifically,
I'm approaching parties who are of general interest to most people in Wickham, like Bucks
College Group for example or Dandara Living who are redeveloping the Frogmore area children's
centre.
Heather Morley - 1:20:56
In terms of it being, I think this is the third time I've come.
I went to the community board for the first year, you're quite right.
Last year I came for the first time to the High Wycombe Town Committee.
I have not ever considered that this is something that in order to maintain quality is going
to be unreliant on a major sponsor. I've asked the time committed to be major sponsor a year
ago and I'm asking you again to be major sponsor, but I'm also suggesting that over time I can
taper that down in favour of other parties. But if I end up with a magazine that in order
to pay for it to exist requires 80, 90 % to be advertising or advertorial sponsorship,
it will not be the quality of product that I currently have and I don't want it to not
be that quality because as I say this is about perceptions of the town and people
feeling together as a community this is not principally about making money.
Okay Heather so moving on now to Armin I think but just to say that if no one else
asks it I will be asking at the end how you propose to have it taper off from us
as you suggested but let's let the others come first.
I'm sorry I just had one quick question.
When was the first time this magazine was actually published?
And also in terms of the support from businesses, you keep referring to the fact that it would impact the editorial of the magazine.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:22:26
But that said, I mean long term, one would hope that you're looking towards self -sufficiency.
And I'm finding it quite difficult to see how it would impact the editorial if local businesses are advertising in your magazine.
Cllr Arman Alam - 1:22:40
So my question was how is it going to impact the editorial of your magazine by having more
advertisements for local businesses in there so that you become more self -sufficient?
So my model here is not particularly self -sufficiency in terms of never having a major sponsor.
I need to have a major sponsor, otherwise I will lose the editorial quality that I currently
have.
So, till now, one council iteration or another has been the major sponsor and that's been
great because there's been a lot of council information to tell people.
But I don't think that self -sufficiency in terms of having a bunch of adverts is the
ambition here because as I say, it's trying to change attitudes towards the town and a
feeling of community.
Heather Morley - 1:23:32
It's not principally about being another of those glossy magazines you get through your letterbox.
Okay, I'm going to come into Maaz. I'm just sort of trying to summarise, I think, because the questions have been
fractionally similar and we're trying to get a similar answer, is I think the answer is coming out as
there's always going, there's likely to always need to be some sort of major sponsor, whoever it is,
who isn't just an advertiser, and that the editors wish to have a good quality magazine
might be in some sort of conflict with having lots of advertisers and sees it
as a community asset as well. So now we're going to Maz and then Hazel. If you
two are happy, we might try and take the questions together just to speed it up a bit.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:24:09
So Maz and then Hazel please. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Heather for
your great work. I know you for a lot of effort in. The questions here to me is a
27 ,000 that's a lot of money and we've done it we funded last year. If we funded
this year, what's going to happen next year. This is where I'm very worried. I know you
for a lot of effort in the last three years. Is there any way we can subside next year
because it's all good we can help you this year. What's going to happen exactly a year
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:24:43
later where we're going to spend 27 ,000 again to support the magazine. So that's my
big worry, big concern as well. Because 27 ,000 is a lot of money and that's the taxpayers'
money. So when we agreed to 27 ,000 people are there right now,
studying with the food. We're just on the budget and we put 5 %
budget up to, you know, we charge people more and I know that it's
resistant, they have come forward to pay the bills and I can't have
food on the tables. Yes, I'm happy to support the work you're doing,
but we come from every year 27 ,000, that's a lot of money.
Right. So thank you. I think that's coming, what I was saying,
where's the taper off? What's the plan for tapering off, Hazel?
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, thank you, Heather. It was really good to sort of learn
about all the hard work you put in and, you know, how little resources you do. Just to
add on to what I'm about to say, I agree with Maz that if we're put, you know, if costs
are going up and precepts are going up, I think it's, you know, it isn't that it's something
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:25:48
we wouldn't want to contribute to, it might just be sort of politically a very
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:25:53
bad time to be paying as much as that at the same time as paying out the precepts.
So I mean you know I'm not saying I'm not advising anyone vote either way I'm
just saying it is something to consider. The only thing I would say is how
will High Wycombe Town Committee be acknowledged? I find it difficult because
you've obviously got freedom of editing and freedom of what you do and if we
become the people who kind of are obviously sponsors that would obviously
impact on us if you decided to run a piece that was directly contrary to some
of our priorities or whatever I don't know how how that would work I'd almost
feel like I'd want to say yes but the town committee perhaps should not be
putting in adverts and bios and things because then we look like we're representing the content and I think that that would then tie you
To passing stuff through us. I almost feel like that makes it really complicated
So from my perspective like putting in it's a lovely thought but putting in buyers of counsellors
That's almost like counsellors trying to outdo each other with their bios or something. I'm kind of thinking that's not such a great idea
So it I almost feel like we shouldn't
take that kind of acknowledgement if we did do it
and we'd have to sit down and think about that as well.
There's this conflict of interest.
Okay, so I just want to say, I'm going to ask Wendy
just to say, if you have it on the top of your tongue,
what we actually get at the moment.
Would you mind, are you able to just explain that?
So just in five seconds, what we actually get
at the moment, so just so you've got an understanding
and then we're going to answer Maz's question.
Then we're going to come to Trevor and Saf.
You can come in just for a few seconds after Trevor
and then that'll be the end of this.
So we get a page for the chairman for High Wicom Town Committee for editorial which Ed
writes and he says what he wishes.
There's a page for the community board.
I'm looking at Julia.
There's a page for the health and wellbeing board.
Health and wellbeing isn't there?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:27:48
And then there's one of the pages, an environmental page, Julia, that Penny does.
So we've got, so from the council there's four pages that we have control over in terms
of editorial. So we pay for it, we use one page but that's fine in a sense of
Wendy Morgan Brown - 1:28:05
this communication of other areas within the council so that's what we get at the
moment rather than what we might get in the future. Yeah I would just urge that we don't,
if whatever we agree, we don't agree to put in buyers and extras because then I
think it gets to individually. Okay yeah sure agreed. Okay if you'd like to go
answer Maz again on the the amount of money in the circumstances of generally
everybody now including us and the tapering off again. Okay so just replant
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:28:36
the idea in your mind that if you went to Aylesbury or Marlowe that we wouldn't
be having this conversation because it would be a hundred percent funded every
year. I don't think it's inappropriate for the local town committee which acts
I don't want to sound controversial but it acts as close to a town council as we
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:28:49
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:28:54
have in this town and so it doesn't feel inappropriate to me it never has that
this committee might be the largest sponsor but not 100 % only 50%. In terms
of tapering down having said what I've just said I'm actually quite happy to
Heather Morley - 1:29:08
have the challenge but it is quite stiff challenge of replacing High Wycombe Town
Committee as main sponsor. I see it as happening over maybe four or five years
potentially as it tapers down maybe five to seven thousand pounds a year less and
that that way it's a challenge for me to find sponsors to replace you who are
willing to overpay if you like compared with my other sponsors but also to
increase rates for the other sponsors so I think that was the most of what I
wanted to say. May I come back but just for a few seconds then Catherine I'll
include you in the last batch if that's okay. Just a quick quick regard to the Marlowe, I don't know about Marlowe,
Wycombe residents are in Ryan are struggling to pay the bills and have a
food on the table so that's what my concern is. I'm not comparing Wycombe to Marlowe, they might be able to afford to pay.
So the position for some of us, particularly in some of the wards, is a lot more difficult than in my life.
Do bear in mind that 27%, I'll say again, of Wiccan people over the age of 18 don't have access to digital means of understanding what help they can access from the council.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:30:12
If we want to get that help into those hands, my magazine is the only way that's going to work.
I'd certainly note that one as you come.
So Trevor, and then very quick ones from Seth please,
and Catherine, and we're closing.
When you say your magazine,
are we dealing with a charity, CIC,
what's the vehicle that you're running?
Heather Morley - 1:30:34
And something that concerned me was I heard
it was reaching out beyond the unparished area
with your circulation.
Now if we're paying money,
we should only be using it in the unparished area.
So you may need to curtail your reach somewhat.
And from what I'm hearing, I'd like to put this magazine
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:30:55
and put it into the pot with the rest of the things
that we're debating, because it's important
and we definitely do need a communication vehicle,
but I think it needs to be considered in the round
with all the other things we've got.
Thank you.
If I can quickly point out one thing.
Heather did explain that the reason it's going
to some of the areas outside Highway Commission
because it's a lot cheaper when you go to the post office just to do particular post
case rather than anything else. We can ask for verification on that if you like as part
of what we're doing.
Saf?
I think coming back to you Heather firstly apologies if I called you Helen. Secondly,
we've already got a publication in terrorist which is a tortrage and terrorist publication
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:31:40
that goes out to the majority of people in our area so you're not the only one who's
sending out a magazine, what the worrying thing for me is,
what you've just said is, detailing the money
or tailing it off will be four to five years.
That's a lot of money that we're gonna invest
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 1:31:57
and slowly dwindle four to five years worth of money,
which is, I wouldn't be in your shoes, Chairman.
Catherine, and then we'll have Heather answer
all the questions and close.
Okay, I just wanted to come back really on the point
that Heather raised there in terms of those that don't have access to the digital world,
how else do they get to find out about it, about what's going on in Wickham. Conversely,
funnily enough, to start with, Totteridge and Terriers has stopped producing physical
versions, they've completely gone online now, so of course they've now excluded a lot of
people from that magazine.
Cllr Catherine Oliver - 1:32:41
The other thing is that how else are you going to
communicate with your residents?
You can say, yes, they can watch these meetings.
Yes, they can go online.
But actually, and interestingly enough in
Heysenmeer, we've not had anything for years.
We're reliant on some of these very commercial, highly
advertising magazines that cover Heysenmeer and Great
Missington and blah, blah, blah, where else they are.
And they are just complete rubbish, to be honest.
And the parish council are actually looking at
what we can do using sponsorship and using advertising,
but very minimums, because we know we are not
getting the message out to our residents.
So we've got to find a different way of doing it.
So I'm just saying it's very easy,
because you have something to say we don't need it but I sort of almost
promise you that if you say you don't need it and it goes away what effect is
that gonna have okay I quite like now to have Heather do it and then Claire
Arman you haven't said anything so I will let you say 30 seconds now just
oh sorry you had said something but I'm still okay all right go on it 30 seconds
Do your 30 seconds.
It's just about the contents, the discussion about contents.
It would have helped if we had a copy of this magazine here today so that we could have
seen what the content was.
Well, there's one can be passed to you, but yes, it was a good idea.
Right.
Heather, if you can answer those, then I'm going to do a quick summary and then I'm going
to look to the members for a decision.
Magid.
Is there an option, though?
Can I just ask really quickly, sorry to butt in, but if there was an option, because some
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:34:20
people have said they'd be happy with a small amount, if we're just going to say bang on
27 yes or no, that might not be the way to go.
Cllr Arman Alam - 1:34:30
Heather has to answer those questions. Let's allow her to respond to that before we make
a proposal back to her. Heather, you have two minutes to answer those, please, and then
we will come to our decision.
I will try and remember them. Tottridge and Terriers News is great if you live in Tottridge
and Terriers, but if you live in Sands, it is of no use whatsoever. As you say quite
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:34:51
rightly, Catherine, it is not paper any more anyway, so that does not help that 27 % of
people. Trevor is correct. I am not a CIC or a charity or anything like that. It is
me, but there are a number of cheques and balances in place. I work with a very established publisher
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:35:06
Heather Morley - 1:35:09
and Wendy and I have had many conversations about where the money goes and it never touches
me at all. It goes from the sponsors to the publisher. It's then held in a separate bank
account and it gets called down as and when required.
I understand everybody's concerned about it being a lot
of money, but I would reiterate this point that this is the
only, you currently have a magazine that goes to every
resident or every house in High Wycombe.
If you can't help me, I understand that you might want to
make that decision, but the magazine will go away.
I do need you to give me the money I've asked for,
otherwise it will go away sadly.
And then there will no longer be an opportunity to do this.
And what Catherine is telling you is that actually people have done away with this sort of publication are now thinking about coming back and
Reinstating it because it turns out this is actually a really important way of communicating with residents
Okay, thank you. I mean just trying to summarise or look around see if I'm generally in the right direction
So I think I think the general feeling is there is a use here and I think people in general have thought it's pretty good
Quality and and it's helpful in our area. We don't have something better
There's been a couple of comments about the amount being asked for this year maybe too
much. We haven't really gone into drill down on that. And there's been quite a lot of comments
as well about the idea that, and you have yourself mentioned it, that we wouldn't want
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:36:32
to see the same kind of requests coming back next year. And I think looking around to everybody,
if any requests did come back, I think we'd like to see that it was substantially lower
so that we felt that our message had got through and that you were finding others to be involved
with it. Am I sort of just looking out for nods and things? Am I sort of summarising
things reasonably in the way we're all thinking? Right. Well, the I mean, I'm happy to put
a proposal forward now. And then if people, you know, vote it down, we can look at a second
one and see if we can get to something. So so I think my suggestion from here is that
we would reduce the amount wanted or offered for this year by a small amount. So we do
that because we feel that's the right thing to do in the current circumstances. And then
And I think what we do as well is we say if the magazine comes back again in the future,
we would expect a substantial reduction.
We're not saying we're agreeing it.
We're just saying that our principle of considering it is that there is a substantial reduction
in the ask, perhaps 20 % or something like that in the future if it comes back.
So that's fine.
I'm open to it being disagreed with.
I'm just trying to get us the point.
All right, Maz, quick comment.
I was going to go on the same line.
we can offer a number this time where we agree and next year
obviously we can look at it because we can't funding all of
it. I was proposed 15 ,000 this year and I don't know if
anybody agrees or not.
I am going to come straight to you and allow you to propose it.
I just had come in and hadn't spoken so a short comment.
Before you make that proposal can I just ask whether or not
it will work for Heather because you're making a proposal of a
I don't know, obviously these costs are worked out on the basis of disamateur costs in order
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:38:11
to produce, so will it actually work for Heather as well? So don't just you know put it forward
and as well. I'm pleased I let you in because you hadn't asked a question, I think that's
a very pertinent question, so we'll put it to you Heather. We are inclined to go for
a lower amount, I think you can see that now around it. Would that work for you if we do?
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 1:38:31
And you've got your last chance to comment on it and then we're going to a vote.
The fact of the matter is just today I got a massive price increase noted from the publisher.
I've asked for 27. Every time we squeeze it down, we squeeze it down. If we went from 27 to 25,
I could just about manage to do it if I got some more sponsorship between now and publication.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:38:56
If we go below 25 today or within this imminent decision -making time
Heather Morley - 1:39:05
I'm afraid that will be the end of High Wickham Life magazine for now
Other Bucks Council sources of funding
Right, yes, quite good point in other words is that you could see and there was a point
of information here just and I think we'll quickly ask the officers point of
information Trevor had asked how many additions come out each year. The
additions come out in June October and February in the middle of those months.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:39:44
Okay just to look at the officers for last comment and then we're going to put
proposal together. Just in terms of Julia's comment about other sources of
funding I don't believe it will qualify for funding from the community board or
Opportunity Bucks not with the new funding arrangements. Okay not sure but
that looks like the case okay I think I'm with I'm gonna with respect to Maaz
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:40:04
I think what I'll do is because Heather has said you know magazines dead if we
Heather Morley - 1:40:10
don't vote for it or not so I think I my phrase is we vote on that or not and
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:40:16
I don't know why you keep on saying that if it's dead or whatever.
No, no, it's not what I'm saying.
Wendy Morgan Brown - 1:40:22
But now we're representing a community here and you keep on saying, oh, it's going to
be dead or whatever.
If you're as a business, then you find a way to make yourself work.
Right.
I totally disagree with what you're saying.
In which case, then, you know what I was about to propose.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:40:33
Open to the floor for a proposal then, please.
Maz had started one.
Would you like to continue, Maz?
This is where we're going to propose.
I would like to propose 15 ,000 for this year.
We have a proposal on the table that is now seconded.
If it is voted down, we can look at a different one.
Cllr Sarfaraz Khan Raja - 1:40:52
To be honest, I think it is fair to Heather if we vote on the original proposal.
We can walk out of here having not allowed her for us to vote on her original proposal,
whether we agree or not.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:41:04
If we cannot get a unanimous decision, then we move to second options.
I just think that is fair procedure.
Can I now just look at democracy and just cheque what the procedure should be?
So we have a proposal.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:41:14
Somebody else has now come in and suggested we amend that proposal
before we voted on it. Yeah. What do we do?
So you can vote if you vote.
So one second. Can I can I?
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:41:26
Well, can I can I ask legal services to tell me what the proposal is?
There's been a proposal with a seconder.
Somebody else has come in.
It's ostensibly with an amendment. What's the position?
One second. Let's just wait and pine on that first. Yeah.
So I would if there's been a proposal in a second I would vote on that and then if that doesn't go through you could then
put the proposal through for the
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:41:49
Right, so so that that's the the advice we've had so we're going to go forward
We're going to take forward the first motion. We're going to vote if it's if it's not accepted then another motion can be brought
So mass proposed the motion Julia seconded it and the motion was repeated again then mass, please
Pay you £15 ,000 this year. We are taking the advice of the officer on this one. If
this is voted down, another proposal can be bought.
I haven't done this one before where we have had a proposal and then it has been ended
before it is said.
So, right.
Can we not just collect all the
No one had actually proposed the
original 27 ,000.
The chairman started 57 ,000.
That's the original then.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:42:42
Right.
But I'm only going to do, one
second.
Are we allowed to do that as
chair?
I would prefer to do it that we
go with the original proposal
and we take it or not and then we
go to a second proposal if it's
not taken.
That's what I would prefer as
chair.
Is that correct as democratic
services to do that?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:43:01
Chairman, it is down to you how you want to do it.
Right. OK, I didn't get that advice. Right.
I would say that if it's the right.
No, no, no. But yeah, but I do want to do this correctly.
OK, right. So having had the advice, everybody,
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 1:43:17
what we will now do is I'll allow anybody who wants to propose
the original amount to propose it.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:43:20
And then if somebody seconds, it will vote on that.
If that doesn't go through, there can be a second proposal.
OK, would somebody like to raise the original amount? Right.
So, Khalil, praise the original amount.
Catherine, would you like to second it?
Right, so it's proposed and seconded.
So the original amount is 27 ,000.
All those in favour, please raise your hands.
Right, okay.
Okay, all those against.
Leave your hands up, please, just so Ellie can see them.
Okay, and those abstentions. Okay, one second. Right, okay, so that is not passed. Now we
will come to a new proposal. Have you got a comment on the procedure, Trevor?
I have a comment on how I bring in a further proposal.
Right, just say what you're going to propose but at the moment I'm going to
maz unless... I'd like to take this option of the magazine forward under all of our
other projects to be looked at in the next four weeks and for the officers to
come back with that and the other things as to what we can achieve.
One second, let's try get this one's quickly solved. If you didn't get an
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:44:47
answer for two months, can you continue? So it's now mid January. If I had an
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:44:53
answer, a definitive answer by middle of March, I could cope. Right, I'll tell you
what. It may put the first the addition from a June edition to a July
edition. Can I put a proposal in that that maybe Maz like to amend. 15 ,000 is
agreed now, the officers can look at it and then perhaps bring something else
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:45:17
back or is that wrong? Quickly look around. So we agree, so she knows if it's agreed,
we agree a minimum amount now. No?
Heather Morley - 1:45:23
Mr Chairman, we already proposed and seconded, you should have a vote on that first.
Right, yeah, so okay, fine. So that's fine, all right. So having heard what you said,
Trevor, so that's great, but we're going to move forward on the actual proposal. If it's
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:45:39
voted down, we move to Plan C. So okay, so the proposal then, Maz, is, as I understand
15 ,000 for this year with anything related to next year saying any more
further proposal should be lower it will be come back to the committee and come
back to the committee and to be lower yep and seconded by Julia right so those
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:45:59
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:46:03
in favour of Maz Maz's proposal please put your hands up all right okay those
against
okay abstentions
right okay so there is a third proposal which I don't even think we need to vote
on actually is that it's sorry she likes based on it anyway okay third proposal
let's face on anyway so go on then Trevor put it in I propose that the
filming of the magazine is considered along with all of our other projects and
brought back to the committee in four weeks and we can then decide how to
Seconded by Armin. Okay, so can we have a vote on that please?
Okay in favour those against
Abstentions
Okay
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:46:51
Right say decision is
You'll need to just ask because I don't know about the procedures if you're gonna vote about it again in four weeks
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:46:58
When will I know no, we're not gonna face pass in four weeks. We'll be voting about it at the next meeting
you'll be putting in your proposal now in with the other projects that are being decided through the offices.
They'll go through the guidelines that we already agreed
and then it will come back to the next meeting based on those guidelines.
So I'll get an answer when?
At our next meeting in March.
So, OK, right.
Sorry, that took a lot longer.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:47:29
So we have a number of other very quick items.
So now we go to item six the cabinet forward plan for noting. Does everybody notice?
Well, I know it but I advise everybody to read it see how many
pedestrian crossings and traffic calming schemes are being funded in that forward plan and where the money comes from
And which wards they're going into right Thank You Julia
And then we have the work programme any comments on the work programme
I'd like to see development of our section of the website in that work programme, please.
Yes.
Can we put that in, please?
Quite right.

6 Cabinet Forward Plan

And you've been saying it for a number of occasions.
Anything else missing?
No.
So thank you.
Right.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:48:16
So last item, date of the next meeting, 24th of March, 7 p .m.
And thank you very much, everybody's date, I think, for an extremely cooperative, collaborative
meeting.
Brilliant.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:48:26
Thank you.