Agenda item

To receive any questions from members of the public addressed to Members of the Executive in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11.  There is up to 5 minutes for each question, one supplementary question may be asked arising from the original question.

Questions must relate to any matter the Council has power or which affects the Borough, except no questions may be asked in relation to

a)    A specific planning or licensing application

b)    A specific staffing appointment or appeal, or Standards determination

Public question time will last up to 30 minutes; questions will be taken in the order of receipt.

The deadline for submission of questions is Friday 15 July 2022 at 12 noon. Questions to be submitted to democratic.services@adur-worthing.gov.uk

The Mayor advised that 3 questions had been received in advance of the meeting.

1.         Question submitted by Mr Keith Sunderland, a Worthing Resident  

Our community food network is extremely concerned about the current cost of living crisis. We are not able to meet the rising demand as it currently stands, food donations and available funding for food continues to drop.

Just one member of our food network is feeding 800 people a week, and will close by mid-August due to lack of food and funds. They work with 80 volunteers who provide over £250,000 of labour and infrastructure support each year.

We know there are hundreds of people, children and families out there who do not have enough food in their cupboards and are not currently accessing support. 

If we fail to support our neighbours with food, fuel and housing this will cost the council significantly more money in the near future and have ramifications for many years to come. 

It is not only the financial costs of us closing down that are significant but the impact it has on people's lives. The trauma of hunger and food insecurity causes mental and physical health issues. We are seriously concerned that people are not just going to get ill, but are going to die, and are especially worried about the older neighbours in our community. 

We know already about proactive work and the preventative approach being done, but the need is now. 

As this is an emergency, will you transfer at least £100,000 financial resources from your reserve funds into your emergency fund for food support?

The Deputy Leader replied that the Council shared the concerns. On the agenda was an item for consideration where it was hoped that the Council would be declaring a cost of living emergency. He thanked all of the organisations who had given huge amounts of their own personal time, resources and energy in order to support residents who were most in need. The mantra of the food network was well known, food space money. The Council understood what the need looked like.

The Council, through the cost of living emergency, had to deliver in whatever way it possibly could. The commitment in the Labour manifesto was to put £100,000 into discretionary support but it had been decided to set up a specific cost of living emergency budget stream in order to use the money to the best effect. In the next few days the Council would convene an emergency panel of relevant stakeholders which would include members of the food network to talk about how to best get that money, as quickly as possible, to those who are most in need. The Council would also be developing a cost of living emergency strategy that was short, medium and long term but that would be after the emergency. The Deputy Leader recognised that right now there were a lot of organisations that were on their knees.

Looking at the budget, the Council was currently looking at the capital programme where it could make changes in order to support the infrastructure of those organisations. The Council would also be looking at the responses provided by other local authorities to see what levers they were using to get resources to the places it was needed as quickly as possible.

As part of the emergency response, the Council was working with West Sussex County Council to make sure that the funding coming down from central government filtered down as quickly as possible, in the most effective way, to the localities where it was needed.  There was a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes to get as much resource as possible.     

There was a legal requirement to balance the Council’s budget and deliver statutory duties and services. The Council also had a responsibility to its residents who were struggling to feed themselves and their families to ensure that those needs were met.

Mr Sunderland asked as a supplementary question, that the Council advocate that the local food network was more than capable of deciding who should receive the food and for them to administer it, not having a community hub that had pay implications, because the money needed to be used for providing food, not providing jobs. 

The Deputy Leader assured Mr Sunderland that the Council would lobby West Sussex County Council as hard as it could, to ensure as much resource as possible went to where it was needed. 

2.    Question submitted by Mr James Vinicombe, a Worthing Business Owner

In 2013 Worthing Borough Council was unanimous in supporting a motion from Cllr John Rogers asking West Sussex County Council to take a wide range of measures “to actively encourage even more cycling by residents and visitors”.

The County Council’s claim to “take the provision of cycle routes seriously” has proved an empty promise; in practice “as and when resources allow” has meant that cycling is never prioritised; and 8 years later the £161,000 of Section 106 money that is allocated to cycling has not been used to the benefit of the community and sits in the bank losing value to inflation.

Transition Town Worthing’s Transport Group has actively supported the Waves Ahead Conference on transport, the Adur & Worthing Cycling and Walking Action Group, the public consultation on the Adur & Worthing Local Walking & Cycling Infrastructure Plan LCWIP, the Climate Conference and the Climate Assembly.

All of these initiatives have shown public support for measures to encourage active travel; and urgent action is needed on climate, health, and air pollution. How will Worthing Borough Council turn that support and that need for urgency, into action?

The Cabinet Member for Resources replied Worthing had a reputation as a great place to live and visit and for many, also as a place to work. The Census in 2011 contained data around people in Worthing who worked and where they worked. 55% of people in Worthing who worked, worked in Worthing, which wasn’t a great stat, as nearly half of working residents worked elsewhere.

It was really important to make sure that there were well paid local jobs for people in Worthing. This didn’t have to be through global companies, there were companies in Worthing that were not household names that had a global reach.

Worthing had seen rapid growth in certain sectors, such as in the CreaTech sector which the Council sought to encourage.

The Cabinet Member believed that by making Worthing a great place to live and spend time, then good employers were more likely to come. This could be achieved by having a more attractive town centre, gateways into the town, more things for people to do and by improving the cultural entertainment offer. He also believed that locally owned employers were more likely to employ local people and invest locally. So the Council needed to be supporting locally owned employers. 

The Council wanted to see wealth that was created in Worthing, redirected back into the local economy. There would be policies to that effect coming out in the next few months.   

Another significant challenge was posed by the lack of commercial space. The Council was developing Decoy Farm and was looking to attract high quality, private sector investment to the site.   

Skills were also an area of challenge. The Council needed to work with local educators to boost the skills of younger people in the town, so that businesses had a local talent pool to draw from.  

The Council was determined to do whatever it could to promote good jobs in the town. Fortunately, there were some excellent local business groups, including the Adur and Worthing Business Partnership, the Local Chamber of Commerce, Coastal West Sussex and the Council worked in partnership with these to promote Worthing’s offer for businesses and to support businesses.  

Commercial agents were also used to sell Worthing to prospective businesses and the Council also had a working relationship with the Department for International Trade to generate global interest.  

The good business charter, which the Local Chamber of Commerce had signed up to, would also be signed by Worthing Borough Council and the Council would be supporting others to do so. The good business charter was there to promote living wage, netter salaries, better terms and conditions for employees, environmental responsibility and ethical sourcing.         

This was a key area for the Council and the local economy and the Council was happy to work with anyone who shared that vision. 

Mr Vinicombe did not ask his second question.