Engaging with you is important to your council

To start this week’s column, I wanted to mention Torquay United Football Club and the plans some of you may have seen about a new stadium. 

Last week Cabinet, all ward Councillors and senior officers were invited to an informal briefing where we welcomed Torquay United to the Town Hall. Here they shared their thinking on a potential new ground and how they would raise the funds for this. We also had the opportunity to ask questions so we could understand the plans as best as we could.

I would like to confirm that no decision was asked for or given at that briefing and we repeated our position that Plainmoor's freehold, their current home, is not on the market and any talk regarding Plainmoor’s future needs to after a new stadium has been delivered. 

 
Should Torquay United Football Club choose to move forward with these plans, we would expect and encourage the club to fully engage with their fans and the local community ahead of any planning application being submitted. I will also make sure that I will update you here about their plans if they decide to move forward with these ideas.

At the weekend I attended another of our Residents Engagement Events. This is the third one that we have held since September last year. These really do give the Cabinet, Councillors, Officers and myself the opportunity to speak with you face to face. 

This time we were in the precinct in St. Marychurch and we also brought along information on our budget consultation. It was great to be accompanied by our Director and Divisional Director of Finance too who helped answer any questions around our budget setting process.

We got to speak to so many of you throughout the day. I’m not sure of the final figures but I heard it was about 140 of you that stopped by. Attending these events really does help me to understand what things around Torbay are causing you concern. 

With regard to our proposals on next year’s budget, I heard from those that I spoke to that you were in favour of us committing £300,000 per year on improving our place. We have called this Operation Brighter Bay, and it includes things like improving the road markings, cleaning the roads more often, clearing weeds from kerbsides and extra cutting of verges.

These events also help us to answer your questions on things you may have read or heard and just need some more information on. I had a few conversations for example about why we can’t use the monies we have recently received from Government on things like filling in potholes and the things just mentioned above. 

The money we receive from Government comes with restrictions and it has to be spent on specific projects and we can’t change that. For example the Levelling Up Funding we recently announced can only be spent on a new Technology Park in Paignton and supporting the fish market in Brixham to expand. As much as I would like more funding to help us get our basics right, unfortunately we can’t divert money from these specific projects.

If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at and feedback on our budget consultation, you still have time. If you visit our website – www.torbay.gov.uk, on our Consultation webpages you will find a link to all the information you need. It will be closing on the 7th February 2024. After the closing date, all the feedback will be collected, and Cabinet will then consider it before we make our final decisions and set the council tax for the next financial year.