To approve and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 25 May 2012.

RESOLVED:  That the Minutes of the meeting held on 25 May 2012 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman, subject to the following amendments:

·         (Minute no 8 – appendix 1) That it be recorded that the answer to question 5 of the public questions to Council on 25 May was incorrect in stating that no other Councillors had taken up cycle training.  Councillor PJ Edwards had done.

·         (Minute no 10) That the first sentence of Minute no 10 be deleted.

·           (Minute no 9 – appendix 2) Councillor EPJ Harvey informed Council that, with reference to the answer to her question to Councillor Jarvis at Council on 25 May (question 11), as recorded at page 16 of the agenda papers, the question and supplementary question asked and the answers given at that meeting were correctly recorded.  However, subsequent correspondence with the Leader had revealed that, in giving the answer, the LDF Steering Group had been confused with her question about the LDF Task Group.

She therefore requested that it be recorded in the Minutes that the correct answer to her original question in May should have been:

“The most recent meeting of the LDF Task Group was held in September 2010; the minutes of this group’s meetings are available on the website.”

She stated that had she received this response at the time she would have asked a very different supplementary question.

She requested that this planned supplementary question also to be noted in the minutes, since under the constitution she was now barred from asking her original or any similar question for the next 6 months.

The supplementary question was prepared as being:

According to its terms of reference the Task Group:

·         “is a non-executive group to advise on the preparation of the documents which together make up Herefordshire Council’s Local Development Framework

·         will have a particular focus on advice concerning the consistency of the emerging policies with the priorities and programmes of the groups they represent

·         will be supported by Planning, Transportation and other officers of Herefordshire Council as required, and

·         minutes of each of their meetings will be circulated in draft, and agreed with the Chairman and published on the Council’s website”;

and its membership: “will include representatives of Herefordshire Partnership and Herefordshire Council thus: Herefordshire Partnership representatives drawn from Policy and Delivery Groups (PDGs) including at least one “Business representative” to represent the Economic Development PDG, one “Environmental representative” to represent the Environment PDG, one “Community representative” to represent the Stronger Communities PDG,  additional member(s) as required to represent the other PDGs/the Board, a member of staff of the Partnership Team itself; and Herefordshire Council representatives: Cabinet Members for the portfolio areas which include Environment, Transportation and Economic Development; up to two Members to represent the minority political groups and the Chair of the Environment Scrutiny Committee in an ex-officio capacity”.

With this in mind, and given the very recent recognition of the need to undertake further work to ensure the robust nature of the LDF, will the Leader give this Council his assurance that he will be reconvening this important Task Group so that it may provide the valuable stakeholder support and assistance which was its originating purpose?