Agenda item - Chair's Communications

74.1      The Chair provided the following communications:

Good afternoon and welcome everyone to our October Cabinet meeting, which is our fifth Cabinet meeting under our new Constitution. Before we get on today’s substantive business, I want to communicate some highlights of the past month.

Black History Month remains an important time to reflect on the incredible contributions of Black people to our world and our city.  In recognition, the Black History Month flag is flying at Hove and Brighton Town Halls throughout the month. Our Libraries will be highlighting and celebrating Black stories, history and creativity and across the city we are hosting vibrant exhibitions, talks and activities with inspiring Black artists and authors. I would encourage everyone to get involved.

I’d like to commend our Cabinet member for Communities, Equality, and Human Rights, Cllr Pumm and his team for curating our second annual Black History Month celebration last Monday where we heard a rich panel discussion, poetry and live music on the theme of reclaiming narratives.

I have continued conversations with our new government and earlier this month, Ivisited 10 Downing Street to represent Brighton & Hove at the very highest level. Myself and other Labour leaders were there to brief the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on the work we are doing to reform, innovate and deliver the government’s missions and the new partnership we are seeking to advance the interests of our residents. From an NHS fit for the future to breaking down the barriers to opportunity, I was proud to represent Brighton and Hove, our trailblazing City, and to talk about the way our Council is innovating to meet the challenges we face.

I look forward to continuing to engage with Ministers and represent our city going forward including next week when I’ll be representing the City at the Local Government Association conference in Harrogate.

Yesterday I chaired a meeting of the Greater Brighton Economic Board where I was delighted to welcome NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board to formally join the Board. Strategic collaboration with the ICB to drive down health inequalities and promote inclusive growth will be critical in the coming years and aligns very much with the new Government’s emphasis on collaboration and early intervention to meet our shared challenges. The Board also received an update on the Sussex Energy Mission which launched in July and set out the next steps to progress the vital piece of work and a briefing on the progress across the County towards devolution.

One of the absolute highlights of the month has been the progress on Madeira Terraces. We’v e been delighted to announce that Heritage England have granted £750,000 to our Phase 1 restoration. I was pleased to meet Heritage England’s Regional Director, Tom Foxall along with Chris Ward MP and Cllr Mitchie Alexander, Acting Cabinet Member for Culture, Heritage and Tourism on site a few weeks back to step through the project and all it will deliver for residents. And last week we also announced that contractor JT Mackley & Co. has been appointed. We are now working closely with them to agree an imminent start date. I know how important this project is to so many residents, both for what it will bring to the City and what it represents after such a long period of stagnation and managed decline and we can’t wait to get started.

This month we also took a major step forward in our goal to be an accredited City of Sanctuary. Following dialogue with academics at the University of Sussex and our community and voluntary sector, a group of expert researchers led by Dr Jo Wilding, have written a needs-assessment on how we can improve our welcome for migrant communities, from legal advice, to health to housing. Like so much of our work in the public sector, early intervention and support is the most humane approach and also the most cost effective.  The report’s launch was kindly hosted by Sussex Cricket Club at their Hove Cricket Ground and brought together a range of partners who support asylum seekers and refugees in the City. At the same event, I was proud to join my colleagues who deliver our library service as they collected a ‘Library of Sanctuary’ award in recognition of the work they do to make all our libraries welcoming, tolerant and inclusive community spaces. Congratulations to them for this well deserved accolade.

This week we have launched a new approach to improve air quality and tackle the burning of solid fuels in our city.

Our new website, the Brighton & Hove and Sussex Real-Time Air Quality Portal will give residents the opportunity to see real-time air quality readings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The data comes from our new network of air quality sensors, which we’ve been rolling out over the last year. The project, which also includes sensors in the Horsham and Newhaven areas, is the largest network of real-time air quality sensors in the UK.

When we came into administration, we committed to taking an evidence-led approach to improving air quality and our new network of sensors is help deliver on that, as part a wider strategy designed to tackle pollution, including that from solid fuels, across the city.

Moving on to today’s business, I am pleased to see that the agenda once again reflects our administration’s priorities. Following approval of the Housing Strategy at the last Cabinet meeting, today we will consider a new Housing Allocations policy, which sets out the conditions required to qualify for the housing register and how applicants are prioritised. The aim is to create a fairer framework that means available council homes go to the people who need them most.

We know that the cost-of-living crisis is still having a significant impact on the living standards of our residents. As well as implementing a Cost-of-Living action plan, in February, we launched the Brighton & Hove Fairness Fund and made £614,000 available to provide additional financial support to struggling households and grassroots organisations working to help people through the cost-of-living crisis. We are pleased to say that pot has grown and the Labour Government has extended the Household Support Fund which this was the contingency for. We are committed to continuing to provide support to community organisations as well as providing funding to prevent more households from reaching crisis point. And I am pleased that today we are proposing to allocate some of this funding to ensuring that those eligible for pension credit and other benefits and support will be supported to apply. We will be launching a ‘claim it’ campaign in the coming weeks.

We have a number of other items on the agenda so I will leave it there and we will now move onto today’s business.