Agenda item - Chair's Communications

4.1         The Chair provided the following Communications:

“On behalf of the Board I would like to thank colleagues that are no longer members of the Board; Councillor Andy Smith, Councillor Dan Yates, Councillor Tony Janio, Steve Allen and Phil Jones.  I’m sure all Board members will want to join me in thanking them for the contribution they made to this Board.

I would like to extend a special thankyou to our outgoing Chair, Councillor Garry Wall, who stood down as a councillor before the elections.  He brought great energy as role of Chair and was instrumental in developing the Board’s Five Year vision and priorities, and we look forward to building on that work this year.

I would like to welcome those here that are attending as Board members for the first time; Councillor Nancy Platts, Councillor Phelim Mac Cafferty, Councillor Jonathan Ash-Edwards, Councillor Zoe Nicholson and Councillor James Walsh.  I look forward to working with you all as the Greater Brighton Partnership moves forward.

At our last meeting we were given an update on the Business Survey from the Institute of Employment Studies, who performed the sector analysis and stakeholder engagement work of the project.  As well as establishing an evidence baseline, that work helped to inform the development of the main business survey, which went live in early April.  Lead consultants, BMG Research, have surveyed 1,500 businesses from across Greater Brighton, and the survey stage was completed at the end of June.  BMG are now analysing the data and will be presenting the key findings at our next meeting in October.

Since the last Board meeting there has been a formal procurement process to appoint the consultants that will prepare the Greater Brighton Energy Plan.  Buro Happold were awarded the contract and the project inception meeting took place a few weeks ago.  The work on developing the plan will take place over the next 6 months, and the consultants are due to report back to the Board in the New Year.

On 11 June Coast to Capital published details of a call for bids to the Local Growth Fund with around £9.1m of unallocated Growth Deal Funding available to projects from across the Coast-to-Capital region.  The deadline for expressions of interest was 2 July and a number were submitted from Greater Brighton partners. Details of the bids are referenced in the Investment Programme Update item.

Earlier this month MHCLG revealed that Newhaven was one of the towns that had made it through the first stage of the £675m Future High Streets fund. This is a considerable achievement, with only around 1 in 5 bids being successful.  Towns reaching the second stage of the process will receive revenue funding to work up detailed project proposals, based on their initial plans, and colleagues at Lewes District Council will be leading this work.  The detailed business cases will then be submitted to MHCLG in spring 2020 for a final evaluation”.