Agenda and minutes

[To receive any apologies for absence and notification of substitutions]. 

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Simon Bennett.

[To receive any declarations of interest]. 

There were no declarations of interest.

[To consider a report on the City West Grant Relaunch Scheme – Payments].

[Report is marked: To Follow]. 

[The urgent decision made on 31 March 2023 by Cabinet, relating to the City West Grant Relaunch Scheme can be found at the following link - Decision - Urgent decision relating to City West Relaunch Grant Scheme :: Wolverhampton City Council (moderngov.co.uk)].

The Chair welcomed everyone to the extraordinary meeting of the Board and advised it was being live streamed using the Council's website. A recording of the meeting would be available for the viewing after the meeting has taken place.

The Chair reminded everyone in attendance that the Council was in a pre-election period and care should be taken to avoid during debates showing any bias or support to any candidate or political party which could impact on public perception or voting intentions.

The Chair advised that if the debate moved into areas of either criticism of an individual Councillor and or a political party then the Chief Operating Officer will ask for the broadcast of the meeting to be paused and decision taken about future proceedings.

The Chair welcomed Bilivir Chander Kumar and Esme Sackhouse as representatives of Westside Traders Group to contribute to the discussion on the agenda item City West Grant Relaunch Scheme.

The Chair invited David Pattison, Chief Operating Officer, to comment on the meeting proceedings.

The Chief Operating Officer advised the Board that the forthcoming election did not mean that Councillors could not engage in a robust debate but reminded everyone that the meeting should not be used to publicly support and or endorse any election candidate or to promote their own candidacy. The meeting should focus on the report City West Grant Relaunch Scheme for comment and discussion.

The Chair invited the Vice Chair to briefly explain the reasons for calling an extraordinary meeting of the Board and listed the running order of speakers for the meeting.

The Vice Chair advised the Board of the reasons for wanting to review the Cabinet’s urgent decision as regards the amount of £5,000 offered to eligible businesses affected by the pedestrianisation works on Victoria Street and surrounding streets in the city centre. There were also concerns about new grant scheme offer following publication of the documents related to the urgent decision.

The request to call an extraordinary meeting of the Board met the conditions detailed in the Council’s Constitution.

A Board member asked for further details about the reasons for wanting an extraordinary meeting to better understand the ‘urgency’ of the issue and the timing of the meeting before the election, while accepting the importance of the issue to the traders affected by the redevelopment work.

The Vice Chair commented that as the decision was made under urgent powers it warranted the need to have an urgent meeting of the Board to scrutinise the reasons for this decision.

The Chief Operating Officer accepted that it is unusual for a meeting of the Board to be held at short notice just before an election. 

The Chief Operating Officer added that legal advice was sought from a KC about if a meeting could be held in such circumstances. The advice was that as the basis of the decision was that it was a decision made under urgent action powers then a meeting would need to take place immediately before  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.