Agenda item

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

[Report is marked: To Follow]. 

The Chair stated that the item was in relation to the City West Relaunch Grant Scheme Payments and not the wider public realm project.  He wanted to keep comments and questions relevant to the issue.  He confirmed he had permitted two speakers from the West Side Traders Group to give a statement.  The two speakers from the group were Bilvir Chander-Kumar and Esme Stackhouse.  The Clerk to the meeting had received further documents from the West Side Traders Group at 1:31am on the morning of the meeting by email.  These had been published as a supplement paper on the Council’s website.

Esme Stackhouse gave the first presentation, a copy of the presentation slides had been circulated prior to the meeting and are attached to the signed minutes. 

Bilvir Chander-Kumar gave the second presentation, a copy of the presentation slides had been circulated prior to the meeting and are attached to the signed minutes.   

The Director of Regeneration outlined the Briefing Note which had been provided by Officers of the Council describing what each section covered. 

The Vice-Chair commented that every Councillor in the authority should take the time to watch the recording back from the meeting if they were not physically present, so they could hear what the representatives from the traders had to say.  There were two areas he wanted to focus on from the traders presentations, one was a hardship grant for the businesses impacted by the road works and the second was the proposal for free car parking in the City Centre.  He asked why a similar scheme to the Bilston Road scheme had not been introduced.  The Bilston Road Scheme had also used RSM Consultants.  He commented that it was his opinion that the relationship with businesses and the Council had broken down, based on the evidence which had been submitted by the Traders.  He was alarmed over misinformation and the information regarding the traders feeling hounded. 

The Vice-Chair proposed that the next phase of the Public Realm Scheme should be put on hold until Scrutiny Board were confident that the businesses would be properly consulted, listened to and receive appropriate recompense for the disruption that would inevitably occur.  The motion was seconded. 

Speaking on the motion, a Panel Member commented that there had been a lack of empathy from the Council towards the businesses impacted by the Public Realm works.  Experience of running a business was crucial to understanding.  She felt the offer of £5,000 was not substantial enough for the losses of the businesses during the last 17 months.  She expressed dissatisfaction that it had taken until March 2023 for businesses who had applied to receive the £5,000 grant.  She felt it was reasonable for the next phase on Lichfield Street to be put on hold until businesses could be reassured as to what scheme would be put in place to cover losses.  The motion which had been proposed by the Vice-Chair and seconded by Cllr Wendy Thompson was put to the vote and was lost.  3 Members voted in favour and all other Members voted against.

A Panel Member expressed concern believing there had been a lack of communication and meetings with the Traders. 

A Panel Member commented that they had voted against the motion proposed by the Vice-Chair because they did not know details such as whether there would be any financial penalties for if the scheme started later than planned.   They were unsure of what consultation had already been completed with the businesses.  When the Bilston Road works had taken place, it had been done in sections.  They felt this was a good way of implementation, because traders knew when their section was coming up and the previous area worked on could be opened up.  They hoped this could be considered for future projects.  However they were aware that it could potentially slow the project down and end up costing more money ultimately. 

The Cabinet Member for Inclusive City Economy stated that on 7 April 2022 he had been called to a meeting of the Traders.  At the meeting they had made a number of complaints, including one on the lack of communication.  As a consequence the businesses had setup the Traders Group.  The Traders Group could represent all the businesses and report back to all Traders.  He was happy with the arrangement.  He agreed that the lack of communication was a challenge at the beginning but there were regular meetings over the 18 month period.  There was an issue tracker at every meeting in order to ensure that issues could be resolved moving forward.  An independent assessor was brought in.  The Traders did not agree with their approach and so the Council brought a second assessor in, called RSM.  Two options were presented to the Traders and they agreed on one of the options.  Scrutiny Board also recommended the same option as chosen by the Traders.  As far as he was aware, Wolverhampton was the only Council giving money to businesses to help them relaunch following a public realm scheme.   

The Cabinet Member confirmed that the deadline to apply for the relaunch grant had been extended to the end of June 2023.   If the Traders could give any evidence of bullying he would ensure that the matter was dealt with appropriately.  He had not heard any of these accusations at any meetings he had attended and no one had mentioned any language barrier issues at the meetings he was in attendance.

The Vice-Chair asked the Cabinet Member why the decision had been made not to follow a similar scheme as to the Bilston Road one.  The Director of Regeneration responded that under section 4.4 of the briefing note prepared by Officers for the meeting it referred to a vigorous approach recommended by RSM.  This approach could have taken years and so the relaunch grant was implemented instead.   

A Panel Member asked if the relaunch grant funding had been factored into the project from the start, the Head of Enterprise responded that this was additional funding which had been approved by Cabinet separately.  She confirmed that 37 businesses had received payment of the £5,000 relaunch grant, which was 66% of the total businesses eligible.  A further 4 more applications were currently being processed.

A Panel Member referred to the overall cost of the project which was at £16.5 million.  She questioned whether the project had been value for money for the Council.   She raised a concern having heard of a number of people who had tripped on a raised edge of pavement.  She asked for this matter to be considered in the future. 

The Head of Enterprise commented on the assurance processes that were in place to ensure that the relaunch grant was appropriately administered.

A Panel Member asked for assurances on the matter of all the data the Council held on the businesses and ensuring that the Council were compliant with data protection legislation.   The Head of Enterprise replied that the information had been uploaded onto an online system, which Audit and the Information Governance Team were content with.  The data was only used for the purposes for which it was held.