First full Council meeting of the year – 15 January 2025

This account of the first Full Council meeting of the year is of particular interest given the curious reluctance of the council to engage with the public on the subject of Devolution and, more particularly, Local Government Reorganisation. It wasn’t even on the agenda of this Council meeting and the Leader’s update to his report, which you can listen to below, wasn’t even covered in the published supplementary papers.

Havant Borough Council Leader, Cllr. Munday, confirmed at this meeting that there will be a public consultation next month, which we understand will be run directly by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. That timescale leaves precious little time to inform the public on how, when and indeed what we are being consulted about so it’s only right that we should expect rather more active engagement at the local level from HBC.

It’s almost as if the ministry doesn’t actually want to hear the public’s opinions…

Leaving those points aside for now, the January meeting provided an encouraging start to this year’s program of Council Meetings, one in which there was a fine display of cross-party debate and discussion. A credit to the Headmaster, his multi-coloured senior teaching team and the equally multi-coloured fresh intake of 2024 Councillors.

If you don’t want to binge watch the whole meeting (2hrs 15 mins), you can skip to the topics you want in the table below. Just click the links in the left hand column.

Meeting segment link	Topic discussed
Items 1 – 4 – General administration	Business as usual.
Item 5	Cllr. Gray – Council tax piece.
Cabinet/Board/Committee Recommendations
Council be RECOMMENDED to: a) Approve the Council Tax base for 2025/26. b) Delegate authority in future to the Section 151 Officer following consultation with Cabinet Lead for Finance, to calculate and approve the Council Tax base in future years.	Cllr. Brent raises an interesting point regarding the optimism that such a high percentage of council tax might actually be collected. Also concerned that Cllr. Gray didn’t specifically mention this point in her introduction, despite the fact that the agenda clearly documented it.
Council be RECOMMENDED to: a) adopt the revised Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules as attached in Appendix B of the submitted report. b) agree that the Monitoring Officer be authorised to correct any minor typographical errors or inconsistent numbering or cross references which become evident in publishing the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules in its final form.	Cllr. Diamond, as Chair of O&S, opens the question. Passed without comment.
Item 6 – Annual Committee Calendar 2025-26	Cllr. Philippa Gray presents.
Item 7 – Political Balance of the Council	Cllr. Munday presents.
Item 8 – Committee appointments	Cllr. Munday presents. Cllr. Rason proposes that Cllr. Robert be taken off Overview and Scrutiny, and that Cllr. Hulls takes his place. Various shades of green, no objections.
Item 9  – The Mayor’s report	Cllr. Wade introduces his report, which is duly noted.
This is where the meeting becomes rather more interesting.
Item 10 – Leader and Cabinet Lead Report Questions If you’re interested in the subject of Devolution and Local Government Reform, we recommend that you listen to this complete half hour section of the meeting.	At this point, Cllr. Wade informs the meeting that the Leader has an update to his Cabinet Lead report in relation to Devolution. The Chair suspends the normal standing orders to allow members to speak for up to 30 minutes on this topic. In his introduction to this unpublicised agenda item, Cllr. Munday expresses his thoughts and confirms some of the detail that HCS has already reported. “Over the  last few months there’s been a lot of discussion about Devolution and then LGR (Local Government Reorganisation) got wrapped into it and that obviously has significant implications for all of us, of whichever party, and it  seemed to me or seemed to us when we’ve discussed this – and I have discussed it with the  leader of the opposition – that it would be a good opportunity for us to at least just share information and opinions, just to get a feel for what we think really this is about” The discussion is generally interesting and informative, though little is learned that we had not already gleaned in advance. General view is that the majority feel that devolution is being foisted on them by government with unseemly haste. Cllr. Keast raises a concern about new town and parish representative bodies becoming a ‘third tier’ in the new structure, a point possibly misunderstood by some but one which is key. The HCS view is that Parish and/or Town level bodies will have to be formed in order to ensure that the residents and small businesses of the current borough remain represented at what will inevitably be a much larger unitary authority. There was an encouragingly common view, expressed well by Cllr. Coates, that Havant’s obvious unitary authority would be ‘Greater Portsmouth’, including Hayling Island, Havant, Fareham and Gosport and spanning both Langstone and Portsmouth harbours.
At this point, the meeting returns to ‘Normal Orders’ and Questions to Cabinet continue.
Cllr. Munday continues his comments on the Leader’s report.	Including comments on work done to get better involvement in active lifestyles.
Cllr. Robinson – to Cllr. Philippa Gray in Cllr. Redsull’s absence	Question on Temporary accommodation costs.
Cllr. Keast to Cllr. Brown	Cllr. Keast thanks Cllr. Brown for excellent progress on licencing and enforcement matters regarding illegal flower sellers and fly-tipping. (A welcome case of Conservative patting Labour on the back.)
Cllr. Collings to Cllr. Paul Gray	A welcome mutual admiration session on the subject of allotments. (Yes – a welcome case of Reform and LibDem working together.)
Cllr Collings to Cllr. Paul Gray	on Devolution and the Localism Act.
Cllr. Milne on Glass Collection	Another mutual cross-party agreement on the cultural issues with Norse SE. (Somebody remind me, who signed that contract?!)
Cllr. Robinson on Social Housing	More interesting than it might at first sound, but then it is an important subject.
Cllr. Keast on Rough Sleeping	An interesting discussion on the ‘real’ numbers of rough sleepers in the borough, with an amusing aside on the council’s use of stock photography.
Section 12 – Notice of Motions
12a – Stop the AQUIND Project Motion Proposed by Cllr. Harrison	If you’re interested in the AQUIND issue, and in the rather worrying figure of the current Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, this is the segment for you. Mr. Milliband receives multiple mentions and it is to be hoped that, after the near unanimous support for this motion, this time he’ll actually reply to the Headmaster’s letter.
12b – The Council’s mission statement around climate change and renewable energy generation motion Proposed by Cllr. Hulls.	Several positive comments from around the Chamber. You might care to consider Cllr. Bowdell’s cautionary comments on rolling out EV Vehicles. Listen here.
Cllr. Bowdell -A word of caution on EV rollout	You might care to consider Cllr. Bowdell’s cautionary comments on rolling out EV Vehicles.

Update… It was curious to note that the reason that the Portsmouth News was present, and the only comment that the Council have made on this meeting so far relates to the AQUIND project vote. While this is certainly a commendable news item, it seems rather strange that the proposals for Local Government Reorganisation are being downplayed, particularly since the public consultation period is apparently to be run by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, MHCLG before the end of February and nobody has yet informed the public how they can access it!

This month’s Player of the Month goes to the democratic services officer whose whispered cues in the mayor’s ear have been a regular feature of these recordings since we started tracking them. Without that lady, keeping the proceedings running smoothly, who knows how long these meetings could take?

With HBC employment prospects looking rather uncertain, maybe the lady should chance her luck at the role of ‘Mayor Whisperer’ to the soon-to-be-elected mayor of the newly devolved ‘Greater Hampshire’. It’s just a thought….