Updated - 22 October Updated - 20 December It might surprise you to know that 81% of the residents of Havant trust their council. With the national average score being just 64%, which in itself would seem a commendable result, that must put Havant Borough Council right up near the top of the league table … Continue reading HBC, planning applications and a little matter of trust
Category: Council
Risky business – HBC and EHDC figure in Times Investigation
Click the image below to read the article, from The Times, 17 September 2021. 'A spokesman from the ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Councils should not take excessive risks with taxpayers’ money in pursuit of commercial income.”' © Times Newspapers Table from the print edition
The strange case of the disappearing Cabinet Meeting
Several people have been in touch today to say that they couldn't find the papers from last week's Cabinet Meeting. In fact, the Cabinet meeting of Wednesday 8 September had completely disappeared from the HBC Meetings Calendar. We took a look and couldn't find it either. It appears that the entry disappeared from the Council … Continue reading The strange case of the disappearing Cabinet Meeting
Havant Borough Council’s new ‘Stakeholder Engagement Framework’
On September 8 2021, the HBC Cabinet approved draft Stakeholder Engagement Framework documents with the Hayling Island Seafront Regeneration Update and the Havant Regeneration Programme update. You can open both of these two page documents by clicking the links. While they differ slightly at a detail level, they share the same key attributes, quoted below: … Continue reading Havant Borough Council’s new ‘Stakeholder Engagement Framework’
RegenCo and the Part-time Borough Council
At the end of our previous post on the external consultancy which Havant Borough Council's Regeneration team have been paying for, we asked this question: "Which local consulting organisation boasted to its prospective clients in 2019 that it had produced a masterplan and investment approach aimed at revitalising and re-positioning the town centre of Havant?" The answer … Continue reading RegenCo and the Part-time Borough Council
Havant Borough Council – Under scrutiny
This time last week we'd been watching the Overview and Scrutiny Committee review three papers due to be presented to the HBC Cabinet on September 8th. Knowing how important these three papers are, we took a look at the HBC Constitution to remind ourselves of just how the Overview and Scrutiny process should work. The … Continue reading Havant Borough Council – Under scrutiny
Planning Inspector puts HBC on the spot regarding town centre housing numbers
The Havant Borough Local Plan Examination, Stage 1 Hearings, were held online from Monday 12th July to Friday 16th July. The Stage 2 sessions will be held in September. A link to the 'Examination in Public' recording for each day can be found here. If you just want to see a sample of the proceedings … Continue reading Planning Inspector puts HBC on the spot regarding town centre housing numbers
The Solent Freeport – an update
You may remember that we wrote a piece way back in March on the Solent Freeport bid, asking just what it might mean for Havant. At the time, we drew a map outlining where we expected the Solent Freeport 'outer boundary' to be, since the bid documentation linked to that previous post failed to disclose … Continue reading The Solent Freeport – an update
HBC Election – A landslide victory for the non-voters
The only real 'winner' in this month's election was the 'Did Not Vote' cohort, who took the election by a landslide. No doubt there was a 'Covid effect' which affected turnout, and disillusionment with central government and the general state of the world will also have taken its toll, but the results for each ward … Continue reading HBC Election – A landslide victory for the non-voters
Ultrafast Broadband for Havant – An Opportunity
Havant Civic Society keeps a watchful, and we hope constructive, eye on Havant Borough Council’s Regeneration Strategy. We note that the strategy is framed almost entirely in terms of building projects, both commercial and residential, with little mention of the necessary underpinning infrastructure. In our modern, digital world, fast and reliable broadband is an essential … Continue reading Ultrafast Broadband for Havant – An Opportunity