Issue - meetings

Finance and Economic Development (C-064-2020-21) - The report sets out the Cabinet’s Capital Programme Proposals for 2021/22 to 2025/26.

The Cabinet considered and recommend to Council the Capital Programme for 2021/22 to 2025/26.

The Finance and Economic Development Portfolio Holder, Councillor Philip, introduced the report on capital programme 2021/22 to 2025/22.

The report set out the Cabinet’s Capital Programme Proposals for 2021/22 to 2025/26. If approved by Cabinet, these would then be Recommended to Council for consideration at the Budget Setting meeting on 25th February 2021, alongside the Revenue Budget Proposals.

With the focus of the Council being primarily on responding to the pandemic there had been comparatively few new medium and longer term initiatives developed during the past year and so the Capital Programme reflected this (in terms of new schemes added). The proposed programme was therefore a consolidation of existing schemes and the few initiatives that had been considered by Cabinet during the year.

Councillor Bedford was pleased to see that the council was following through on its commitment on the Environment and the £0.5million planned investment on environmental projects and the SAC strategy with Natural England.

Councillor Murray said that this was an impressive Capital Programme, especially the Museum and Library at Waltham Abbey, but added that Waltham Abbey did not have any proper public transport, so it was only possible to get there by car. So, anything the council could do to improve public transport would be very useful. Councillor Philip noted what he said about public transport and noted that we had just put in a DRT (Demand Responsive Transport) bus route and will look to do more.

Decision:

The Cabinet considered the report and recommend to Council the Capital Programme for 2021/22 to 2025/26.

Reasons for Proposed Decisions:

The report is necessary to assist Cabinet in determining the budget that will be placed before Council.

Other Options for Action:

Members could ask for further information or amend current programmes.