Agenda and minutes

John Keddie welcomed the group and introductions were made by all attendees. Apologies were received from Will Allanson, Jemma Mindham, Fiona Bodle, Leonie Tipton, Rebbeca Collings and Mark Carroll.

Agreed.

The board discussed the draft terms of reference. It was agreed that Harlow Council’s membership would include two councillors, Councillor Mark Ingall (with Councillor Eugenie Harvey acting as a substitute) and Councillor Tony Durcan.

Guy suggested that the Terms of Reference clarified the relationship of the Growth Board to the statutory bodies of Harlow Council and Essex County Council.

It was explained that the Growth Board is the body that is responsible for the development and signing off of the Town Investment Plan / Town Deal and Harlow Council is the accountable body.

It was agreed that the terms of reference were amended to include Anglia Ruskin University as a board member.

John Keddie invited all members of the Board to be aware of the Nolan Principles. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2

Update on PHE: Michael Beard provided an update on the recent announcement made by the government regarding Public Health England becoming the National Institute of Health Protection (NIHP). The announcement is very recent, and there are still decisions to be made internally. However, with regard to the move to Harlow nothing has changed and they are carrying on with the programme.

Robert Halfon MP stated that he had spoken with the new chair of the NIHP and he remains optimistic as the new organisation will still need labs.

PHE move to Harlow Economic Impact Assessment Report: The Board received a presentation from Josh Stott and Rob Macnee from Steer on their report on the economic impact assessment of the proposed relocation of PHE to Harlow. The presentation highlighted that the move would result in direct, indirect and induced jobs and added GVA per year amounting to 1600 jobs and £78m GVA per year.

The report outlines a number of recommendations for action to be taken by partners to help maximise the economic benefits of PHE’s move to Harlow. The recommendations relate to the labour market, Business Research and Innovation, Infrastructure and Assets, Health and Wellbeing and Leadership.

Action: Officers to set up the subgroup of the Growth Board focussing on the relocation of PHE to Harlow and to start to work on the recommendations.

·         Agreeing the Vision

·         Accelerated £1m project

·         Shortlisting the pipeline of potential projects

·         Creating the evidence base

Jane Greer explained that the deadline for submission of the Towns Fund bid was 30 October and talked through the following key dates:

Key Dates

·         Deadline for Cohort 2 to submit the TIP is 30^th October 2020

·         October Growth Board to sign off submission – Tuesday 20^th October

·         Papers for October Growth Board due to go out – 13^th October

·         Draft TIP complete by Friday 9^th October

·         7 weeks to complete TIP

o   Section 1 – Context, Strategy, process planning, Community Engagement

o   Section 2 – Details of each project

It was recommended that a steering group of Officers and three members of the Board was established.

ACTION: Set up Steering Group to develop TIP

Agreeing the Vision:

Julie Houston presented the proposed Vision of the Town Investment Plan which had been circulated to members prior to the meeting. The TIP refers to the five year funding horizon and the projects would feed into delivering the Vision.

Iain McNab highlighted that the TIP bid would not be formally assessed on the Vision itself but that it would help the whole submission including the projects to hang from the Vision.

Discussion took place about whether the Vision emphasised Harlow’s USP adequately.

Action: It was agreed that the wording of the vision would be reviewed following the meeting and recirculated.

Accelerated £1m Project:

It was also noted that the Council had submitted two projects for the £1m accelerated funding that the government has offered.

Shortlisting the pipeline of potential projects:

Alison Fox detailed the two stage shortlisting process for the 70 potential projects on the long list that was previously circulated to the Board. Suzanne offered to share learnings from SELEPs experience of similar processes.

Creating the evidence base:

The Towns Fund webpage has useful data dashboards available at: https://townsfund.org.uk/dashboard

Julie highlighted a few statistics on Harlow economy including skills profile and the impact that Covid-19 measures have had on the workforce.

The Future High Street Fund was submitted at the end of July. The outcome is expected sometime in the autumn. A summary would be circulated.

Action: circulate summary of the Future High Street Fund bid.

None.