An introduction to the planning and economic regeneration directorate.
Alan Menzies: my name is Alan Menzies. I'm the executive director of planning and economic regeneration and I'm also the deputy chief executive at East Riding Council.
My department comprises three distinct elements of business. The first relates to Economic Development and Communications and it covers areas such as learning skills and Workforce Development, the Regeneration activities in Bridlington and Goole in particular. Business investment and tourism, sustainable development, the valuation and estates team, the corporate communications team, including electronic forms of communications as well as traditional communication, and the Regeneration and funding team.
The principal role and purpose of the service is to develop the economy of the East Riding to help inward investment to help smaller medium Enterprises develop and grow and to help people set up in self-employment and small businesses, in a sustainable manner. The Communications team acts as the internal and external voice of the council.
The second element of PER (Planning and Economic Regeneration) is known as Asset Strategy. The service director for asset strategy is Claire Hoskins, and Asset Strategy oversees the management and maintenance of all of the council's physical assets, as well as identifying the need for new build and disposal of assets where appropriate.
Some elements of work include management of the 11,500 council house homes through the housing revenue account. Client functions for 3,550 km of roads, 1,700 km of footpaths, 39,000 streetlights and 700 other forms of physical structures that need to be maintained and repaired. We're also responsible for the flood and coastal defence assets, nine business centres, 10 leisure centres, libraries and customer service centres, and all other corporate buildings, which include the County Hall estate, Bridlington Town Hall and Goole Council Offices.
We're also a strategic client for maintenance in relation to 150 schools that the council is responsible for maintaining. To put that to some numbers, the council's current capital program is valued at approximately £670 million, and annual spending is approximately £100 million per annum.
The third service area covered by planning and economic regeneration is the planning and development Management Service. The service director is Stephen Hunt, and the service covers both area strategic planning applications; and these area planning applications cover the Western area and the Eastern area of the county, and are generally more modest, minor applications. The strategic applications tend to be large-scale housing, infrastructure or large-scale inward investment.
In terms of how busy the planning department is, it's in the top 15 or 16 planning departments in terms of scale of business out of 339 in England.
The planning enforcement team is also a key element of the planning service as is highway development management, building conservation and design, as well to support the Humber Archaeological Partnership, trees, ecology and landscape, the Humber Forest project, where we're planting hundreds of thousands of trees each year, and the building control function.
In addition, the rural policy and partnerships function is part of the planning and development management team and they manage the rural partnership, Local Food Network, local access Forum, which is a statutory body and various wind farm funds located around the county.
