To receive apologies for absence, including notifications of any changes to the membership of the Board.

Apologies for absence were received from Steve Darling MP, Vince Flower, Chris Hart, Alison Hernandez and Roy Linden

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 8 September 2025.

It was noted that Rose Millard was missing from attendance list of the last minutes. Subject to the inclusion of Rose Millard as an attendee, the Minutes of the meeting of the Torquay Place Leadership Board held on 8 September 2025 were confirmed as a correct record.

a)         To receive declarations of non pecuniary interests in respect of items on this agenda

For reference:  Having declared their non pecuniary interest members may remain in the meeting and speak and, vote on the matter in question.  A completed disclosure of interests form should be returned to the Clerk before the conclusion of the meeting.

b)        To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests in respect of items on this agenda

For reference:  Where a Member has a disclosable pecuniary interest he/she must leave the meeting during consideration of the item.  However, the Member may remain in the meeting to make representations, answer questions or give evidence if the public have a right to do so, but having done so the Member must then immediately leave the meeting, may not vote and must not improperly seek to influence the outcome of the matter.  A completed disclosure of interests form should be returned to the Clerk before the conclusion of the meeting.

(Please Note:  If Members and Officers wish to seek advice on any potential interests they may have, they should contact Governance Support or Legal Services prior to the meeting.)

Members were reminded of the discussion surrounding Declarations of Interest at the previous meeting, and how they would work going forward. However, it was felt that, as no individual projects or proposals were under discussion at this meeting, declarations were not required. Democratic Services Officers agreed to keep the Chair appraised of any discussions which may require interests to be declared during the course of the meeting.

The Interim Place Manager, Jon-Paul Hedge presented the report as published, outlining the work undertaken so far, the current status of funding and the next steps to be agreed. Tracey Cabache, Director at Torbay Communities outlined the work undertaken since the last meeting, detailing further engagement sessions, potential collaborative projects arising and how the list of proposals presented to the Board had been arrived at.

Tracey also addressed the previous meetings assertion that housing should form a significant part of the projects approved by the Board, outlining that further contact had been made with affordable housing providers, who did not express a great interest in putting projects forward. Further discussions had also suggested that the funding available may not be sufficient to achieve the housing aims of Board Members, so ambitions in this regard had been scaled back.

Tracey emphasised that the project list presented to the Board was intended as the launchpad for further conversations before the final list was agreed.

The Chair expressed his thanks to Tracey and Jon-Paul for their hard work.

The following points were discussed:

· if the list of projects presented met the criteria outlined at the beginning of the process;

· if some of the projects represented value for money, were too risky or had alternative routes to funding;

· a perceived lack of transparency in the scoring process employed so far and a lack of communication and guidance in strengthening proposals;

· the merits of the system employed so far, with the Interim Place Manager re-emphasising the unique constraints of this funding pot, and the decision made to make the application process as light-touch as possible to maximise engagement and proposals from smaller organisations with fewer resources and experience in grant applications;

· if the community knowledge and connections of Board Members was being fully utilised; and

· the number of projects put forward by the Council and how this would be perceived by the community.

Members expressed widespread support for fairness, impartiality and transparency in the later stages of the process, and that projects must be interrogated for reliability, value for money and impact, with appropriate due diligence carried out on those projects recommended for approval.

The Chair acknowledged the concerns raised on the process to date, and highlighted that a condensed timescale and rapidly changing criteria from central Government had presented challenges in the process.

Resolved (unanimously):

1 that the Torquay Place Leadership Board approve the draft Vision statement outlined in Appendix 3 to the submitted report for submission to MHCLG, subject to clarity on ‘Torquay’s vision’;

2. that the Board note that an open call for projects, engagement work and co-production workshops has strongly started to indicate Torquay will be oversubscribed for what should be viable schemes. That, in light of this, the Board approve for the maximum spend profile for the first four years to be returned to MHCLG as set out below, but that the Torbay MP be requested to work with MHCLG to see if the Board can have the money as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.