To receive a briefing from the Place Manager, Jon-Paul Hedge on the development of draft Business Cases for Torquay.

The Interim Place Manager, Jon-Paul Hedge gave a presentation on the Business Case Briefing, set up under Long Term Town for Plans which Torbay Council was a one of the partners. There were two Boards – the Torbay Place Leadership Board and the Torquay Place Leadership Board. The Torbay Board had a wider remit around the three towns with the Torquay Board focusing solely on Torquay. These Boards would be meeting quarterly, and open for the public to attend with agendas, papers and minutes published on the Council’s website to ensure openness and transparency.

It was noted that, following the first meeting, the Board had searched for new members to enable a more diverse and community-based representation to support the community led approach. The new Members who had joined the Board were welcomed to the meeting.

The Board noted that the Government had set draft data for Torquay with an initial deadline for the Business Case of November 2025 and set several actions to meet the deadline.

An overview was provided to the Board regarding developing accountability and structure and the aim was to ensure that the work the Board was doing was open and transparent. The Board would also need to closely monitor how the Government Funding was being spent to ensure it met the Board’s objectives.

Jon-Paul Hedge advised that the Torbay Place Leadership Board had met earlier in the morning and provided an overview on the emerging Torbay Regeneration Vision.

The Board discussed the need to identify priority areas to focus on to make the best use of the funding allocated by the Government to make improvements in Torquay. Members noted that there were over 100 potential interventions identified the Government, and it was suggested that this could be reviewed together with other ideas in order to identify a short list to share and engage with communities, including young people.

The Board was asked if it agreed with the suggested timeline and actions to bring paper back to September Board? This was agreed with the revision that an informal workshop would be beneficial to feedback ideas, key priorities and to go through case studies. This should take place before the end of July.

It was also asked if it agreed for the Chair to be given delegated authority over capacity funding spend to deliver aspects of the delivery and engagement work presented in the timeline? This was agreed.

It was also taken as an action that finance should be a standing item at each meeting moving forward.

It was acknowledged that the Board would need to understand what the workstreams were and review what had been done in other forums in order to avoid duplication as well as bringing in the voice of young people.

Actions:

1. To circulate the presentation slides – Rachel Williams;

2. Finance Update to be added as a standing agenda item – Rachel Williams;

3. An informal workshop to be set up in July to discuss the key priorities, challenges and opportunities and review the potential interventions and case studies – Rachel Williams; and

4. Actions to be carried out as per presentation to assist the Board in meeting the deadlines set out by MHCLG.