To approve the minutes of the minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2020.

Decision

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting on 11 March 2020.

The report of the Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, and the City Solicitor is attached.

A report explained the additional delegations that the Leader had put in place to help ensure business continuity of the Council’s decision making on Executive Functions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the meeting the Leader explained that whilst he was vested with powers in relation to Executive Functions, his use of them would be as an urgent last resort when the Council’s other decision-making mechanism were not available.

Decision

To note that the Leader had delegated all Executive Functions to meetings of the Executive and also, up to 30 September 2020, to Deputy Leader Councillor Nigel Murphy and the Executive Member for Health and Wellbeing Councillor Craig, either able to act in an individual capacity if the Leader is not able to act..

The Chief Executive had submitted a statement on the COVID-19 virus pandemic. The pandemic had created a national and local emergency and the statement set out how that had impacted on very many aspects of everyday life in Manchester. The statement described the responses to the virus in Manchester and across Greater Manchester. A copy of the statement is appended to these minutes.

At the meeting thanks were expressed for all the NHS and social care workers, the council staff, those in schools and all those in partner agencies who were working extremely hard in exceptional circumstances to provide care and help to vulnerable people in the city to support all those in most need. The Executive wanted to record its appreciation for the work everyone was doing.

Decision

To receive the statement.

The report of the Strategic Director (Development and Growth) is now attached.

A report by the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) provided an update on the Council’s strategies to secure more affordable homes in the city (Minute Exe/19/73). The report proposed that in the future there would be two main streams of delivery for new affordable homes in the city. The first would be to ensure that the existing delivery platform established with Registered Providers (RP’s) was continued, whereby the Council would use its land asset in conjunction with land the RP’s had acquired in the open market, along with RPs continuing to access a range of Homes England investment programmes. The second would involve the creation of a Local Housing Development and Management company that would then provide direct delivery options utilising City Council land assets.

The report set out the broad approach to the establishment of such a company, suggesting that more detailed proposals would be presented later in the year.

Decision

To note report and request that a further report is submitted in the future.

The report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) is now attached.

A report from the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) sought approval for the disposal of land at Oldham Road in Newton Heath to One Manchester Ltd in order to facilitate the development of 139 affordable apartments and family houses. The proposed scheme was to involve the disposal of a small plot of Council land at less than best value.

The land covered an area of 1.2ha partly land leased by the Council, and an adjacent plot that was owned by the Council, which was classed as informal open space. A planning application had already been submitted for the development of 139 homes, comprising 100 one and two bedroom apartments and 39 three bedroom semi-detached houses. All units were to be affordable, with 50% for social rent and 50% for affordable rent.

The land had been valued as have an open-market value of £129,000, so the disposal of land to One Manchester at a value below the unrestricted market value would involve the Council forgoing a capital receipt of up to £129,000 in order to facilitate the affordable housing scheme proposed by One Manchester. That was supported.

Decisions

1.         To approve the disposal of the land at Oldham Road to One Manchester on the principle terms set out in the report.

2.         To authorise the Head of Development to finalise the detailed terms of the transaction.

3.         To authorise the City Solicitor to execute all necessary contractual matters in respect of the development.

The Chief Executive submitted the attached statement to the Executive meeting.

Appendix – Chief Executive’s Statement

To:                  The Executive

Subject:        COVID-19 - Summary of issues

Date:              25 March 2020

Report of:     Chief Executive

1          Purpose

1.1       In light of the current national and international public health emergency situation, Manchester and Greater Manchester (GM) declared a major Incident on Friday 20 March 2020. This activated the multi-agency response arrangements in line with the GM generic response plan and the pandemic flu plan. The Prime Minister’s unprecedented announcement at 8.30 pm on Monday 23rd March set out the seriousness of the situation and the expectations of all residents, businesses and public services. Over the last days and weeks a number of specific guidance notes have been received which are informing our actions and response.

1.2       This note is intended to provide the Executive with a brief summary of the work on COVID-19 in Manchester. Further detail on specific issues will be available as required.

2          Summary of the development of COVID-19

2.1       On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. On 12 January 2020 it was announced that a novel coronavirus had been identified in samples obtained from cases and that initial analysis of virus genetic sequences suggested that this was the cause of the outbreak. This virus is referred to as SARS-CoV-2, and the associated disease as COVID-19

2.2       Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses with some causing less-severe disease, such as the common cold, and others causing more severe disease such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses. On11 February, WHO named the syndrome caused by this novel coronavirus COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)

2.3       As of 9am on 24 March 2020, a total of 90,436 people have been tested, of which 82,359 were confirmed negative and 8,077 were confirmed positive. 422 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.

2.4       In Greater Manchester (24th March 2020) there have been 161 people who tested positive cases and of these 25 are Manchester residents. There will be a time lag in validating the number of deaths that are Manchester residents, however, there have been a number of deaths reported by the three Manchester hospitals over the past fortnight and most of these are residents of Greater Manchester.

3          Structures and monitoring

3.1       Manchester City Council is a statutory Category One Responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. All 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester and multi-agency statutory partners work together to plan for and respond to emergencies through the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum (GMRF). The GMRF has been preparing and planning the response to the COVID-19 disease since late 2019. A Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) and an Emergency Committee have since been established at the GM level where both the Leader and CEX are represented.

3.2       Manchester is represented at both the Emergency Committee by the Leader and CEX and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.