At the South Gloucestershire Council meeting on Wednesday we challenged the Conservatives with questions on:

• support for children with special needs and disabilities
• the future of the trading estates on the western side of Yate
• support for EU citizens applying for settled status
• recycling of plastic film
• diversions for roadworks

An item on West of England issues gave us a chance to ask more questions about the Joint Spatial Plan, which proposed thousands of new houses in our area. The four councils are continuing to take legal advice and the Leader suggested that there would be further information to report at the next council meeting on 11^th December, by which time the councils’ official response should have been published.

We also proposed two motions. Sadly our proposal to tackle air pollution from idling cars was watered down by the ruling group.

They also refused to make a small change to the way planning applications are handled that we believed would benefit everyone involved. Since the Conservative changes last autumn, officers have decided whether members of the planning committee visit a site before the planning meeting. Often they decide councillors don’t need to, but then at the meeting members decide they do. The application is then delayed. For applicants and objectors alike this means they need to travel to Kingswood twice. To stop this happening, we wanted to give the Chair of the committee the option to insist on a site visit before the meeting. It was a small change, but the Conservatives kicked it into the long grass, saying no changes until next May after a full review.

We did however narrowly win a vote to say that the review should include reinstating the right of local people to speak at site visits, despite the opposition of senior Conservatives. It was clear some of their backbenchers feel differently.

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