Delayed call on Leamington pedestrianisation leads to frosty exchange

The county’s endorsement of the Leamington Town Centre Vision, a set of principles to guide regeneration in the heart of the town, was held back by the cabinet – the panel of Conservative councillors in charge of major service areas – last week.

Leader Councillor Izzi Seccombe OBE (Con, Stour & the Vale) cited the absence of “key” portfolio holder Councillor Jan Matecki (Con, Budbrooke & Bishop’s Tachbrook), who looks after transport and planning.

The vision has come together through the work of the Leamington Transformation Board, which includes councillors and professionals from the county council, Warwick District Council and Leamington Town Council, in line with public feedback.

The idea is to make the centre of Leamington a place to stay rather than travel through, reducing vehicle traffic and potentially controlling the scale and timing of deliveries to make it a more accessible and pleasant place to be, bringing down noise and air pollution and providing seating and things to do around a central point.

The next part of work is to consult on and finalise a masterplan for The Parade which aligns with those ambitions and a recurring theme so far involves pedestrianisation.

Neither of these pieces of work involve detailed plans and no works, or funding for them, have entered the pipeline yet but Councillor Sarah Boad (Lib Dem, Leamington North) was unhappy at the county stalling at this stage, highlighting that the district and town councils had offered support as expected.

Cllr Seccombe explained that the plan was to hold off “until we have the portfolio holder here to take this forward”.

She added: “It is an exciting project. What I am hoping is that we have a moment of reset around it.

"There are a number of timeframes in there that I think all of us would like to understand a little better, that we have got all of the information and data we need for it to forward with the consultation that is appropriate.”

Non-cabinet members are generally invited to speak freely at meetings with Cllr Boad delivering her view.

“I can’t say I am not disappointed by this,” she said.

“I think it is unfortunate you are not able to take the decision because the portfolio holder isn’t here, and the portfolio holder hasn’t actually been seen at the transformation board for a little while.

“He is perhaps not as up to date with it as he could be and therefore you are not up to date with it either.”

Cllr Seccombe interjected.

“It isn’t for discussion,” she said.

“If you have anything that you want to put (forward), information on this, (but) I am not prepared to go into a wider discussion.

“If you have any key evidence (then fine) but I am not prepared to have a discussion like that.”

Cllr Seccombe again referenced a "reset", adding: "What I don’t want is us getting caught down a line where we don’t have the information, going out to consultation without full, information-based data.

“The key element that we should remember, which is in the paper, is that there is actually no funding behind this at the moment.

“I absolutely understand that we need a vision in order to bid for items but at the moment it is not clear that vision is absolutely captured.”

Portfolio holder for economy Councillor Martin Watson (Con, Coleshill North & Water Orton) echoed the leader’s sentiments.

“From my portfolio’s perspective with the economy, The Parade is an element of this and I would like to see much more detail about what the impact of the work there would be,” he said.

“I don’t think we have that, it is certainly not in the paper.”

Cllr Matecki later told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he has remained fully briefed on the project, adding that his absence from cabinet was down to work commitments.

He said: “The transformation board has a smaller delivery group that I am a part of and, although I may not have attended all of the transformation board meetings, I have been and will be kept up to date by officers (council professionals) who attend them.

“Councillors and officers always work in partnership on projects such as these, so everyone is always kept in the loop as to what is going on.”

He added that he hoped the matter would be dealt with at the next cabinet meeting on December 12.

On whether county support for the vision was likely, he said he didn’t wish to pre-empt anything before presenting it to his cabinet colleagues.