Coronavirus recovery plan to be developed for Chichester

Over the past seven weeks, chief executive officer Diane Shepherd has been leading an emergency management team, established to respond to and oversee the lockdown.

Their work has covered everything from making sure the disrict’s bins were emptied to running the community hub to finding rough sleepers a roof over their heads.

During a virtual meeting of the cabinet, Ms Shepherd said: “What’s going to be really important over the coming months is to work closely with members on a recovery plan.

“This will enable members to be involved in this in much more detail than they have currently during the emergency.

“The reason why members are not involved in the emergency as it unfolded is in the emergency you have to make quick decisions.

“That’s why the constitution allows us to make emergency decisions. They are made in consultation with the leader of the council and the leader of the opposition.

“However, moving forward, recovering our services, setting the shape of our council moving forward, we will need to work really closely with our members – and all our members will be involved in that process.”

A number of the emergency decisions taken by officers were noted by the cabinet.

They included: cancelling leisure fees from March-May for the council’s leisure contractor Sport & Leisure Management Ltd; launching the process to look for a firm to redevelop the temporary accommodation in Freeland Close to make room for more people; approving the cancellation of Chichester’s farmers’ market; and allowing £64,000 to be taken from reserves to make sure social prescribing levels – putting patients in touch with the correct healthcare professionals – are maintained until the end of March 2023/24.

Ms Shepherd told the cabinet that she was working with officers to prepare a framework for the recovery process, which would be put to councillors during future meetings.

She added: ” I personally believe we’ve been well-prepared for this emergency.

“We worked extremely quickly and we worked closely with our partners and the community – and our staff have been flexible and prepared to go the extra mile to ensure businesses in the community have good access to our services.”

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