Our first online meeting – we’d hoped to be able to meet in March, but the Secretary of State hadn’t yet issued the regulations allowing us to do so.

Today we heard from Austen Adams, chair of the Combined Authority’s Business Board, who talked us through the Board’s recent evaluation as ‘needing improvement’, the changes to the Board’s membership which made it more diverse, and the Board’s strategy. We asked about Covid associated risks and capital financial support to local businesses.

The Mayor joined us to answer questions, which included the £100K homes project and modular homes, and how to revitalise bus transport after lockdown. Discussion then turned to the sudden and surprising news of the Mayor’s proposal to move the Combined Authority local stock and barrel from its Alconbury offices. He told the meeting that his proposed move to Ely was short-term, and longer-term he was looking to a site ‘next to a railway station’ where the Combined Authority could construct its own building. He denied that the move was related to the current non-existent public transport links to Alconbury. I asked about the process that had led to this point, and the Mayor advised that he had received an offer to release the Combined Authority from the Alconbury lease, which was ‘in discussion this afternoon’ and would be put to the Combined Authority Board (though not at its forthcoming meeting next week). The point was repeatedly made by members of the committee that it was important to ensure proper processes were followed and that decisions were transparent.

The committee then discussed the ‘Market Town Masterplans’ being developed for the whole of the Combined Authority area, most recently for Huntingdonshire. There was some concern about the consultation for these Masterplans, and the extent to which local residents and councillors had been listened to (or not) in their development.

We continue to be concerned that the Combined Authority still has not appointed a Chair to its Climate Change Commission, which has therefore still not got under way six months after the decision was made to establish it.

We questioned officers about the Wisbech Rail project, including its relationship to the proposed Wisbech Garden Town, and how it would help grow the North Cambridgeshire economy rather than just expanding commuting into Cambridge.

We agreed our first Annual Report as a committee, which outlines the work we have done this year and which will be presented to the Combined Authority Board.

And we finalised a list of questions which I will ask the Board next Wednesday on the committee’s behalf.

This was the last meeting of the ‘class of 2019/20’, and we will have to leave it to the 2020/21 committee to continue to hold the Combined Authority to account in the coming council year.