Issue - meetings

The Portfolio Holder took the opportunity to express her thanks to various officers and departments for the work that had been undertaken during an unprecedented time in the country’s history. 

The Portfolio Holder expressed her thanks to Rob Vale and the Trading Standards and the Food Safety Teams. There had been a plethora of new legal regulations for businesses during the pandemic that had to be interpreted and enforced across the borough. It had been an immense task to interpret and enforce rules that were constantly changing. Additional work had been required to check on thousands of businesses and in replying with advice to many  requests for clarification and following up reports from the public reporting non-compliance.

The Trading Standards Team had also been informing the public about the many new scams that had arisen related to the pandemic, and had also been required to deal with a significant increase in new food business registrations for home bakers and small catering set ups--many of whom seemed worryingly unaware of the food regulations that were required.

Thanks was also expressed to Tony Baldock and his Community Safety,

Environmental Health and Licensing teams. Again, these teams had been

working around the clock, enforcing the new licensing rules, particularly to

pubs, working in partnership with the Police Licensing Team to ensure rules

were being followed. They had also been required to manage (with the police), issues of ASB that had resulted from people taking drinks into public spaces when they weren't physically allowed in the pubs. Mr Baldock had also been overseeing the review of the Public Space Protection Orders which was part of the evening's agenda. This had been a mammoth task and the Portfolio Holder was pleased that new improved controls would be in place in time for Spring next year.

The Portfolio Holder expressed her thanks to  Amanda Mumford who had taken over running the Community Impact Days, and these had continued over the last few months. Although tweaks had to be introduced to account for the social distancing rules, the Impact Days had got bigger and better than before and the feedback from all involved and residents had been very positive.

Thanks were also expressed for the work undertaken by Toby Smith and his Enforcement Team. Although ‘Traveller’ incursions had reduced compared to previous years, the Council had experienced difficulties in the Cray area with quad bikers and off-road motorbikes. The Star Lane raid had helped with the quad bikes (as some were seized and the message was successfully sent out that they would not be tolerated), but the problem of motorbikes remained. To this end, and to also tackle the increased levels of fly-tipping, Mr Smith had been very busy arranging for all kinds of railings, posts, concrete blocks and obstacles to be put in place to hinder their access to Council land, and he had also been working well with local farm owners to do the same, and had also been working with police to undertake targeted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79