Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1 - Bromley Civic Centre

Contact: Stephen Wood  020 8313 4316

Items
No. Item

58.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest

59.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND NOTIFICATION OF SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillor Mark Brock and Councillor Angela Page attended as substitute.

60.

QUESTIONS FROM COUNCILLORS AND MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC TO THE CHAIRMAN OR THE COMMITTEE

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions that are not specific to reports on the agenda must have been received in writing 10 working days before the date of the meeting. So any questions not relating to reports on the agenda should be received by Democratic Services by 5.00pm on Wednesday, August 26th.    

 

Questions specifically relating to reports on the agenda should be received within two working days of the normal publication date of the agenda.  Please ensure that questions specifically on reports on the agenda are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on Thursday September 3rd.

 

Minutes:

No questions were received for the attention of the Chairman or the Committee.

61.

MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 29th JANUARY 2020 pdf icon PDF 448 KB

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 29th of January 2020 were agreed as a correct record.

62.

QUESTIONS TO THE PORTFOLIO HOLDER

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions that are not specific to reports on the agenda must have been received in writing 10 working days before the date of the meeting. So any questions not relating to reports on the agenda should be received by Democratic Services by 5.00pm on Wednesday, August 26th.   

 

Questions specifically relating to reports on the agenda should be received within two working days of the normal publication date of the agenda.  Please ensure that questions specifically on reports on the agenda are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on Thursday September 3rd.

 

Minutes:

Questions were received from members of the public for written response.

 

Post Meeting Note:

 

(The answers to the questions were emailed to the questioners on September  11th).

 

Councillor Dunn had submitted a question for oral response. The answer to this question had been incorporated into the written responses noted above. This was because at the time of the meeting, the presumption was that no oral responses were being provided. The written response to this question was noted and then Cllr Dunn was permitted to ask a supplementary question. This was as follows:

 

A pupil of Eden Park High School was struck by a car last week, resulting in a broken leg. Can I have your assurance that Bromley Council will fund a study to determine what type of crossing is necessary on the road where the pupil was struck by the car and install it irrespective of TfL funding?

 

The Portfolio Holder stated that in his view this was not a valid supplementary question, as a supplementary question should follow on from the original question, and in his view this question did not meet the criteria. The Portfolio Holder agreed to respond to Councillor Dunn by email following the meeting.

 

Post Meeting Note:

 

The answer to the supplementary/additional question was disseminated to Councillor Dunn on 9th November 2020.

   

 

 

 

 

63.

PRE-DECISION SCRUTINY OF REPORTS TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY SERVICES PORTFOLIO HOLDER

Portfolio Holder decisions for pre-decision scrutiny.

63a

DRAFT PARKS AND GREENSPACE STRATEGY 2020-25 pdf icon PDF 381 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20027

 

The Committee was presented with the Draft Open Space Strategy report and also the Open Space Strategy document 2021--2031 that had been drafted by Idverde. An introduction to the report was provided by the Assistant Director for Environment. It was noted that the strategic document set out the principles and general direction for the future of the Portfolio’s various land holdings.

 

The Assistant Director informed Members that the Strategy covered 168 parks and that the Strategy was for ten years. The contract for maintaining and developing parks and green spaces had been awarded to Idverde in April 2019. The production of the strategy document was part of the contractual agreement and was in line with the Council’s objectives.

 

He explained that the objectives were set out in the draft strategy document and the objectives were supported with case studies. The Strategy was broken down into review stages, and the annual contract performance reports would be provided by Idverde.

 

A Member drew attention to a section in the report that referenced a 10% increase in income, and she hoped that no small groups or charities would be penalised as a result. It was confirmed that the Council would not be looking to penalise smaller groups in any way--rather they would be looking at the Events Management Portfolio and would not be looking to penalise local residents.

 

A discussion took place as to the criteria that would qualify a park for new play facilities; it was explained that Idverde had identified suitable sites, and these had been included in the site management plans which were now being developed.

 

A Member remarked that the incorporation of case studies into the document was useful, and there was a discussion as to what groups should be involved in the consultation process. The Assistant Director stated that other bodies would be consulted. The Chairman asked who would be able to respond to the consultation, and the Assistant Director replied that the document had identified particular stakeholders who would be consulted. The Assistant Director said that consultation could also involve the public if that was recommended by the Committee.

 

A Member commented that detail was missing and not much had been factored in with respect to sports facilities. The Assistant Director responded by saying that it was not the purpose of the report to provide granular detail, but the Strategy would identify where gaps existed. Progress on the Strategy would be updated upon annually in the annual report.

 

The Chairman expressed the view that parks were critical and was glad to see that exciting projects were planned—he hoped the plans would be ambitious. The Chairman recommended that a public consultation of some form should take place in addition to the consultation with stakeholders and this was seconded by the Vice Chairman. 

 

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)  The Portfolio Holder agreed to undertake a consultation with the Stakeholders that had been identified within the Draft Open Space Strategy, plus that residents and visitors to the borough would also be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63a

63b

AIR QUALITY ACTION PLAN 2020-25 CONSULTATION RESPONSE pdf icon PDF 324 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20041

 

The Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement presented the Air Quality Action Plan consultation response that had been approved by the GLA. The consultation had received 869 responses from members of the public; which was an excellent response, (as the average response for such consultations was 284), and indeed one consultation had only received 34 responses. The GLA had commented that there was a lack of detail in some areas of the Plan and that dates and targets needed to be set; however the overall response to the Plan from the GLA had been very positive. Formal approval for the Plan had been received on the 27th of August. The letter of endorsement from the GLA had been circulated separately to the Committee.

 

Following consultation, all responses were fed back to internal partners for their response and comment and these were outlined in Appendix A of the report.

 

The Vice Chairman endorsed the Plan and was pleased to note the positive feedback from the GLA, and also the fact that the Plan would complement the Council’s Carbon Neutral Strategy. He was also pleased with the level of public consultation and engagement.

 

A Member referenced actions that were detailed in the matrices at the end of the Plan, noting that they were due for completion during March and April 2020; he asked for an update concerning these actions. It was deemed prudent that the Member would receive a written answer concerning the question that he had asked about the actions detailed in the Plan. He further referenced the matter of funding for the monitoring of PM10 and PM2.5 and asked why the Council was not able to fund this itself. The Assistant Director for Public Protection stated that LBB did have their own monitoring stations for PM10 and PM2.5 but would make use of extra funding if it could be sourced for additional monitoring. It would be prudent to save money if possible.

 

A Member commented that it would be useful if LBB could reduce the use of road humps and 20 mph speed limits as this slowed traffic down and created more pollution.

 

A Member noted that 63% of respondents were female and questioned if the consultation process had been  robust enough. The Assistant Director for Public Protection responded that the response was typical. It was noted that Bromley’s main concern was with the monitoring of NOX, and that the monitoring of this was being extended.

 

The Chairman noted that the report stated that a single monitor for PM10 and PM2.5 was considered sufficient. He asked who it was that said one single monitor was sufficient; was it LBB or was it an independent body? The Assistant Director for Public Protection responded that Kings had not expressed concern

that having a single monitoring station was an issue.

 

 

The Chairman raised the issue of the lack of support from TfL. TfL were trialling electric buses and various forms of non-diesel transport and it would be really helpful if TfL  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63b

63c

CAPITAL PROGRAMME MONITORING REPORT pdf icon PDF 650 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

FSD20065

 

Members noted the report which summarised the current position on capital expenditure and receipts following the first quarter of 2020/21. The report outlined the revised capital programme for the four-year period of 2020/21 to 2020/24 as agreed by the Executive and the Leader

 

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

64.

PRE-DECISION SCRUTINY OF REPORTS GOING TO THE EXECUTIVE FOR DECISION

64a

MOVING TRAFFIC CONTRAVENTIONS pdf icon PDF 849 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ECS20035

 

Members were briefed on the Moving Traffic Contraventions report by the Interim Head of Shared Parking Services (Bromley and Bexley) and the LBB Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking. It was noted that the current responsibility for enforcing moving traffic conventions lay with the police, but the police usually only issued about three fixed penalty notices per year. By comparison, the neighbouring borough of Bexley had issued 14,000 fixed penalty notices during the same period.

 

The aim of the recommendations was to improve traffic flow and air quality. The Committee noted that if the recommendations were approved, the relevant procurement route would be established in 2021. The purpose of the report was for the Portfolio Holder to make recommendations to the Executive. The final decision would be made by the Executive or by the Leader.

 

The consensus was that this was a good report, however one Member expressed concern regarding the source of funding; this had been identified  as coming from the contingency budget; the Member recommended that the source of funding should be changed--so that the funding would come either from Invest to Save or from an alternative budget.

 

A Member noted the proposed 12 locations for the implementation of the first phase regarding enforcing moving traffic conventions. He expressed the view that Widmore Road and St Blaise should have been included in the first phase, as both these areas seemed to have more potential for traffic contraventions.  The Interim Head of Shared Parking Services (Bromley and Bexley) explained that that twelve locations were not fixed in stone, and that cameras could be moved to different locations as the need arose. She made it clear that the aim of enforcing any contraventions was to encourage people to drive properly and was not simply a means of enforcing financial penalties and revenue generation for the Council. To this end, in the initial phase of implementation, warning notices would be issued in the first instance to give people a chance to avoid being penalised until they got used to the new regulations.

 

There was a consensus amongst Members that the cameras should be installed where the need was greatest. It was noted that in terms of best compliance rates, this was normally 85%. This meant that there would be 15% of drivers that would never be fully compliant.

 

The timescales involved were explained, and that the target date for implementation was October 2021 for two reasons:

 

1.  Initially, permission to implement the recommendations would need to be obtained from London Councils.

 

2.  There was uncertainty as to the length of time required for the procurement process. This was because a decision would need to be made either to simply add new cameras to the existing network or to refresh the whole of the network .

 

A Member had asked what length of time needed to expire if a vehicle was caught in a yellow box, before enforcement action would be taken. The answer was that the camera would send images  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64a

65.

ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES CONTRACTS, LOT 1,2 AND 3 (2019/20 ANNUAL CONTRACT PERFORMANCE UPDATE) pdf icon PDF 931 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES 20040

 

The Committee was briefed concerning the Environmental Services Contracts that had been awarded to Veolia on the 1st of April 2019. The update was given because the Council’s Corporate Performance Rules required that an annual performance review of the contract be provided, this was because the value of the contract exceeded £1m. Representatives from Veolia attended the meeting to answer questions. Veolia was represented by Nick Allan (Senior Contract Manager), Simon Moore (Regional Manager) and Matt Elmer (Waste Collection Contract Manager).

 

The Vice Chairman noted that the report provided data up to March 2020 and enquired as to what the performance ratios were post March. Mr Moore responded that Veolia had been dealing with an increased level of waste because more people were working from home. He explained that some services had been dropped during the peak of the Covid Pandemic so that the organisation could focus on the key matter of refuse collection. He said that ‘post Covid’, Veolia was still seeing high levels of waste. Veolia was trying to get back to normal levels of service; missed bin collections were decreasing but there was still much work to do. 

 

The Vice Chairman asked what was being done to decrease contamination levels, and what was being done to address the matter of missed bin collections.

 

Mr Moore explained that regarding contamination levels, much more wet paper was currently being collected; Veolia was considering the use of new containers. It was noted that the transfer station roof was in a state of disrepair, allowing some rainwater to damage paper whilst it was being stored. It was mentioned that Veolia was aiming to reduce the number of batteries entering the general waste stream--as these were a fire hazard.

 

Members heard that with respect to textiles, most of the textiles being left out for collection were not good quality, thus reducing their value. Some were not even good enough to be used as rags. Veolia expressed the view that the processing of textiles should be focused around the use of the existing textile banks. It was further noted that there was much contamination in glass waste.

 

The LBB Strategic Manager for Waste Services explained that as part of the new contract, contamination reporting was more transparent. Residents place materials that are not accepted for recycling within the green box for plastics, cans and glass. As a result of the improved data on contamination, Veolia’s communication team were working with Bromley on a contamination campaign this year. A schools recycling workshop would be provided to inform children as to what could and could not be recycled in Bromley, so that they could help their parents to recycle the right items. Flats recycling communications was another element of the contamination campaign planned for 2020/21 but had been slightly delayed as a result of COVID-19. 

 

A Member enquired if there was any statutory guidance in terms of the times that mechanical street cleaners could operate on residential roads and what arrangements were in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

Questions from the Public for Written Response pdf icon PDF 403 KB

Questions from Councillors for Written Response. pdf icon PDF 102 KB