Agenda and minutes

Contact: Stephen Wood  020 8313 4316

Items
No. Item

79.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND NOTIFICATION OF SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

Minutes:

No apologies for absence were received.

80.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

81.

MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 17th NOVEMBER 2020 pdf icon PDF 2 MB

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on the 17th of November 2020, were agreed as a correct record.

82.

QUESTIONS 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.  Questions that are not specific to the agenda should therefore have been received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 30th December 2020.

 

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 5.00pm on 8th January 2021.

Minutes:

No questions were received for the Chairman or the Committee.

83.

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.  Questions that are not specific to the agenda should therefore have been received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 30th December 2020.

 

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 5.00pm on 8th January 2021.

Minutes:

There had been six written questions submitted by members of the public.

 

The Committee had been notified regarding these, and the questions (with answers) are attached as an appendix to the minutes.

 

The responses would be sent to the questioners on the day following the meeting .

84.

PORTFOLIO HOLDER UPDATE

Minutes:

There was no update from the Portfolio Holder on this occasion.

85.

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

Portfolio Holder decisions for pre-decision scrutiny.

85a

CAPITAL MONITORING REPORT pdf icon PDF 472 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

FSD20096

 

Members were presented with the Capital Programme Monitoring report  for the second quarter of 2020/21.

 

The Committee noted that on 18th November 2020, the Leader had received a report summarising the position regarding capital expenditure and receipts following the 2nd quarter of 2020/21 and had agreed a revised Capital Programme for the four-year period 2020/21 to 2023/24. The report presented to the Committee highlighted the changes agreed by the Leader.

 

A Member drew attention to the Woodland Improvement Project for which a post completion review update was due, but was also mentioned in the same report last year. The Director for Environment and Public Protection said he would look into the matter and report back to Members.

 

The Vice Chairman enquired if the TfL funding streams mentioned in the report had to be spent by March. The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking responded that the commitment to spend the money needed to be in place, but the money did not necessarily have to be used by that date.

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)  The Portfolio Holder notes and acknowledges the changes agreed by the Leader on 18th November 2020.

 

2)  The Director for Environment and Community Services would report back to the Committee concerning the issues raised with respect to the Woodland Improvement Project.

86.

POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND OTHER ITEMS

86a

RINEY CONTRACT PERFORMANCE UPDATE REPORT pdf icon PDF 293 KB

Minutes:

ES20063

 

Members were presented with the Riney Contract Performance Report which provided an update regarding the performance of the Council’s Highways Contractor during the previous 12 months. 

 

Chris Moore (Managing Director) and Luke McFarlane (Contracts Director) attended to represent Riney. 

 

The Assistant Director for Highways informed Members that the contract had been awarded in July 2018 for major and minor works. The Committee had previously scrutinised Riney’s performance in November 2019. 

 

It was noted that all planned works, including the capital programme, street lighting improvements and traffic schemes, were suspended during the initial Covid-19 lockdown period, and did not recommence until early September. This caused a delay in the completion of certain projects.

 

Although Riney attended to emergencies and urgent highway repairs during the Pandemic, the size and volume of works completed were limited due to social distancing restrictions. 

 

Riney had now completed the capital programme and continued to make good progress with other traffic improvement projects as part of the annual LIP programme.

 

A Member raised the issue that outside of Biggin Hill Airport, there were  9 lights on the main road that had been in a state of dis-repair for 9 months. She asked that issues not be closed on FIXMYSTREET until they were definitely fixed and closed. Riney promised to look into the matter and repair the broken lights. Riney explained how they undertook regular nightly inspections of street lights to see what needed to be repaired, and they would endeavour to repair lights on the night of the inspection if possible.

 

The Assistant Director for Highways stated that every lamp column was inspected monthly and this included both main roads and cul de sacs. The Member responded that this should mean that lamps were not left in dis-repair for months. 

 

An explanation was provided by Riney concerning how the waste from road maintenance was segregated and re-cycled so that it could be re-used within the industry.

 

The Chairman asked for more information regarding warm and cold tarmac, and Riney provided an update concerning this. The Chairman asked if warm tarmac would be required to be replaced more frequently. The Chairman asked what Riney was looking to do in terms of sustainability and in providing a clean and green borough.

 

Riney responded that there was an additive mixed with the warm tarmac which would make it just as effective as cold tarmac. In any case, they would be responsible for any maintenance that was required subsequently. Riney was seeking to reduce their carbon footprint by modifying their vehicle fleet and using electric power for their small vans. They were also seeking to use hydrogen power for their larger vehicles in the future when the market was ready. 

 

The Chairman introduced Cllr Nicholas Bennett who wanted to address Riney concerning traffic management issues and delayed repairs in the West Wickham constituency. Cllr Bennett asked a question with respect to Pickhurst Lane, where there had been flooding that had taken four weeks to resolve. He asked why this had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 86a

86b

ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY SERVICES PORTFOLIO DRAFT BUDGET 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 375 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

FSD21004

 

Members were presented with a report that outlined the draft Environment and Community Services budget for 2021/22. The Head of Finance for ECS attended the meeting to present the report and answer questions.

 

The Committee was requested to scrutinise the draft budget for the Portfolio, so that comments could be fed back to the next meeting of the Executive before the Executive made recommendations to Full Council regarding the levels of Council Tax for 2021/22.

 

A Member asked for more information regarding the review of the £250k running costs. The Head of Finance clarified that this was in respect of various budgets across the department that were no longer required and therefore did not affect service delivery.

 

The Vice Chairman referred to the matter of paper re-cycling and the fact that there was 426 tons of paper that could not be recycled. He asked for more background information  concerning this and asked if residents could be better informed regarding the need to keep paper dry. 

 

The Strategic Manager for Waste Services explained how the moisture tests for paper and card were undertaken at the recycling plants. Any paper that had a moisture content of above 18% would need to be returned and then disposed of. The department was trying to get the message out to the public concerning the need to try and keep paper dry; one of the means that they were undertaking to achieve this was via ‘Environment Matters’.

 

A Member suggested that as paper and card re-cycling was increasing, then it may be a good idea to provide bigger bins for storage. This would avoid waste being burnt rather than re-cycled. The Strategic Manager for Waste Services responded that this was a matter that LBB was continuing to examine. 

 

A Member asked if conversations were taking place with the Planning Department to ensure that with any new builds granted planning permission-- proper storage areas would be provided. 

 

A Member enquired about unused buildings (like the Pavilion in Biggin Hill) and asked if there were plans to use these buildings so that they could start to generate an income.

 

The Director for Environment and Public Protection responded that officers from Environment and Community Services and Renewal, Regeneration and Housing, were working collaboratively to develop plans in this regard, and this would be a significant piece of work. It was not the best of times for businesses to start up at the moment (because of the Covid Pandemic), but it was important that buildings that were either not being used, or under used, should be brought back into use. He hoped that with input from the Environment Department, working with officers from the Renewal and Regeneration Department, that significant inroads would be made in the coming months.

 

The Member hoped that these plans would include Youth Centres. The Director responded that all buildings and services were being looked at as part of the Council’s Accommodation and Civic Centre Strategy. Members would be kept informed.

 

The Vice  ...  view the full minutes text for item 86b

86c

CONTRACTS REGISTER pdf icon PDF 713 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20059

 

The report on the Contracts Register was presented by the ECS Senior Performance Officer.

 

The contracts data being presented was based on an extract from the Contracts Register Database as at 28 October 2020, and the Committee was required to comment on the status of the contracts.

 

It was noted that three contracts had been rag rated as red risks:

 

  I.  Environmental Services Lot 2: Waste Management and management of waste sites.

 

  II.  Highway Maintenance.

 

  III.  Environmental Services Lot 1: Disposal of residual waste

 

 

RESOLVED that the Contracts Register Report be noted.

 

 

 

86d

ECS PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW UPDATE pdf icon PDF 457 KB

Minutes:

 

The first update was with respect to ‘ECS 32’ which was online self-service transactions to challenge PCNs. This was projected to be approximately 1.7% below target. It was noted that the Parking Team now had a quote for a QR code which could be put on stationary. This would make it easier for the public to make payments on their mobile phones. An update of the impact of QR code usage would be brought to a future committee meeting.

 

The next update was with respect to ‘ECS 34’ which was the pay and display machines which was currently approximately 1% off target. Members were briefed that the 12 pay and display machines in Bromley Town Centre  were continually being broken into. Members noted that APCOA were responsible for any losses. They were now ensuring that the parking machines contained  less than £200 in them at any given time and the machines in the town centre were being emptied every evening.

 

Members heard that the machines were being drilled into, which then meant that the machines were out of order until a trained operative from APCOA came to repair them. APCOA had tried to strengthen the machines and extra bolts had been added to the parking machines but to no avail. The police had been informed of every machine that had been broken into. A Member enquired if the CCTV Team was being asked to monitor the machines that were being broken into. The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking stated that it may be the case that these machines were not in the view of the CCTV cameras, but he would investigate this further to see if any cameras could be re-deployed or re-angled. 

 

The Chairman drew attention to ‘ECS15’ which was the arboricultural contract, remarking that ‘the numbers over the last few months were dire’. He wondered what was driving this and what was the cause of the trends going the wrong way. He felt that the green indicator was rather ambitious. The Assistant Director for Environment responded that regular meetings were taking place with the contractors to closely monitor the contract and the associated targets. He explained that there was some backlog of work that still needed dealing with and in some cases specialised equipment was required--they were also certain difficulties because of the Covid pandemic. The contractors were looking to commission a third-party contractor to bring the work back in line within the target indicators and the contractors themselves were looking to employ new specialist staff.

 

A Member remarked that the public perception was that the contract was poor and that the contractors were underperforming. He could not understand why Covid would hinder outdoor work and expressed the view that there was probably not much high-level work to deal with either. In his view it was primarily the case that the contractors were not performing adequately.

 

The Chairman commented that he would be interested to see the contract performance figures going forward and expressed the view that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 86d

86e

RISK REGISTER UPDATE REPORT pdf icon PDF 205 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20058

 

The Senior Performance Officer attended to present the Risk Register report and answer any questions.

 

Members noted and reviewed the ECS Risk Register.

 

RESOLVED that the Risk Register update report is noted.

87.

MATTERS ARISING AND WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 254 KB

Minutes:

CSD 21013

 

The Chairman notified Members that he had asked officers to invite representatives from Thames Water to attend the Committee. He wanted this to be a friendly discussion which was intended to be beneficial to all concerned. Members agreed that an invite to Thames Water should be sent out. A Member added that she had recently had a meeting regarding the Biggin Hill Ward where Gareth Bacon MP had attended. Mr Bacon had agreed to speak to senior executives at Thames Water with respect to problems being encountered in the Biggin Hill Ward.

 

A discussion took place regarding the update report concerning the results of the consultation on the Open Space Strategy. It was the case that this report would be re-scheduled to June instead of March.

 

A Member asked why the report concerning the review of parking services had been moved to March. The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking explained that some discussion had taken place concerning this, and it had been thought that some of the matters that were previously going into the report could just be dealt with by the service as routine items. It was also the case that some matters could be dealt with under delegated authority. This being the case, it was not clear at this stage if a report would be required. 

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)  Thames Water be invited to attend a future meeting.

 

2)  The report on the consultation of the draft open spaces strategy be presented in June instead of March.

 

3)  Consideration be given as to whether or not a report concerning the review of parking services was required.

 

4)  Consideration be given as to when future items for consideration on the work programme could be scheduled in to future meetings.   

 

 

 

 

Written Questions from the Public pdf icon PDF 709 KB