Agenda and minutes

The Chairman’s introduction.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and congratulated members on being elected.

To consider and approve the minutes of the Environment and Sustainability Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 9 March 2010 – attached.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Environment and Sustainability Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 9 March 2010 be received and approved and the Chairman be authorised to sign them.

Introduction to the work of the Directorate.

The Director of Environment, Paul Chadwick, said that his directorate was divided into four divisions.  These comprised of:

Development and Streetscene – led by Jon Freer

Development and Streetscene were responsible for services such as planning, regulatory functions like licensing and trading standards, waste/recycling and street cleansing.

Traffic and Transport – led by Andrew Darvill

Traffic and Transport managed the borough’s highways (with the exception of the A316 and A205), parking services and emergency planning.

Property, Parks and Sustainability – led by Ishbel Murray

Property, Parks and Sustainability managed the borough’s parks (excluding Royal parks), the Council’s sustainability targets, property services (including facilities management) and property disposal.

Finance and Performance – led by Diane Makepeace

The directorate’s finance and performance division managed the directorate’s budget, its performance targets, cemeteries and registrars.

The Director agreed to circulate a structure chart, which contained details of senior officers working under him.

There were plans underway to change the ward champions arrangement.  This responsibility would instead fall to assistant directors, because it was felt that they each had budgets and could therefore influence where money was spent.  It also meant that ward councillors would have direct access to senior council officers.

Presentation by the Strategic Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning.

Councillor Morris, Strategic Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning, thanked officers for their work in setting her manifesto commitments into motion.

She outlined some of her targets, which included increasing the rates of recycling and beginning plastic collections, retaining weekly waste collections and reducing household CO2 emissions.

Councillor Morris stated that she hoped to preserve the character of the borough as part of Development Planning Documents and the Local Development Framework.  She would also look at minimum parking standards for new dwellings and work on ways to encourage more family housing.

Committee members’ involvement in the recycling review was welcomed, although it was noted that changes may happen too quickly for the committee to hold a task group on the matter.

The Cabinet Member confirmed to the committee that the original DPD timescale would be kept to and there were a variety of measures that could be built into it.  It was reported that the core strategy would be difficult to change.

The Twickenham Town Plan would be looked at in the DPD, although it was recognised that there were some broad ranging issues, which affected it as a town centre.  Local ward councillors would be invited to establish priorities for Twickenham Town Centre, with the Cabinet Member and Leader of the Council.

More work would be done to look at the impact of car free developments, as it was felt that maximising parking was more sensible.

There was an urban design team within the Council, who offered advice across various areas of work from street furniture to housing developments.  There was a duty to provide this service, although no obligation on how much of a service should be provided, was placed upon the authority.  The key aim was to involve the public more in decisions.

Presentation by the Strategic Cabinet Member for Community Development.

The Cabinet Member for Community Development started by saying that the Council had to produce a Local Economic Assessment which aimed to give a sound understanding of an area’s economic state.

It was already known that the town centres of Richmond, Twickenham and Sheen had all seem growth, but Teddington had reduced and Whitton was static.  The Assessment would be used to lobby central government for investment.  This was a ‘live document’ and it could adapt to changes in the borough.

The Cabinet Member for Community Development started by saying that the Council had to produce a Local Economic Assessment which aimed to give a sound understanding of an area’s economic state.

It was already known that the town centres of Richmond, Twickenham and Sheen had all seem growth, but Teddington had reduced and Whitton was static.  The Assessment would be used to lobby central government for investment.  This was a ‘live document’ and it could adapt to changes in the borough.

Councillor Fleming said that she was aiming to improve the libraries service and sports facilities with  its effectiveness being assessed by measuring customer satisfaction.  Proposed improvements to the libraries service included improving internet facilities and introducing radio frequency technology.

It was also proposed to maintain the wide range of arts events that currently took place in the borough.

A Community Plan was to be prepared and Overview and Scrutiny would get an opportunity to look at the draft policies.

The Cabinet Member was hopeful that more trade associations would be set up, with further meetings taking place between them, town centre managers and business champions.

An ‘all-in-one’ survey was to be commissioned, with the committee being invited to help identify trends on the responses.  The Cabinet and officers would be looking at the most effective ways to get a good response rate, including raising awareness of the survey with advertising.  Residents would also be invited to comment on how they feel the survey might work.

Key aims of the survey were to try and engage with people who were time poor and avoiding labelling people into groups with which they did not associate themselves.

An opportunity for Committee Members to ask questions on the presentations by Cabinet Members.

Questions to each Cabinet Member were covered under their respective items.

The purpose of this report is to set out the Committee work programme for 2010/11, to give an opportunity to consider possible training and to note the broad principles behind scrutiny.

Report of the Head of Democratic Services attached.

Representations were made by Mr Barry Edwards:

• The three minute timing for members of the public should be changed to allow people member like participation in meetings..
• Richmond should introduce web casting for its public meetings.
• Richmond Councillors should be attending some Hounslow meetings.
• The committee should look at the Sustainable Communities Act, which had previously not been introduced.
• There should be resources made available to groups such as Richmond Unite Group.
• A residents’ panel should be set up as soon as possible.

The Chairman confirmed that members of the public will still be asked to restrict their comments to three minutes.

The Director stated that the Sustainable Communities Act had been looked at by the previous administration.  The Act was introduced by Parliament without funding.  It was confirmed that this would not be a priority piece of work because of funding and uncertainly around the Act.

RESOLVED that:

1. A task group be set up to look at Drugs Misuse, with a member being sough each from the Education & Children’s Services, and Health, Housing & Social Care Committees.
2. Councillors Elengorn and Harborne be appointed to the task group.
3. The following amendments be made to the work programme:

·         Substantive items for the next meeting would be EDF attending to answer questions about disruptions in power supplies in the borough; the proposed changes to the waste and recycling service; the amended DPD document.