Agenda item
Public Issues
To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution, which is available to view at the following link:
https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1
The deadline for the submission of a public question is 4 clear working days before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a public statement is midday the working day before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.
Minutes:
The Chairman advised that as some questions and statements had been carried over from the previously postponed meeting that the questions and statements on this occasion would be heard in the order they were received in rather than questions first followed by statements.
Public Question from Ian Clark
I cannot understand on the busiest weekend of the year why the visitor centre was closed. There would have been a lot of visitors that would have welcomed the information and products in the visitors centre.
Why was the visitor centre not open over the bank holiday weekend.
Response from Councillor Mark Anderson, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Place
I would like to thank Mr Clark for his question,
We endeavour to ensure Hengistbury Head Visitor Centre is open to the public to experience and enjoy as much as possible. Regrettably this Summer owing to marketplace recruitment difficulties and wider staff shortages we have been unable to always keep the visitor centre open as much as we would ordinarily seek to achieve and apologise for any disappointment this has caused.
Working to a rota, those staff directly employed to manage the centre and the wider countryside team who are also based on site, work hard to ensure that closures are kept to a minimum. We are thankful to the volunteers who play a huge role in supporting the centre and keeping it operational and open to the public, however, a member of staff is required to always be on site with them and at times throughout this year this has not been possible.
Public Question from Daniel Parkin
Can the leader explain why he told Council on 22 February that a 'detailed report' from KPMG did 'not exist', whereas in fact two reports existed at that stage - a 55-page report with two appendices, dated September 2021; and a second report entitled 'Commercialisation of assets', completed six days prior to the meeting. It would also be good to have an apology from whoever withheld these reports from elected members; had they seen the warnings on page 43 of the first report, re 'SPV borrowing', they might have voted down the budget and a costly fiasco could have been avoided.
Response from Councillor Drew Mellor, Leader of the Council
The statement I made on 22 February was not incorrect, as the report which existed at that stage was still in development and subject change. The relevant advice from KPMG was included in the content of the Cabinet/Council report.
Public Question from Alex McKinstry
Can we have a detailed explanation of how and why the KPMG reports were withheld from councillors in the run-up to February's budget. This came up at the recent scrutiny meeting, and several factors were hypothetically discussed, including a leader's "determination that a draft document should not be released". These reports are clearly not drafts, however; and in any case, I can't see how a leader's determination could take precedence over the rule of law - Section 100F LGA 1972, or the common-law "need to know", which is crucial if councillors are to perform due diligence on a controversial budget.
Response from Councillor Drew Mellor, Leader of the Council
My decision not to disclose the draft KPMG reports was made on advice and in consideration of the available information at the time. Relevant KPMG advice was included in the written report brought to Cabinet and Council.
Statement from Jamie Dunn
The possibility of injuries in school is always present, so making sure everyone based there are equipped to handle different types of injuries is important. Last year I contacted Cllr Greene and Sarah Rempel respectively asking for support within the BCP community of schools. I introduced Zach Griffiths from the British Red Cross South division. Within six months, a large uptake of bookings have been placed with the BRC and delivered across a number of BCP venues. Further discussions are ongoing on introducing first aid classes within the school day. Let's take the opportunity to lead on such an issue.
Public Question from Ian Lawrence
We're told BCP is our "most efficient Council"- a template. In December Planning proudly announced stopping answering the public for "clearance week" as meeting challenges but suggesting understaffing or low customer service priority. Planning's failed to answer my simple customer service complaint from 22/11/21. Can Cllr Broadhead explain why despite reminders on 11/1/22, 19/4/22, 13/7/22, 16/8/22, 1/9/22 even a 26/4/22 council meeting statement? Is 9 months and counting acceptable to receive an answer from a department which claims, "We aim to provide responses within 20 working days" So far 181. Why this delay? Overworked, inefficient, poor customer service training, leadership?
Response from Councillor Bobbie Dove, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Regulatory Services
Thank you for the question. Mr Lawrence’s complaint response has now been issued with an apology with the length of time that it has taken. It was an unacceptable delay for which the Planning Department is truly sorry. In response a review of the complaints process is underway to ensure such delays wherever possible do not happen again.
Public Question from Jamie Dunn
Whilst support for the importance of adding first aid to our school curriculums have been cascaded in such as the likes of my social media posts or tweets, no evidential support has been given to our local schools since.
Can I ask for a detailed response as to why this is and indeed what the educational lead of BCP council is going to do in liaising with the education secretary on bringing First aid onto our Dorset school curriculums?
Public Question from Jamie Dunn
Upton Country Park used to be a free to park destination. If a young family chooses to spend a day at UCP then they are required to pay £6 or more if at least 4 hours are spent. Since my UCP statement was read out in January full council, no correspondence and no prices have chosen to be reviewed. The public are continuing to find other residential roads, namely in Creekmoor, Upton and Hamworthy around the perimeter of UCP.
Can I ask why this continues to be the case and when prices will be reviewed at council level?
Response from Councillor Mark Anderson, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Place
I would like to thank Mr Dunn for this and the other questions he has previously asked regarding parking around Upton Country Park.
The multi award-winning Upton Country Park and Grade II* listed Upton House is visited by over 600,000 people annually. The 160 acre site is open seven days a week and unlike many large parks and attractions is free to enter, with facilities such as the children’s play park, splash fountain and bird hide free for all visitors to enjoy. The Park also supports a range of community programmes, from student work placements, youth volunteers, gardening and conservation groups to works with local schools, colleges, and universities to support education and learning experiences. During school holidays the Park hosts free or low-cost subsidised activities for families.
BCP Council has made significant investment to create a new network of sustainable transport routes, providing safe and environmentally friendly travel alternatives to driving. Upton Country Park can be reached by foot, cycle, train, and bus. Using alternatives to the car reduces carbon emissions and improves air quality and will make significant steps in tackling local and national transport and environmental issues.
The low parking tariffs at the park for those who want to drive still provide excellent value, and regular park users can buy a parking season ticket for the equivalent of less than £1 per week. Following public consultation, car park charges were introduced in 2017 with all monies raised from parking supports Upton Country Park conservation, maintenance, and education programmes and helps to reduce the pressure on BCP Council budgets, allowing for other investments to support local people.
Public Question from Daniel Parkin
Mr Broadhead, in August 2021 you stated it was absolutely unacceptable the spilling of sewage off of Boscombe Pier from local water company, and said frankly that you were in a position of saying enough is enough now and you were not taking no for an answer. However, it seems that your words have fallen on deaf ears considering you have not responded at all with this summers continuous dumping of sewage into our sea our rivers. Will you at least issue warning flags/signs when this repeatedly happens again, rather than focus on sale of beach huts and commercialisation of our beaches.
Response from Councillor Mark Anderson, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Place
I would like to thank Mr Parkin for his question.
I do however take exception with his suggestions regarding sewage pumping onto the beach. I have concerns regarding the way the environment agencies predicted water quality alerts are treated and as such I am doing something about it.
Boscombe beach was red-flagged by the RNLI on many occasions this summer as they respond to these Pollution Risk Forecasts produced by the Environment Agency. These forecasts are based on many factors such as forecasted rain, tide and wind conditions.
The council have for the last 2 years being running a water quality trial in Poole Harbour and Poole lagoon and I believe this technique should now be used in a real-world solution. You may have seen the press release about this. I am aiming to put sensors on Boscombe pier along with measuring equipment next year and using the council’s Smart Place Infrastructure will provide real time water quality measurements, we hope that the project will cover more parameters than the EA basic bacteria count, which is a crude measure of quality. It will, more importantly, by providing real time water quality measurements, ensure that red flags for water quality will be based on facts rather than predictions.
I hope this explains what we have been doing about the sewage on the beach perceptions and I now need to refute the claim about “continuous dumping of sewage into our sea at Boscombe”
Firstly, people confuse Storm overflows with Surface water outfalls, Surface water outfalls collect the rainwater that falls onto roofs and roads flows into road drains and gullies. This rainwater as well as any other water that enters the drains and gullies then flows through these underground pipes and into the nearest river or the sea. They are not connected to the sewage network. There is one on the west side of Boscombe pier.
The storm overflow at Boscombe Pier operated 3 times in this bathing season (15th May to 30th Sept) for a total of 1 hour 22 minutes during heavy storms. These are the pipes that take the overflows from the treatment plant 500 metres out to sea before releasing a mixture of sewage and a lot of rainfall. Whilst I would rather there were no storm overflows this is certainly not Wessex Water continuous dumping of sewage into our sea this summer.
So, the Boscombe pier area is not covered with sewage that has been pumped out continuously through the summer!
The preliminary results on water quality testing are looking good. The EA are yet to publish the final classifications for the 2022 Bathing Season but based on the spot sample data, they are looking very good for BCP. The classification results are usually published in November, although in the last few years there have been delays due to Covid, so I’m not sure of the exact timescale for this.
I have some comprehensive Bathing waters data - sample history, taken by the Environment Authority and will give you the information as part of the written answer, and from the data presented for 2022, it looks as though there was only one sample taken which didn’t achieve Excellent status, on 8th September. All the samples achieved Excellent for EColi, obviously this data need to go through the EA/Defra QA process but I believe that the 2022 classification for Boscombe Pier may well be Excellent, as it was in 2021.
Public Question from Soo Chapman
Planet Earth has become a crime scene. Mother Nature is being sacrificed to the deadly industries that have lied to us about their destructive capabilities for fifty years. We watch in horror as the Global Incineration Event destabilises our only home and note that Pakistan is demanding climate reparations from rich carbon- polluting countries.
Resource wars, hunger, extinctions, further loss and damage must be avoided. Project Drawdown and behaviour change must start now.
When will BCP's overdue Public Information Programme inform, motivate and incentivise all citizens to protect and value the biosphere, without which we will not survive?
Response from Councillor Mike Greene, Portfolio Holder for Sustainability and Transport
At BCP Council we are committed to our goals of net zero for the Council by 2030 and the BCP Area by 2050, or earlier. We have to ensure we use our budgets as wisely as possible. Over and above what information is already communicated to the general public, we prioritise action over information campaigns at this point in time so that we can demonstrate a direct contribution of our activities towards our own and the BCP Area’s GHG emission reduction targets. In the past two years we have utilised our budgets to help leverage significantly more money from central government, including utilising £150k from our Green Futures Fund to receive £1.9M from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to reduce energy use in our buildings, saving over 200 tonnes of carbon per year, and we utilised £120K from the climate budget to assist 600 local homes to receive over £2M in energy cost savings on their bills and reduce over 1,000 tonnes of carbon annually.
Statement from Julie Redman (Read out of Graham)
Bounce Back Challenge Fund awarded 109 grants totalling £3million. Applications were initially assessed by Dorset Growth Hub who recommended a grant amount to award. 14 applications rejected by Dorset Growth Hub received grants totalling £470,000. 39 applications who the Dorset Growth Hub recommended received grants totalling £640,000, were actually given grants totalling £2million. One example, Bournemouth 7’s, £15,000 recommended, awarded £70,000. Their profit in 2021 was more than half a million pounds. 211 businesses went without financial support because Cllr Broadhead and the Economic Development Team gave 53 applicants a total of £1.8 million more than Dorset Growth Hub recommended.
Statement from Philip Stanley (Read out of Graham)
Urban planning today will affect the wellbeing of future generations. Building endless flats and tall buildings with token small green spaces will create densely packed environments leading to a lack of ecosystems. There should be more natural elements within the built environment such as green roofs and designing buildings that mimic patterns found in nature. Far too often developers sit on planning applications, and they cut down too many trees without replacing all of them.
Public Question from Phil Hanchett
Following a recent study in Chichester Harbour it was found that derelict glass fibre boats do not biodegrade; rather they degrade into strands that can cause cancer in aquatic organisms and become part of the food chain in the form of microplastics. Would BCP support BeachPeople’s second campaign, called BADBOATS, by assisting either with the collection of, or the disposal of, the derelict glass fibre boats sunk and beached around Poole Harbour? BeachPeople intend to work with BCP and PHC to effect a permanent solution to this problem, prevention being better than cure. For more info please see:
https://beachpeople.club/index.php/campaigns/derelict-boats
Response from Councillor Mark Anderson, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Place
I would like to thank Mr Hanchett for his question and I’m glad the work we have done together on Kite beach is coming to fruition.
The short answer is a qualified YES, we are very keen to support the campaign in relation to sunken boats in the Harbour’s as we agree with Mr Hanchett and the BeachPeople that these are an ecological and environmental hazard and need to be removed. For those areas of the shoreline that are council land and used by us, we will work with the BeachPeople to develop a method for removal, this includes the greenspaces controlled by Environment, and beaches controlled by Destination and Culture. However, there are areas which, whilst council land is leased to other users, and we may not be able to assist with.
Statement from Phil Hanchett
Re. BeachPeople’s application to have Whitley Lake, Sandbanks designated as a bathing water:
The data collection phase is now complete and the report has been submitted to Defra. Numbers exceeded 400 on several occasions. Defra asked for further detail on what facilities there are that promote bathing and Councillor Mark Anderson provided detail to BeachPeople on BCP’s future plans; Version 2 of the report was then sent to Defra. If Defra accept the application has merit then it will now go out to national consultation – major stakeholders include BCP and PHC. BeachPeople thanks Cllr Mark Anderson for his continual support.
Public Question from Roger West to the Chairman of Council
Muslim Soldiers in the First World War
Members,
I was shocked to learn that 100,000 Muslim Soldiers died serving France in the First World War. I don’t know the comparable figures for the Muslim Soldiers who were recruited into the British Army during this time: it must have been enormous.
This building was a hospital for Indian soldiers in 1914/15 whose faiths were Muslim, Hindu or Sheik.
We must acknowledge our debt to the Muslim soldiers. Our Hindu Prime Minister must ensure those of other faiths are also given the respect they deserve.
Response from Councillor David Kelsey
It is my intention that we should have a blue plaque on this building, and that will be done at the earliest possible time and once this building is fully open and running so that we can invite members of the muslim community along to see that plaque opened. It is also my intention to include the ANZAC forces on that plaque as it wasn’t just muslim soldiers that were hospitalised here it was also many from the ANZAC community and I feel that it is only right that we have both mentioned on the same plaque. That will be done at the earliest opportunity as soon as the building is fully refurbished and reopened to the public.
Statement from Daniel Parkin
In a recent livestream, the auditor from Grant Thornton, intimated concerns around a CIL payment of £330,000 to BCP Council relating to the Durley Car Park Development.
The auditor raised matter as unable to identify where these receipts had been distributed. He further stated he was unable to investigate further, as investigative limits £790,000. I am guessing this is because it would be uneconomic for his firm to investigate.
I ask the Section 151 officer to provide further details of where this money was directed, by way of an announcement / notice of clarification on the BCP website.
In last month’s Audit Committee, councillors agreed to exclude proposed changes which would have restricted public participation in council meetings.
But in a rather hurried outcome, the most controversial proposal was missed.
This would remove the public’s ability to have an Officer deliver a question on their behalf. This discriminates against workers, carers and others who cannot physically attend public meetings. Above all, it directly discriminates against disabled and neurodiverse people.
This may leave Council in breach of the Equality Act 2010.
This is an appalling prospect.
I urge Councillors to support an amendment to avert this discriminatory act.