The deadline for questions to be submitted to the Monitoring Officer is 15 July 2024.
Minutes:
Question from Councillor P Canavan:
The BCP Access to Food Partnership is currently funded by the National Lottery Community Fund until April 2025. What steps can be taken to ensure that funding is maintained and, if necessary, is it possible to ensure that there is an allocation in the budget to ensure that this important work can continue?
Reply from the Leader of the Council, Councillor M Earl on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Finance
As a member of the Access to Food Partnership since its inception through my work founding the community fridges in my own community, and through my work on its steering group since becoming a Portfolio Holder, I agree that the work of the partnership is incredibly important and have experienced first-hand how it has taken our community food provision coordination and cooperation to award winning heights.
I’m delighted to report that in recognition of the outstanding work of the Partnership, the National lottery have confirmed that they are extending the funding for a further year until March 2026. To ensure that this kind of valuable preventative work continues sustainably beyond that, Cabinet is holding a workshop around a number of projects that sit under the Empowering Communities strand of work in August.
Question from Councillor E Connolly:
What is the strategy for developing opportunities for external and internal income generation through progressing tender processes for small businesses such as food and drink vendors in popular sites?
Reply from the Leader of the Council, Councillor M Earl on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Finance
Commercial operations reviews, new opportunities to deliver internally and externally across all of our sites. The approach taken in relation to any offer being internally or externally delivered will vary dependent on several factors as would be identified through an analysis of the opportunity. These would include items such as strategic objective that the opportunity is supporting, if it is a temporary or a longer term offer and the location of the opportunity in relation to logistics arrangements.
As opportunities arise, the relevant processes, including procurement and ensuring the relevant planning permissions were in place would be undertaken. An example would be street food corner in Bournemouth Slower Gardens. Pictures are advertised through a mailing list, social media and on nationwide caterers associations websites and assessed on quality.
Bookings for a maximum of a month are taken to ensure a changing offer. For larger town events, these are done through a more detailed procurement process with quality and pricing assessments. Thank you.
Supplementary Question from Councillor E Connolly
So, there are plenty of busy spots across BCP where small pop-ups like coffee vans would be an improvement on existing services, improve the offer for visitors and locals and not be to the detriment of council income. And there are residents in my ward who would be keen to apply for short simple trials of that sort of thing. But from that answer previously, it's not very clear to me what the strategy is for that and how to go about it, how the decisions are made and that process. So perhaps by follow up, could the Portfolio Holder confirm that the Council is actively looking to explore such opportunities for every generation and that there aren't any barriers within the Council that would prevent those being looked at? Thank you.
Reply from the Leader of the Council, Councillor M Earl on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Finance
I will actually feed back to the Portfolio Holder and we'll try and get a bit more of an in-depth answer on that. But from my experience, the commercial operations team are open to suggestions of ways in which people can utilize land, utilize some of our key sites and be able to actually generate an income for the Council through that. So there are no barriers, it's more around who can come to us and deliver. Obviously, when we have a site or a place that comes up, we have to go through the procurement process which is a little bit different. So I'd always recommend that external organisations and businesses come to us in the first instance if they've seen an opportunity. Thank you.
Question from Councillor E Connolly:
Where a waste bin is contaminated and is not collected by the refuse team, what is the policy on providing labelling and signage and providing instructions on how to have the refuse removed?
Reply from the Leader of the Council, Councillor M Earl on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Climate Response, Environment and Energy
Our recycling crew check your bin before collecting it and if there's something in there that shouldn't be, it will not be collected and they will leave a tag attached to it. The tag has a list of common items and will help you find out what was in the bin that should not be.
Once you have removed the incorrect items and tag, it can then be placed out for collection on your next recycling collection day. If you cannot remove the items or you have too much waste to fit in your bin, you will need to take it to a recycling centre.
Supplementary Question from Councillor E Connolly
In Boscombe, we have lots of flats, HMOs, high turnover of residents and there's repeated instances of people inadvertently contaminating waste or not understanding the rules or passers-by using the bins. For some reason, it seems as though labelling isn't being applied as the policy everywhere. So a lot of people are finding that they don't know what to do with it, they don't know why it's being contaminated. And then it becomes a focal point for fly-tipping and other rubbish. So it's really important that it's labelled and people know the next steps. So, could you do a little bit of investigating into whether there are the gaps and whether that policy is being applied and making sure that the label has always been applied or could be expanded? Thank you.
Reply from the Leader of the Council, Councillor M Earl on behalf of the Portfolio Holder for Climate Response, Environment and Energy
I actually had an incident reported to me from a shop over in Southbourne recently, which had someone dump a load of rubbish in a private bin, in a commercially operated bin, from a business. And we kind of went down this route of having to discover, having to find out what to do with it because it didn't feel reasonable to wheel it down to the tip.
The best advice that I got from that and what the resident has now implemented is that actually it's around security. So I would always encourage people to secure their bins, to prevent fly-tipping, to prevent people putting stuff into it. When I worked at Bournemouth Food Bank, we used to have a lock on our bin to stop all sorts of people using it. So I'd really recommend that that as an opportunity. And the other thing, of course, is to keep it fenced off and keep it in a particular area where it's not accessible to passers-by. But I'll take on board your comments and I'll feed them back to the Portfolio Holder for a more thorough response. Thanks.