Agenda item

The deadline for questions to be submitted to the Monitoring Officer is 1 November 2021.

Question from Councillor George Farquhar

As a follow on from the question I asked at Full Council on Tuesday the 5^th January I have waited the Constitutionally required six months before being allowed to ask this question of the Leader of the Council.

 

Following the discussions with the Department for Transport aided by the Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East, will the Council commit to match funding the budgets in the public domain from South Western Railway and Network Rail for the installation and commissioning of the long overdue accessibility lifts at ‘Pokesdown for Boscombe Station’ in the ward I am proud to represent? If so when? And how much?

 

Reply from Councillor Mike Greene, Cabinet Member for Sustainability and Transport

This is a subject that has been high on my agenda for a number of years, following the excellent and successful campaign led by Cllr Andy Jones, which resulted in the obligation for lifts at Pokesdown Station to be included as a requirement for the South Western Railways franchise.

 

Several meetings have been held between the BCP Council leadership, South Western Railways, Network Rail and the MP for Bournemouth East to consider the various options ahead and officers are now working closely in partnership with both those organizations towards anticipated improvements to the Pokesdown Railway Station. It is hoped that these improvements will include not only the fully accessible lifts, but other enhancements too.

 

Over the last few months, at BCP’s request, South Western Railways and Network Rail have been working on a business case that identifies the scope of the project, and the relative funding position for each of them. Technical work is continuing alongside this.

 

I am delighted to confirm that at the next Cabinet meeting, on November 24^th, I will be asking for approval for up to £2.6m from the Futures Fund set up by this Conservative administration to be allocated as a potential BCP contribution. This is to cover the shortfall from partners who themselves have identified, subject to their own internal approvals, that they will contribute a total of £3.1m.

 

I understand that Cllr Farquhar is new to this, but sure he will be delighted that after so many years of operator delay, it looks like all the work done by his colleague, Cllr Andy Jones is finally close to bearing fruit.

 

Question from Councillor Eddie Coope

Can the cabinet member explain why the Long Groyne has been secured to prevent access and how secure is it and can the cabinet member tell me what is happening with the future of the Long Groyne.

 

Reply from Councillor Mark Anderson, Cabinet Member for Environment and Place

I would like to thank Cllr Coope for his question, The upgrade/replacement of the Long Groyne forms part of the current Poole Bay Beach Management Scheme for which we secured £36m funding last year. Initial structural investigations undertaken to help inform condition assessment and design parameters revealed significant voiding within the existing structure. On completion of these investigations, it was deemed appropriate to prevent access along the groyne due to the health and safety risk posed by potential movement or collapse of the structure.

 

As for any maritime structure like this, erecting safety barriers etc is extremely difficult as it is easily damaged during storm periods. The method adopted was designed and erected in liaison with BCP insurance personal to make sure the balance of security and signage was acceptable. No member of public could access past the gate and associated signage without being fully aware of the risk and it would take significant effort to do so.

 

At present ground investigations (boreholes etc) are due to start this month to inform design conditions. We are planning to go to tender in March/April 2022 on a design and build contract, with the design phase being undertaken next year and construction starting in Spring 2023. Due to environmental licence constraints, as well as being sensible programming for marine construction, the build will take place during the summer months, aiming for completion during Autumn 2023.

 

It is also important to remind Council that we will not be significantly changing the length or alignment of the groyne. It will be more about rebuilding to make structurally sound and increasing height to allow for future sea level rise. It will also bring up to date the understanding of rock stability to ensure an appropriate design for future storm events. There was some consideration for slight adjustment to the angle of the groyne to optimise sediment retention to the west, however this could pose risk via exposing a harsher wave climate to Mudeford Spit and Christchurch Harbour entrance.

 

Councillor Coope, as a supplementary question, asked if the groyne was as secure as possible.  Councillor Mark Anderson confirmed that he can assure Councillor Coope that the groyne was secure.

 

Question from Councillor Ann Stribley

Residents in the Parkstone/Penn Hill area have recently received a leaflet from Poole Liberal Democrats which purports to be a street survey, but states -

“The Conservative-led Council has recently spent £90,000 on two new mayoral limos.”

Is this statement true?

 

Reply from Councillor Mike Greene, Cabinet Member for Sustainability and Transport

I have seen the leaflet to which Cllr Stribley refers. It takes the form of a multiple-choice survey and features the names and pictures of three Liberal Democrat councillors. It says “The Conservative-led Council has recently spent £90,000 on two new mayoral limos” and asks residents: “How do you rate this as value for money for Poole tax-payers?” – “Appalling Waste, Poor Value, Good Value or Excellent use of funds”.

 

It is a shame that the authors did not add a further option, asking residents if they thought it might be: “simply a Liberal Democrat lie”.

 

When the Conservatives inherited the draft Fleet Replacement Strategy from the previous Liberal-Democrat led Administration a year ago, it was, to say the least, wholly inadequate: planning to replace a tiny fraction of our 600-odd vehicles with their electric equivalents. I am delighted to note that the Strategy we approved increased this to around a third of replacements to be with ULEV in the first 3-year phase alone, with an anticipation that this will see a large step up again in the following three years. In addition, we have replaced the diesel used by the non-electric fleet with a fully sustainable alternative drop-in fuel made from Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil. The net result is a predicted reduction in our fleet’s carbon emissions of more than 90%.

 

Councillor Evans during the response to the question raised a point of order indicated that the information provided did not seem relevant to the response.  The Chairman asked for the answer to the question. 

 

In the correct financially prudent way, the Strategy identified all vehicles that would reach end of life during the period and what, if replaced like-for-like, the cost would be. It was explained carefully to everyone at the Overview and Scrutiny meeting which discussed the strategy that this did not mean that individual purchases would go ahead. Maybe the Liberal Democrats present either did not listen to or did not understand that simple fact; but maybe it’s telling too that out of a £31 million strategy which forms a massive step forward in the Council’s objective to become Carbon neutral by 2030, they chose to focus all their energy on this one budget line and almost none on the other 99.7%.

 

Just to confirm to everyone:  the line in the Liberal Democrat leaflet which says that “BCP Council has recently spent £90k on two new mayoral limos” is completely false. Was it written knowingly or unknowingly? I know what I think.

 

Councillor Stribley as a supplementary question asked what action the Portfolio Holder thinks this Council should take regarding Members who were either responsible for or complicit in circulating deliberate untruths.  The Chairman advised that he was disinclined to allow the supplementary question. Councillor Wilson, by way of a point of order, asked on what grounds was the supplementary question being disallowed.  The Chairman indicated that he did not feel it was pertinent to the original response given by the Portfolio Holder. 

 

Question from Councillor Daniel Butt

Hamworthy is in dire need of a new sea wall along a significant stretch. Can the leader tell me what efforts are underway to find a long-term solution to this problem, which has been brewing for years?

 

Reply from Councillor Drew Mellor, Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance & Transformation.

My colleague, Cllr Mark Anderson and the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) team have done significant work in this area to both gain an understanding of the level of defects and to discuss a mitigation strategy with the friends of Hamworthy park. A maintenance report has been completed for these defects along with a priced solution to robustly repair the seawall and path in this popular location.

 

I thank you for raising this issue with me personally and I am delighted to confirm that post your intervention it is this administrations intention to bring forward a capital programme to rectify this situation, to invest in Hamworthy and to ensure we keep investing in Hamworthy.

 

Question from Councillor Tony Trent

No doubt other members have received representations on this, albeit that many got caught in BCP Council’s “Junk Mail” folder and may not have been read by the intended recipients.

 

At the November 2020 meeting of BCP Council (with the item debated on 8^th December 2020) the council passed a motion relating to fireworks.  One of the actions required under the motion was for the Portfolio Holder, which I believe was Cllr. Anderson, to write to the Government urging them to pass legislation limiting the maximum noise level to 90dB for private fireworks displays.  Could I be told what action, if any, has been taken to follow up this request, and to take the concerns expressed further.

 

The motion also requested that the Portfolio Holder encourage local retailers to stock quieter fireworks, and I would be grateful if it could be confirmed what action has been taken on this. 

 

Finally, the motion called for a public awareness campaign on fireworks, but there does not appear any record of it having been done so far.  Can it be confirmed if action has been taken on this, and when it took place.

 

Reply from Councillor Mark Anderson, Cabinet Member for Environment and Place

I would like to thank Cllr Trent for his question, I received an almost identical question from another Councillor via email last week and as I told her in my response this isn’t my portfolio as it’s really concerned with Noise and Publicity which are covered by the Enforcement team and Communications, but I investigated it to provide an answer.

 

The first thing I did was look up the motion and I thought it might be useful to remind members as well: -

The motion states that "This Council resolves: - 

(a) to require all public firework displays within the local authority boundaries to be advertised in advance of the event, allowing residents to take precautions for their animals and vulnerable people. 

(b) to actively promote a public awareness campaign about the impact of fireworks on animal welfare and vulnerable people – including the precautions that can be taken to mitigate risks. 

(c) to write to the UK Government urging them to introduce legislation to limit the maximum noise level of fireworks to 90dB for those sold to the public for private displays. 

(d) to encourage local suppliers of fireworks to stock ‘quieter’ fireworks for public private display."

 

Interestingly it appears three of the parts of the motion are already carried out, responding to these 3: -

Part a) which is conceivably the only part that is an Environment issue, public fireworks on Council land are advertised anyway and we cannot require those holding displays on private land to publicise (as there is no license or permit requirement).  There was only one Fireworks display on council land this November and that was at Poole Quay. This has been promoted as the lead story in all destination consumer emails as well as being included in the council’s events weekly email.

 

Part b) I have been told the council comms team were sending out daily social media posts and email news to residents in the build up to bonfire night and I believe the campaign is linked to the national governments campaign on fireworks. I have several of the infographics that were sent out on this with the earliest one I have seen being dated the 27th of October.

 

Part d) As part of national campaigning on noise & safety of fireworks, local retailers are already encouraged by our Trading Standards Officers to stock low-noise fireworks whilst they carry out the annual licensing visit to ensure safe storage of pyrotechnics. We have no jurisdiction to require the inclusion of low-noise fireworks by retailers, although TSOs report general acceptance of the desirability to stock them. An on-line check by the TS Manager recently indicated that the vast majority of local retailers do in fact already stock low-noise fireworks. We have also arranged for future licence inspections to include a question on the proportion of sales that relate to low-noise fireworks. Again, we have no jurisdiction to require this info, but feedback from TSOs suggests that retailers are quite cooperative and willing to assist.

 

So, returning to Part C of the motion where Cllr Trent believed I am required to write to the government requiring a maximum 90db noise level for fireworks, I would like to reiterate I was not specified in the motion and the majority of the requirements are not in my portfolio, in fact no PFH was specified in the motion to do this.

 

Now specifying 90db as a noise level is I’m afraid meaningless unless a minimum distance is specified, this is an area of physics that comes under the Inverse square law, so if you double the distance, you half in this case the sound.

 

I did ask Environmental Health about stipulating a 90 decibel (dB) limit and was told that “stipulating a sound pressure level in isolation would not convey a definable or measurable proposal.” and for legislation be passed that covered all categories of fireworks, including for home displays, the testing regime would need to be specified.

 

On further investigation I discovered that this is the testing regime currently stipulated under Regulation 8 of the Fireworks Regulations 2004, which for Category 3 fireworks (outdoor fireworks with spectator safety distances of at least 25m) is set at 120dBA. A sound level meter that measures A-weighted decibels, has a similar sensitivity to sound at different frequencies to the average human ear and is the one most commonly used for measuring loud noise.

 

I can however confirm that a letter was sent to the government regarding the 90db level, I am not aware of any follow up to the letter although I can confirm that action was already being taken on the other three items and has for a while.

 

Councillor Trent as a supplementary question asked what the point was of sending a press release on 4 November which would not have appeared in print until 5 November on firework safety and could one of the regular press releases have included an article that was in the wider public interest.  Councillor Anderson reported that just because Councillor Trent had received the release on 4 November does not mean that was when it was published.  He explained that Communications had sent out earlier publications the earliest that he had seen was on 27 October 2021 whilst highlighting that such information needs to be published in a suitable time period. 

 

Question from Councillor Lewis Allison

In previous months, in response to the ongoing Afghanistan refugee crisis, Local Authorities across the UK have been providing homes and support for refugee families, It’s recently been announced that BCP Council will only be taking in one family, why is our commitment so low in comparison to other similar sized councils?

 

Reply from Councillor Karen Rampton, Cabinet Member for People and Homes

BCP Council are supporting one of the national Bridging Hotels initiated by the Home Office to provide temporary housing for Afghan Refugees.  BCP Council has been facilitating a multi-agency effort to support multiple families at the Hotel since 17^th September. 

 

The Home Office has provided accommodation at the Hotel, the food, and basic provisions.  The Local Authority were asked to mobilise support to the families ensuring they can both access statutory and other relevant services and integrate within the community.  This support has been provided from Children’s Services, Adult Social Care, Housing, Schools and Education, Primary health care, public health and the voluntary sector.  We continue to support many families in this setting.

 

Some of the multi-agency achievements to date are:

 

• Children start school on 8^th November
• All families are registered with a GP and have been screened for medical needs. 
• High percentage of adults have been vaccinated for COVID and Flu
• ESOL classes are in place for adults
• DWP have assisted all families to access Universal Credit and other relevant benefits. 
• The DWP work coaches are now proactively working with families to access work and training. 
• The community and voluntary sector including Shout Out, the Red Cross, and ICN have played a key role in this effort, providing interpreters, clothing and activities for children.
• Local businesses including JP Morgan and AFC Bournemouth have also offered their support including running weekly football skills with the children.

 

Prior to these families arriving in the UK allLocal Authorities were asked to consider assisting in the efforts to provide long term settled properties for the families.  We ran a campaign focussing on private landlords requesting help to deliver this locally.  BCP have so far provided one property for a family in October.  Another property has since been secured and a family matched to who are due to arrive at the end of November.  A further 2 properties have been identified and the details are being provided to the Home Office. 

 

We continue to run our property request campaign on our web page, social media and our landlord newsletter and persist in working on leads for offers of additional accommodation.  ICN (International Care Networks) are commissioned to provide the resettlement support for families who move into this accommodation for up to three years.

 

BCP Council and our partners are committed to playing our part in this national effort.

 

Question from Councillor Andy Hadley

With COP26 underway, leaders across the World are discussing urgent actions to mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. This includes the handling of sewage.

 

I’m grateful that a members seminar was organised so Wessex Water could share their position and plans last month. We were told that they are allowed to discharge up to 10 times a year from any outfall, but this is being significantly exceeded, with 44 events logged at two local sites in 2020.

 

I am though sorry to learn that our local MPs would not accept changes to regulation, though following the national outcries, the Wessex Water Chief Executive was moved to write to us. Can the Portfolio-holder please briefly advise what particular measures he is now undertaking to accelerate efforts given the Wessex Water plan to 2025 seems mostly just to be monitoring the spread of sewage, that fouls our beaches and regularly shuts down our shell fisheries.

 

Reply from Councillor Mark Anderson, Cabinet Member for Environment and Place

I would like to thank Cllr Hadley for his question, I would also like to remind the council that we have 8 blue flags and award winning beaches!

 

The Environment Agency is the regulator of Wessex Water in relation to sewer overflows, although the Council continues to represent the interests of local residents and businesses who remain concerned that the current sewage infrastructure is inadequate for the level of storms and heavy rainfall.

 

The Council’s legal responsibilities are centred on the work carried out by Environmental Health in classifying Poole Harbour waters for shellfish harvesting, as well as for testing the biological quality of harvested shellfish intended for sale and export. The Council has on occasion been required to serve temporary closure notices on the shellfish harvesting sites, as a result of sewage outflows.

 

Following such an event in November 2019 when Storm Pablo struck, the Council established the Poole Harbour Sewage Outfall Stakeholder Group. The aim was to influence local infrastructure investment and national policy in relation to the issue of spills arising from storm overflows in the Harbour and its tributaries. This strategic group comprises Wessex Water, the Environment Agency, Public Health England, the Food Standards Agency, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Southern Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authority, and BCP Council.

 

Through this group the Council and other partners continue to influence and encourage Wessex Water to develop their investment strategy in relation to sewer and water treatment infrastructure.  The Council does not however have any regulatory or enforcement powers with regards sewage outflows from Wessex Water.

 

In 2020 Defra established the Storm Overflows Taskforce, comprising Defra, the EA, Ofwat, Consumer Council for Water, Blueprint for Water and Water UK, which aims to establish proposals to reduce the frequency and volumes of storm overflow spills. The Council wrote to Defra requesting local participation in the Taskforce and received a favourable response advising that an invite will be forthcoming, although this has yet to happen despite a reminder being sent.

 

The Group also aspires to enable greater information sharing about storm overflow operation and other factors affecting water quality, in order to enable earlier warning where possible. The aspiration is to move away from reactive lab analysis towards dynamic risk assessments providing real-time data for stakeholders and businesses. A small working group, including the Council, CEFAS, SIFCA, and UKHSA, has been formed to develop project proposals to develop innovative data/AI sharing within the Harbour and coastal settings.

 

It is also worth noting that as parliament is currently debating this, it will be prudent for us to wait until they have finished before we consider what further actions we take.