Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Fazal, North and Wilkinson.

Apologies were also received from Councillors Benton, S Dalton and Hiller.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda.  Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 July 2009 were approved as an accurate record.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of three working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two members of a scrutiny committee or scrutiny commission.  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant scrutiny committee or Scrutiny Commission for Health Issues.

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

The Committee considered the responses made by the Executive to our recommendations from the last meeting.

The recommendations related to:

• Floods and Water Management Bill
• Environmental Enforcement and Education
• Response to Adverse Weather Conditions – Footpaths
• Biodiversity Strategy – Progress Report

The Executive Director of Operations confirmed that enforcement officers had discretion as to whether to issue enforcement notices for accidentally dropped litter.

ACTION AGREED

To note the responses to the recommendations made.

Councillor Benton, Cabinet Advisor for Neighbourhoods, Housing and Community Development will be in attendance for this item.

The Committee considered a report on the outcome of a review of subsidised bus services as part of the consultation process.

A review of Council subsidised bus services had been undertaken as a result of improvements to commercially operated bus services which had reduced the need for some Local Link journeys.  Subsequently, the number of passengers on these journeys had reduced.  In addition, a different way of delivering bus services to rural areas, providing either the same or better period of operation, had been identified.  This allowed the vehicle to operate only at times when the service was needed rather than adhering to a rigid timetable and the bus operating with no passengers on board; wasting resources and emitting needless CO2 emissions.  Some Local Link services had also seen an increase in patronage. 

All subsidised bus service contracts were incorporated into an initial overview assessment.  From this assessment, the Local Link rural, morning and evening bus journeys warranted further assessment due to the low numbers of passengers carried and relatively high subsidy per passenger journeys.  Patronage data from on-bus ticket machines and physical on-bus monitoring was analysed and used to assess the number of people impacted by the proposed changes. 

The review highlighted journeys carrying on average no more than ten passengers per journey.  Better value could be achieved by withdrawing those journeys and offering an alternative community transport service.  Officers had visited the Lincolnshire Call Connect centre and established that a service could be provided.  A further option was to provide a dial-a-ride service on one or more days per week between the hours of 9.30 am and 2.30 pm.  However, this would provide a significant drop in service to the residents of several rural villages.  With both options passengers would be required to pre-book their journey.  Other journeys highlighted carried more passengers and warranted a more substantial service.  It was recommended that those journeys were retendered. 

A consultation event will be held for councillors and parish councillors on 1 October and a petition was presented by Councillor Lamb in relation to the provision of bus services.

With the permission of the Chairman, Mr Rohan Wilson addressed the Committee on the Sunday service.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• How did the outcomes of the review meet the aspirations of the Local Transport Plan (LTP), particularly in relation to evening bus services?  As some villages only received a bus service three times a week this would be an improvement as Call Connect would be available 6 days a week.
• Some members were not convinced that the public would want to book a bus service but would wait to see the outcome of the consultation.  The service would have excellent publicity and the Team would talk to people, the fact that services had to be pre-booked had not been seen as a barrier in Lincolnshire.
• As a number of evening services were proposed to be withdrawn, was this moving away from the LTP?  Officers did not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committee considered the revised Biodiversity Strategy which had been updated by a working group of councillors and officers in respect of the new biodiversity duty brought in by S40 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.

The existing Biodiversity Strategy had been endorsed by Cabinet in October 2004. The Vision Statement which formed part of the Strategy was subsequently considered and adopted by full Council at its November 2004 meeting.

The incorporation of biodiversity into many of the Council’s functions and services could be achieved within existing resources, providing that this level was maintained. This was supported by the experience of the implementation of the 2004 Strategy.  However the updating of the Strategy had identified that some additional resources would be required. In some cases additional resource requirements could also be offset by seeking external funding for restoration of degraded habitats, however routine management could not generally be funded in this way.

A summary of the additional financial resource implications was summarised in the table below:

Owing to the success of the 2004 Strategy and the maintenance of existing resources in support of it, the degree of additional funding required to comply with the Biodiversity duty was greatly reduced.

Consultation had been undertaken with the Officers, Groups and organisations which had been consulted with respect to the original Biodiversity Strategy along with additional relevant organisations that had become known in the Peterborough area during the intervening time.

Councillor Sandford, as a member of the working group updating the strategy, had indicated agreement with all of the recommendations in the report with the exception of the following:

• Appendix B, point 21 (pesticides). Councillor Sandford had indicated that this should go further by requiring a commitment to reducing usage of herbicide progressively over time, and felt that a commitment to review usage was not useful if it did not state any intention to do anything as a result.  Councillor Sandford had indicated that previously there had been a commitment to reduce herbicide usage in the Council’s Environmental Strategy and for example organisations signing up to Forest Stewardship Council certification on sustainable tree/woodland management were required to make such a commitment.  

• Appendix E (nesting birds policy) in its entirety.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Committee received an update on the performance as at June 2009 of the Environment Capital outcomes contained within the Local Area Agreement (LAA) and the draft Environment Capital Work Programme.

Peterborough’s LAA contained four priorities: Creating Strong and Supportive Communities; Creating the UK’s Environment Capital; Creating Opportunities, Tackling Inequalities; Substantial and Truly Sustainable Growth.  Each of those priorities had four specific outcomes, beneath which sat a diverse range of actions and interventions to deliver lasting positive change for Peterborough.

The Environment Capital priority was measured by four specific outcomes: Overall Consumption of Natural Resources, Increasing the Use of Sustainable Transport, Growing our Environment Business Sector and Making Peterborough Cleaner and Greener.  A Red/Amber/Green flagging system was used to indicate overall performance against each of the outcomes – red indicated that the outcome was significantly behind target, amber indicated that the outcome was experiencing difficulties, and green indicated that the outcome was on target or had achieved its objectives.

The Environment Capital Work Programme was comprised of strategic projects which were aimed at maintaining momentum behind this important priority and to ensure that Peterborough could claim to be the UK’s Environment Capital.

Overall the Environment Capital priority was reported at Amber for this period.  The “Use of Natural Resources” outcome had slipped from Green to Red status in June.  This was due to a reduction in the overall amount of waste being collected coupled with an increased level of contamination of recycled materials.  A detailed analysis of areas where such problems were most prevalent coupled with a focussed education campaign were aimed at improving overall recycling performance.  It was probable that these actions would result in an improvement to Amber status over the coming months.  Further work was required to ascertain what more could be done to achieve the LAA target for 2009/10.  The “Cleaner and Greener” outcome had slipped from Green to Amber in June due to an increase in fly tipping reports and enforcement activity.  The combined impact was a rating of “not effective” in relation to National Indicator 196.  It was hoped that this would improve to “effective” at least by the end of 2009/10 thanks to a range of specific measures including awareness raising campaigns, increased enforcement activity and training of neighbourhood wardens to increase investigation and enforcement capacity.

The draft Environment Capital Work Programme comprised a number of strategic level outcomes aimed at ensuring that Peterborough achieved its ambition to become the UK’s Environment Capital.  All outcomes were adequately resourced by the lead organisation or partnership.  Officers had picked out the key activities which were likely to help us to achieve Environment Capital status, including the Sustainability Masterclass.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• Why has contamination of recycling become more of a problem?  There was a big issue around food and textiles.  With regards to textiles we were looking at a number or alternatives including working with charities.
• Why was the Sustainable Travel Officer post still unfilled?  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The latest version of the Forward Plan, showing details of the key decisions that the Leader of the Council believed the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would be making over the next four months, was received.

ACTION AGREED

To note the latest version of the Forward Plan.

We considered the Work Programme for 2009/10.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• The revenue budget which was agreed in February 2009 made a commitment to withdraw parking permits but nothing had happened to date.  This was a very complicated issue and we were progressing with negotiations with the recognised trade unions.  It was due to bring in savings of £100,000 during this year and £200,000 during next year but this was now unlikely to happen.  We would be encouraging staff to use sustainable modes of transport and Members’ parking passes would be considered by the Independent Members Allowances Panel.

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme 2009/10.

Thursday 12 November 2009 at 7pm

Thursday 12 November 2009 at 7pm.