Agenda item - Oral questions from councillors

A list of Councillors who have indicated their desire to ask an oral question at the meeting along with the subject matters has been listed in the agenda papers.

61.1         The Mayor reminded the Council that councillors’ oral questions would be taken in the order listed on the Council Agenda and that a period of 30 minutes was set aside for the item.  Should any questions not be reached at the end of the time period, those councillors would have the opportunity for their question to be carried over to the next Council meeting.

 

61.2         (a) Councillor G. Theobald asked, “A recent article in the Argus quoted a 35 year old traveller, John O’Leary from Ireland, who was part of an unlawful encampment at Waterhall over the Christmas period. Mr O’Leary said, “The Council has been so helpful, we’ve said a prayer for the council. We’re all so thankful that they have been so welcoming, they have let us use the toilets and brought bins down which have been regularly emptied. We now have confirmation that these welcoming policies of his administration towards travellers have led to considerably greater numbers of unlawful encampments in the city since May as evidenced by the government’s official caravan count in July and the unprecedented number of winter encampments this year.

 

            So will Councillor West take the opportunity to apologise to the Members of this Council and the residents of Brighton and Hove for misleadingly stating on a number of occasions that numbers of travellers in the city were no different from previous years?”

 

61.3         Councillor West replied, “Travelling communities are mobile, and therefore all count figures reflect a snapshot of a fluid situation.  My comments in June were correct and the situation at that time was similar to the normal seasonal increase that we experience in the early summer months.

 

            The official snapshot count happens twice a year, that wasn’t one of those points in time, and can be subject to significant variation depending on the circumstances on the date the count is taken.  The key issue for local people is the impact that encampments have in their local communities.

 

            Our monitoring has shown that our efforts over the summer resulted in a marked decrease in the number of traveller encampments in the city and this has helped to manage the impact that unauthorised encampments have had upon the local community.  During the first quarter of 2011/12 (from April until the end of June) there were 30 encampments compared to 11 in the same period the previous year. This increase was because the authority was moving the Traveller groups on twice as quick as before. However we recognised that this approach was not working as it caused the Travellers to fragment into a larger number of smaller encampments which impacted on local communities.

 

            To minimise the impact on local people we changed our approach and allowed a group to stay at the 19 Acres site.  As a direct result of this there was a 40% reduction in the number of encampments during the 2^nd quarter of 2011/12 with just 18 encampments.  This reduction was seen at the height of the summer where we would normally expect an increase and in fact there were 25% fewer encampments this time than the same period last summer where the previous administration saw 24 encampments.

 

            We have also successfully used site protection measures at a number of sites.  Withdean Park saw 5 encampments earlier in the year but our site protection works have made sure that there has not been a single encampment on the site since the works were done.

 

We have also worked with the Police to support Operation Monza during the summer where the Police made daily visits to encampments to improve relations with Travellers and reassure residents. During this period, not a single encampment needed to be moved because of nuisance or anti-social behaviour and our teams saw a marked decrease in resident complaints.

 

            The facts are clear; our approach is working and is helping to minimise the impact that encampments have upon local communities.”

 

61.4         Councillor G. Theobald asked the following supplementary question, “At his Cabinet Member Meeting on Tuesday, when discussing the warding of a new contract to service Horsdean and unlawful traveller encampments, Councillor West said that he was keen to normalise the relations between the travellers and the settled community.

 

            Given that the settled community pay for these sorts of facilities through Council Tax, will Councillor West undertake to seek a financial contribution from any future unlawful traveller encampments and also from Horsdean towards his services?”

 

61.5         Councillor West replied, “When we did discuss the new contract for traveller waste and refuse removal on Tuesday at my CMM, what I have discovered is that the contract that Councillor Theobald let some years ago to a private contractor was entirely the cost of collecting ordinary refuse from the small number of pitches at the transit site.  We would make a saving now by bringing the service in house and getting Cityclean to do that, we would save £24,000 a year just picking up their rubbish from but a small number of people.

 

            It is only a pity you didn’t spot the opportunity in the past.  I am not going to respond to your other wider questions because you haven’t, as some Members have been polite enough to do, kept your question within the frame of the original.”

 

61.6         (b) Councillor Mitchell asked, “Within its 2011/2012 budget, the Council identified a significant amount of funding for the drawing up and the implementation of a financial inclusion strategy for the city. With low income households turning, in increasing numbers, to loan sharks and pay day loan companies and in the face of benefit cuts to come, will Councillor Ben Duncan advise the council on the progress of this strategy and tell us when we can expect to see a comprehensive report on its implementation?”

 

61.7         Councillor Duncan replied, “We’ve seen, in the last couple of days, how the economy is shrinking, how economic mismanagement at a national level is causing real problems for people in the city and in the country. We’ve  hear a big debate about policy of capping benefits at a level below that which will be required for some families to make ends meet.

 

            We’re hearing this in a context of wide ranging changes to housing benefit which will leave a large a number of young people in this city really worrying about how they’ll have a home or a roof over their head at night and we’re seeing enormous proposed cuts in legal aid some of the harm of those cuts will be felt by victims of domestic violence who are unable in the way they have been in the past to get the advice they need on how best to live the life they want free from violence and abuse.

 

            There are just a few examples of the perfect storm in the advice and benefits system in this city and that’s why it was so important that we have taken this work forward.

 

            With the funding that was identified there have been two workshops which have been held by the advice partnership but a sub group of the 2020 community partnership with the council’s involvement which started by looking at what the problems are and then trying to work out some of the solutions. The key date around when we will see what the progress of all of these in terms on commissioning is April this year because that’s when the legal aid cuts come into force.

 

            There have of course been a number of projects which have progressed through the course of this period. These are, specialist advice services for people with disabilities, there have been a number of different path finder projects involving Brighton Housing Trust and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. There’s been a lot of work done on developing a new financial inclusion hub for the city and there’s been a working group that’s been looking at the quality standards of advice provided around the city.

 

            That’s as much detail as I can give you now, but watch this space April 2012 is when the work on this strategy which was funded last year will come to fruition in a way that we can look at the details of it.”

 

61.8         Councillor Mitchell asked the following supplementary question, “This strategy and the funding identified for it was something that you and your group voted against at the last budget council. You say that the legal aid cuts and so on are coming into force in April, could you give a guarantee to the council that you will be bringing a report to Cabinet before then which sets out the actual work in progress and the proposals for how the strategy is being put together and the support that will be given to the various advice agencies including, hopefully, the Credit Union around this matter?”

 

61.9         Councillor Duncan replied, “Yes.”

 

61.10    (c) Councillor Janio asked, “The Administration’s own life cycle analysis shows that a separate food waste collection would deliver little if any environmental benefit to the city, given that the food waste collection trial will cover only 6000 households and cost approximately £500,000 can the Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability please estimate what the cost of extending this service would be to all areas of the city not currently served by communal bins?”

 

61.11    Councillor West replied, “The Life Cycle Analysis carried out does state that the benefits of doing separate food waste collections are marginal.  You are not comparing like for like, on the waste hierarchy, compost and recycling are higher up than burning your rubbish.  A third of domestic waste is food being thrown away every week. Despite the work that we’ve been doing with the food partnership to reduce the amount of food being thrown away; it’s not significant in its achievement.  Our recycling rate at the moment, as under the previous administration, has been falling. It’s languishing at about 27%.

 

            Only by tackling food waste in a proper way, by making collections, will we be able to make any significant improvement.  And we’ve been working people to promote home composting and it’s about as far as you can take it with people wanting to do that.  The only way we are really going to make a dent in this is by collecting food waste.   We have got targets, your government has set some of those. We are way behind those, unless we start collecting food waste we will not be able to address that. There are additional benefits to collecting food waste as well, which are that they can have a positive impact on the amount of dry recycling that people do and they will also call into question people’s actual amount of food that they are wasting in the first place. It makes people more conscious of how much waste they are generating.

           

            Until we trial this, we won’t know for sure what the impacts will be locally, there are 130 Council’s in the country that are collecting food waste already and it is to our shame that we are not doing this already.  Officers are working out detailed costings and the trial is estimated to cost £500,000 but that does include capital investment in vehicles and bins.  That will not be the on cost of that areas collection, we are also submitting bids for funding which will significantly reduce the amount of contribution that this Council ahs to make and will be, in our final budget proposal that we’ll be publishing before the next cabinet, revising the figure that is in there at the moment that was pencilled in and we will be revising that on reflection of the cost that we really expect this to be.

 

            I would like to say to Councillor Janio, we have targets that we need to meet, it is the right thing to do, it is the only way that we are going to address improving recycling and it won’t cost the dramatic headline figures he suggested.”

 

61.12    Councillor Janio asked the following supplementary question, “The life cycle analysis says there is no scientific justification for this so we will ignore that answer completely.  Would he agree with me that the decision to go ahead with this trial is based on dogma and ideology rather than science and rational thinking it’s in the manifesto, you think you’ve got to go ahead with it, can’t you just cancel it and save the city a lot of money?”

 

61.13    Councillor West replied, “I would just like to remind councillor Janio that there are plenty of Conservative Councils collecting food waste and this council ought to be doing that as well.”

 

61.14    (d) Councillor Carden asked, “A resident of our ward in Portslade has cleared the path adjacent to his property behind housing association homes in Hamilton Close.  Will the council take away the rubbish he has collected from a point close to the highway as it appears there is no resource for removing this rubbish?”

 

61.15    Councillor West replied, As far as verge cutting goes, the frequency of verge cutting in Portslade has not varied for 20 years apart from under the previous administration, who decided to put additional funds into that.  He will recall we amended that budget last year to take out the £100,000 for that extra cut that the Tories put in.  That was an amendment that was put by ourselves with the support of the Labour & Co-operative Group.

 

            They will tell you in a minute that we voted against that because we voted against the whole budget.  However we voted in favour of our amendment and we gathered their support, so what I’m asking Councillor Carden is that given that the budgetary picture of this Council, that we are having our grant from the government reduced by a third over the next 4 years and it seems the Labour leadership nationally now is suggesting that they wouldn’t do anything different than the Tories are doing.

 

            So we can blame equally the Labour Party for this as much as we can for the Tory Party, when exactly does he think that we will be finding additional resources to spend on such things that he is asking.  His party and our party decided there were better things to spend that £100,000 on people’s services and that is the position that we are in today. We will not be increasing verge cutting and matters like that.”

 

61.16    Councillor Carden asked the following supplementary question, “I said rubbish, I did not mention grass. The people in my ward have long ago learned that the only way to keep our verges tidy is to cut it ourselves.  This is rubbish, the person concerned has gone along and brought it all together and I have asked for it to be cleared. However I am told that they do not have the resources.  So this person, unless I can do something quick, is going to take this rubbish and put it back where he got it from.  I also caught this guy doing something else in North Portslade, going up the gutters with a hoe, clearing the grass which is growing out the verges anything up to 3 feet high at times.

 

            People are doing this now, how are you going to recompense these people? They are doing the council’s work getting no reward or even getting no recognition from the likes of yourself.”

 

61.17    Councillor West replied, “You did bring up grass cutting in the end as well so what you are telling us is that members of the public are clearing up refuse and then wanting it taken away, they are also cutting the grass on the verges because it has got too long for their liking.  My answer from before relates to that second point you made there.

 

            If you’ve got a specific site, Councillor Carden, where refuse needs to be picked up from clearing please let me know where it is and I will ensure that City Clean come and deal with it.  However my original point still stands, we are under incredible financial pressure and it is not going to be the case that those sorts of services are going to be improved I am sorry to say that but that is a consequence of your government’s (Labour) mismanagement of the economy and this government’s (Conservative) determination to destroy public service.”

 

61.18    (e) Councillor Peltzer Dunn asked, “For reference, I will be referring to 43.42 on page 24 of our papers in the unaccepted minutes’ section.  At council on the 15^th December I asked Councillor Duncan to advise me to the cost incurred by the Council in cleaning up Victoria gardens after the occupation which took place. To date notwithstanding promises of further information, the only advice I have been giving is that £200 will be spent on reseeding areas where the damage to grass was secure.

 

            Is Councillor Duncan now therefore in a position to answer my original questions, i.e. what where the staff costs incurred in cleaning and clearing the site?”

 

61.19    Councillor Duncan replied, “Firstly, since that question was asked at last council, officers have carried out a lot of work to try and come up with a figure that answers it in a more meaningful way than just a little bit of staff time with minimal cost. What I can say is that the work required to answer your question is costing an enormous amount of money. I admire your tenacity Councillor Peltzer Dunn because by continuing to raise this you’re ensuring that this Council wastes money on looking at the detail of how staff are managed rather than the instance in which we are employing to actually do it.

 

            That notwithstanding I say the work is progressing to give a detailed answer to your question and I’m happy to give that written answer as I’ve said before. But for an honest and frank answer to your question at last council, I refer you to that answer because it appears you question is exactly the same.”

 

61.20    Councillor Peltzer Dunn asked the following supplementary question, “Will Councillor Duncan let council know what action has been taken over the unauthorised camping taking place at the Hove seafront pitch and putt course and would he agree with me that a history of such events of this type could substantially affect the viability of the pitch and putt operation?”

 

61.21    Councillor Duncan replied, “I think there is some detail there which I haven’t got now because the pitch and putt in Hove, as I said last time when you asked another question that was very specific, you haven’t given any advanced expression or indication that you are going to answer that. I would love to answer that in detail and I will do a written question, I look forward at the next council meeting to you asking another oral question saying I wasn’t quite satisfied with that written response but I will of course give you a written response to exactly the detail you are now asking.”

 

61.22    (f) Councillor Marsh asked, “Can I ask the Cabinet Member whether he agrees that mobile libraries are a vital resource for those residents in our city who live in the more outlying areas which mean that they cannot easily access our static libraries for a variety of reasons; health, mobility, transport costs etc?”

 

61.23    Councillor Bowden replied, “I do agree that mobile libraries do provide a life line to people who are in isolated communities and we would dearly like to keep our mobile library.  In fact we’ve set out what the costs are involved, the mobile library we currently have is at the end of it’s natural life, the costs of replacing it is about £120,000 the running costs because it is so old are £77,000 and rising and faced with how we balance the  books, the mobile library came under scrutiny.  Also under scrutiny is the number of people who actually used the library, some 860 people are registered with it nearly 70% actually use static libraries as well.

 

            So we have around 200 people who use the library at a huge cost and there are, I can give in a written answer if you wish the actual costs of running the library per person but they are very large.  At the budget scrutiny meeting chaired by Councillor Ken Norman a very interesting suggestion was put forward by the Labour Leader, Councillor Mitchell and we have in fact approached the voluntary sector to see if anyone is interested in taking this on. A letter has gone out to the voluntary sector asking whether they would be interested because they actually have access to funds that the council is denied.  So we are exploring that possibility.  I have invited Councillor Mitchell to be part of the discussions and I hope that Councillor Marsh would also join discussions should something come forward from those ideas.  I have also asked councillor Mears to join us should those discussions progress.

 

            So we’ve made a proposal, we are consulting and I’m getting many interesting responses and I won’t say more on that until the end of the consultation.”

 

61.24    Councillor Marsh asked the following supplementary question, “The residents of Bevendean have enjoyed the reinstatement of their mobile library which I managed to get for them after a successful campaign.  Am I now expected to tell them that their library service is going to be axed in what appears to be another attack on vulnerable communities by this Green administration?”

 

61.25    Councillor Bowden replied, “The good news is that we’re not proposing to cut any libraries unlike a number of administrations around the country, Tory and Labour alike.  All 14 of our libraries are going to stay open under our proposals unless, of course, our proposals are voted down in Full Council at the Budget meeting, then other parties will have to answer to their residents.  However we are proposing to keep all our libraries open except we either find money down the back of a Greek sofa or we have to sacrifice it and the numbers tell themselves, a very detailed analysis of usage of who is using the mobile library speak for themselves.   We may have some painful news but let’s see what happens with the voluntary sector, maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel.”

 

61.26    (g) Councillor Brown asked, “Can the Cabinet Member for Culture, Recreation and Tourism, please explain what the administration’s policy is for attracting more tourists to the city in order to boost the local economy?”

 

61.27    Councillor Bowden replied, “We attract 8.1 million, and rising, people. I can announce today that the Labour party are coming back to have their annual shindig, all 8000 of their hangers on will be there.  Your supporters, journalist, advisors, all will be there boosting our economy tremendously.  So all our restaurants and hotels will be beneficiaries of that.

 

            We have Visit Brighton which I’m very pleased to say, signed up its 400^th partner and we are working very closely with that sector, we’re working very closely with the Hotel’s Association and the Tourism Alliance. We get tremendous coverage in national and international media expelling the virtues of Brighton which is not just a bucket and spade city anymore, we’ve moved beyond that, we have restaurants, museums, festivals, all of this we embrace.

 

            We are not making any changes, we have put forward proposals for 2013/2014 about what we might be doing with the Tourist Information Centre, anticipating our next follow up and we’re confident that we’re going to have a better offer and a better service to look after the tourists who come down here.  On the Tourist Information Centre some 400,000 visit our Tourist Information Centre where it is currently located, there’s another Tourist Information Centre under the station in the toy museum which I’ve questioned whether that’s in the right place but our Visit Brighton website has millions of hits and a lot of people are planning their visits to the city and finding out what’s available via the website.”

 

61.28    Councillor Brown asked the following supplementary question, “Well how, therefore Councillor Bowden, can you reconcile these policies with your administration’s proposals to cut the street sweeping and graffiti removal budgets, increasing Royal Pavilion charges, possibly closing the Visitor Information Centre, closing public toilets including, unbelievably, ones on the seafront and ramping up city parking charges by astronomical amounts? Surely these measures will deter visitors not attract them?”

 

61.29    Councillor Bowden replied, “I’m not going to make political points about the central government because other Members have made it rather eloquently earlier but the facts are there so we’ve got less money to play with and we have to cut our cloth accordingly.  We have increasing numbers going to the Pavilion, we have just secured a super amount of funding which you may have read in our council press releases and we are continuing to put on superb exhibitions to attract even more people.

 

            The state of the economy means that we have to work very hard on all fronts with partners, unions and other groups to make sure that the city does not suffer and we’re determined that it will not.”

 

61.30    (h) Councillor Farrow asked, “Could the Leader of the Council confirm that he has recently had a conversation with a government minister which included a warning from the minister that local authorities such as Brighton & Hove City Council face several more years of cuts perhaps totalling around 40% of this council’s budget by 2015?”

 

61.31    Councillor Randall “I certainly had a meeting where a civil servant said that rather than a minister, told me that where we are now is what we can expect beyond this public service finance agreement and that they’re already looking at the next comprehensive spending review for local government and we can expect more of the same and what he said absolutely was, “you’d better get used to this.”

 

            In the context of what we’ve been hearing today, let us just remember what is behind all the things we’ve been talking about. We’re having to make very hard decisions, nobody wants to cut a music service nor do we want to cut domestic violence services either and we’ve actually increased the money we’ve spent on this and there are tough decisions to be made.  But remember where this comes from, it comes from over there (Conservative) by their government cutting public services cutting the money, it’s them over there what’s doing it and they’re very kind enough to detach themselves from the political reality of what they are doing to this country and achieving absolutely nothing as we’ve seen from the growth figures today.”

 

61.32    Councillor Farrow asked the following supplementary question, “Would the Leader of the Council agree that to simply keep cutting services in the way that his budget proposes to a total of 40% is not an option and that a radical overhaul of the council is needed now to downsize the layers of management and concentrate on frontline services?”

 

61.33    Councillor Randall replied, “I do agree with you entirely and we are doing that, I can’t remember the exact figure, Councillor Kitcat can give them to you, but what is referred to, for instance, as backroom staff accounts for only 5% of the budget of this council.  I would like to say in passing we hear a lot about backroom staff as if their functions are not important, the people who do that work in this council now are doing it with far fewer resources than they had before and they’re still doing a very good job for this city despite the number who have left already and I think they should be acclaimed for that.

 

            We are taking money out of the budget for staff this year at all levels and will be doing the same again next year and I agree with you we do have to look at it because it’s going to go and on, who’s ever in power in 4 years time.  We’re going to be have the very same debate we’re having today and I fear for the future of local government.”

 

61.34    (i) Councillor Wealls asked, “Does Councillor Shanks and the Green administration support Michael Goves’ introduction of new arrangement for teacher and head teacher appraisals in maintain schools in England, specifically I’m sure you know what these are but you know Michael Gove made some proposals recently but they’ll come into effect in September 2012.

They will give schools more freedom over managing their teachers; it will require them to assess teachers every year against new, simpler teacher standards, it will allow poorly performing teachers to be removed in about a term rather than a year which is currently the case and to share more information on teacher performance with other prospective employers.  If you do support them, would you be pushing for speedy adoption in the city’s maintained schools from September please?”

 

61.35    Councillor Shanks replied, “Anything that says do you agree with Michael Gove – obviously not.  Schools already manage their teachers and the problem a lot of teachers will say is not lack of management or scrutiny, it’s the problem that they get too much top down direction of what to do every 5 minutes in your classroom.

 

            Personally in my experience of education, actually that’s not a helpful thing.  We should encourage teachers; we should support teachers to do their best.  There are systems in place for teachers who aren’t performing and obviously Ofsted has a role to play in that.  However I don’t think that punishing teachers is the way to improve our education system.

 

            I think we need more resources into the education system but we also need to encourage good teachers to do their job and not to be constantly harassed by threatening them and to threaten to take their school into an academy etc.”

 

61.36    Councillor Wealls asked the following supplementary question, “I’m not sure if that was a yes or no in terms of supporting those initiatives as you know part of the process is to really push power down to schools so that they can take decisions themselves over poorly performing teachers and actually be able to move them on within a reasonable amount of time.  I think, in terms of the questions that we have over trying to get opportunities for disadvantaged children they’re the ones are most disadvantaged by poor teaching.  As there wasn’t a response it is difficult to follow up with a supplementary.

 

            Maybe you would like to comment on your own party’s policy in terms of abolition of SATS, abolition of school league tables and also modelling the education system on what goes on in Wales where a third of the schools are not good enough and their standards have fallen behind the standards of the rest of the United Kingdom?  Maybe that’s the agenda the Green party would like to follow?”

 

61.37    Councillor Shanks replied, “To be clear, no I don’t agree with Michael Gove and the way that this is being brought in but I will have a look at it because I don’t really know the detail.  In terms of our opposition to league tables and to stats, it shows really that we should be looking at the way children are educated and there’s a lot more about education than simply league tables.  We are concerned that children do well and to get good results at GCSE’s and it is disappointing that some of our schools aren’t getting those results.

 

            However there are lots of other things that affect children and actually poverty is the thing that affects children’s results more than anything so I think the bigger picture is really important here. I’ll look at our policy on Wales.”

 

61.38    (j) Councillor Turton asked “Would the Cabinet Member agree that street signage and furniture should be kept to a minimum and would it surprise him to learn that in a very small street such as Chisham Street in my ward it has 11 posts reminding residents that it is a resident’s only parking area?  The cost of removing 6 of these posts on the council approved contract is over £800.  The reason given for that high cost is due to health and safety issues.”

 

61.39    Councillor Davey replied, “It is absolutely our priority to minimise street furniture.  Of course it is particularly frustrating to be spending scarce resources on taking out stuff which has been put in unnecessarily, so I have already contacted the Head of City Clean and they will be in touch and I’m hoping that they can hopefully be recycled into a new scheme.”

 

61.40    Councillor Turton asked the following supplementary question, “It was the wider point about tendering and procurement, given that he and I would be appear to be shocked about the high cost of such a service and health and safety is sometimes used a blanket excuse by public bodies not to actually act not and not to put in detail, would you therefore agree to review the tender and procurement service for this particular issue?”

 

61.41    Councillor Davey replied, “I’m not in a position here today to commit to reviewing tendering but I will ask Gillian to have a look at that and certainly make sure that we’re not putting in any stuff we don’t need to.”

 

61.42    (k) Councillor A. Norman asked, “The original decision to cease funding to shop mobility was taken without any consultation with the Federation of the Disabled. Can I be assured that meaningful discussions have taken place between the Council and the Fed to ensure that future funding for shop mobility can be identified from Council funding streams so that this important service can continue to operate from Churchill Square?”

 

61.43    Councillor Davey replied, “Decision was made without consulting anybody, it was a proposal and ongoing discussions have taken place between Council officers and the Federation of the Disabled and as you are aware they are moving forward so that the Council will continue to fund shop mobility for at least another year and officers are continuing to work closely with them and look to maximise other opportunities for the scheme such as securing section 106 money through the planning process.”

 

61.44    Councillor A. Norman asked the following supplementary question, “Users of mobility scooters continue to require more dropped curbs to make more parts of the city available to them; can you confirm that a complete survey of all the roads and junctions will be carried out in the very near future so that dropped curbs can be installed where necessary?”

 

61.45    Councillor Davey replied, “I don’t think the Council is in a position to undertake a survey of the whole city but there has been a steady program, which I know was cut back by the previous administration.  But this year there has been £20,000 invested which has all gone into the Bates Estate for which I know residents are extremely grateful and we are hoping to secure additional funding in next year’s local transport plan capital budget to install even more so I hope we will have your support when that budget comes before Full Council.”

 

61.46    (l) Councillor Gilbey asked, “In 2010 the 2 play areas in North Portslade received Playbuilder monies from the last Labour government to improve the parks. Unfortunately the openings of both parks were delayed due to safety issues. In Warrior Park the zip wire is now excellent for older children however for young children there is still only the 20 year-old set of swings and very few children use them.  In Mile oak rec 3 new pieces of play equipment have classified as unsafe, unstable or not functional. On behalf of the local school children for Mile oak primary school and Packer, will the Council please look at replacing a slide and provide a swing boat for the older children?”

 

61.47    Councillor West replied, “I know you have written to officers and, I believe, met with them about the teething problems with the 2 play park areas and equipment they’ve given me a long list of things that they say they are going to look at what you’ve raised with them.  I’m hoping that will progress and if you are unsatisfied with that, if you get in contact with me again I’ll certainly look into it.”

 

61.48    Councillor Gilbey asked the following supplementary question, “I will read out a letter from a pupil in year 6, Dear Councillor I am writing to you because I’m concerned that the Mile Oak Park has got worse. I’m sorry if this offends you but I prefer the old park.  Furthermore a lot of pupils think that the old park was much better because it had the climbing frames and the swirly slide which we all loved. We would like all the children to be happy again, wouldn’t you?”

 

61.49    Councillor West replied, “In view of the time available I don’t think there’s much more I want to add.  The play builder scheme has actually been hugely successful in introducing investment for 22 sites around the whole city.  I appreciate some people might have preferences for previous equipment but I can’t particularly comment on those points being made there, as I say officers will look at the issues that you’ve raised and we’ll see where problems that have arisen can be addressed then hopefully as many people as possible will be happy with the equipment that’s available now.”

 

61.50    (m) Councillor Mears asked, “Following on from a recent statement made by the Leader of the Council to this chamber that the HCA had allocated two million to Brighton and Hove Council and in the interest of openness and transparency can Councillor Randall how the money is to be spent and a timescale attached to the allocation of this funding?”

 

61.51    Councillor Randall replied, “The money so far they’ve actually and given us £670,000, that money has been allocated to clear garage sites which will provide for sites across the city for 35 new council homes and the intention is to use HRA capital funding to pay for those and our officers are discussing with the HCA at the moment, how we can apply the rest of the money by the end of the year probably through Housing Association Schemes that are on the stocks.  There are at the moment just over 500 Housing Association homes in the city either on site or in the pipeline which is good news to all of us.”

 

61.52    Councillor Mears asked the following supplementary question, “The statement led out by the Leader of the Council was for £2 million pounds, my understanding the criteria, and on receiving 2 million pounds, is that a scheme needs to be onsite by the 31^st March this year. So therefore the £600,000 you’re talking about Councillor Randall unless those schemes are actually onsite, we will not be receiving the money unless you’re taking it from somewhere else.  And if we’re not to receive the 2 million; Councillor Randall, that you made in your statement and I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to mislead the members of this chamber, as this will have an impact on any Council house building which will include Ainsworth House. So can the Leader of the Council now confirm the statement that he made to this chamber around the 2 millions pounds and confirm whether not any site will be ready by the 31^st March to enable our Council to receive the funding?”

 

61.53    Councillor Randall replied, “As I said in my previous answer, we have identified the site, we are looking at clearing them and we are producing schemes to come forward at the moment. As I said already the two million pounds, which that is part by the way so there’s about 1.3 million, there are discussion between our officers and Housing Associations in the city who have schemes ready to go which we would put the money into.  Of course we will try and involve the tenants as much as possible in all of this and knowing Councillor Mears’ close relationship with tenants I’d like her to join with me in condemning a specious and stupid statement made last week by Grant Shapps the Minister for Housing who said, “For years the system for social housing has been associated with injustice where awards are reaped by those who know how to play the system best. Despite the terrible image a lazy consensus in Social Housing has ensured that for an entire generation no one has bothered to do anything about it.”

 

61.54    (n) Councillor K. Norman asked, “Bearing in mind a member of the local community in my ward has already asked you part of this question, I will ask it in even greater detail. How much does it cost the Council to supply refuse collection, electricity, water, use of toilets and the cleaning up of the toilets at Waterhall during and following the most recent low occupation of the Waterhall car park for unauthorised and, as you call it, mobile communities visiting our city?

 

61.55    Councillor West replied, “I’m not sure how I should address the Councillor maybe he is the Conservative second spokesperson on travellers I’m not sure; but on this occasion I’m sure he’s talking as a Ward Member.  I have already supplied an answer to the ward member’s constituents’ questions about Waterhall but just for Member understanding the situation that occurred is that it was agreed between City Parks and the Traveller’s Liaison Team to open the toilet block for the use of travellers at Waterhall while they were encamped up the car park before Christmas.

 

            This was regarded to be a matter of responsible management as they had been advised that one of the travellers had a condition which required frequent access to a toilet. The toilets were cleaned immediately before Christmas by our contractor and as normal we arranged for the site to be cleaned after the encampment had been moved on.  This was carried out during the week after the travellers had moved however the toilets had become blocked over the Christmas period resulting in them being left in a poor state which has been widely reported.  Despite a number of allegations, Councillor, frequent visits were made to the site and it was never found that any electricity had been abstracted.  The cost of the eviction, I think you’ve asked there, a possession for this land was obtained in the County Court on the 23^rd December and the bailiffs were booked after the Christmas period, the travellers left the land prior to the eviction which meant that there was no eviction costs although there was a cancellation fee of £295.

 

            The total cost of the encampment including repairs to the toilet block, I understand, we’ve not yet received all the invoices for the costs involved in clearing the blocked toilet however the costs associated with managing this encampment so far received are £2,288 and this includes unblocking the toilets a first time although they were as stated subsequently blocked again.  I do not have any more detailed information for you, your questions was just entitled Waterhall, if you would like officers to give you further information about the finances I’m sure that can be arranged.”

 

61.56    Councillor K. Norman asked the following supplementary question, “Yes Councillor West you did say that you responded to my resident. He keeps me copied in on every exchange you make with him. So far he has not copied me in on that and I would have thought I would have been copied in because I was on the list of email addresses so I don’t know yet and I’m sure he may not have got it at this moment.  So bearing in mind the Waterhall toilets are not used and available to the thousands of residents that regularly use Waterhall they are in fact only available when there are sporting events on and also bearing in mind that the current administration is planning to close some public toilets.

 

            I want to know why they were opened, you gave me an indication of who authorised them, but it wasn’t a clear indication and will you confirm that the toilets were left in a good and clean condition.  I asked this question and part of my first question you haven’t answered.  That is use of electricity, the use of water and bearing in mind there are hose pipes connected to the taps within the building, electricity cables were connected from the electricity points to the caravans and the water pipes were as well.

 

            I know that was refuted by you in an email but I would still like to know what cost the electricity and water has put to the Council.  You come up with some very complicated answers which are not relevant to the questions I’ve asked, so I wish you’d stick to the questions and also not challenge the title of the questions because, like us last year, we were subjected to strange questions and strange subjects from the members in your group.  So just get on with the job, answer the questions that we put to you if you can’t, and put them in writing at a later date.  So if you could answer my most recent supplementary I’d be grateful.”

 

61.57    Councillor West replied, “I think my problem with all of this is the level of inspection and interest and obsession that we get from Conservative Members about this one subject, this group of highly marginalized people.  I don’t think there’s been a Cabinet member before that’s know exactly how much electricity or water might have been used and the cost thereof at a particular encampment anywhere in the city at any given time so I’m extremely sorry if I don’t have the information to hand at this moment in time but I have given you some figures that are relevant and expect that you might wish to have had.

 

            But as I say Councillor the subject matter of your question and there was no more further detail, was entitled ‘Waterhall.’ That is all I was given to work upon, what I have offered already in my initial answer is that I will give you further information; water, electricity, any other costs you want as the breakdowns become available. I’m sure I can make my officers run around for a very long time getting all that information to you if that will be useful.  I do think that Members need to consider the amount officer time in costs and travel that this is all costing by perpetually asking these awkward questions of us and I really do think that there are bigger matters for this Council to be spending it’s time considering.”

 

61.58    Councillor Hyde asked, “Would the Cabinet Member for Transport please re-consider his decision to penalise local small businesses on the northern side of western road by introducing the draconian loading restrictions at the command of Brighton and Hove Buses whose parent company the Go Ahead Group saw their operating profit rise by 14% to 115 million pounds last year.  Also it should be noted that none of the affected businesses were written to or consulted.”

 

61.59    Councillor Davey replied, “It’s a bit of an exception in the city, this part of such a key arterial route, if one looks at most of the other key route sides, the eastern side of western road has loading bans all the time. Lewes road has peak time loading bans in the morning and the evening; London road has loading bans at various times during the day. The aim of all this is to keep traffic moving in the city.  There is clearly a problem on Western road with inconsiderate and indiscriminate parking that can be observed at most times of the day causing disruption to traffic of all kinds and also a danger and a hazard to vulnerable road users such as walkers and cyclists but I have met the trader who your concerns are about and I’ll tell you the same think as I said to him, that officers are looking at this and see what might be done to mitigate the impact his business.”

 

61.60    Councillor Hyde asked the following supplementary question, “Now I’ve been informed that the officers are looking at it, well you put up for consideration that the restrictions in the evening are placed on the southern side of the road rather than having the restrictions both morning and evening on the northern side of the road. Would you ask officers to look at?”

 

61.61    Councillor Davey replied, “It’s already been done.”