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.

120.1          The Mayor noted that notification of 6 oral questions from Members had been received and that 30 minutes was set aside for the duration of the item.  He then invited Councillor G. Theobald to put his question to Councillor Bowden.

 

(a)   King Alfred Leisure Centre - Councillor G. Theobald

 

120.2          “Back in December you will recall that I asked you to set a timetable and deadline for selecting a preferred developer for the King Alfred site. I suggested that this should be Policy and Resources Committee in September or October and your response was most welcome as you said, and I quote you, “if we can move faster than September I guarantee we will.” Given the fact that residents are increasingly asking us, “what is happening in terms of a new Leisure Centre?” could you please give them an update and a reassurance that we are still on track to meet that deadline?”

 

Reply from Councillor Bowden, Chair of the Economic Development & Culture Committee

 

120.3          “You might like to thank your MP colleague for setting up a meeting to increase the interests in the King Alfred, I shan’t be attending as I think it might compromise my role as the Chair of the Project Board which is cross party and includes a colleague of yours sitting along the row in front of you.  So we had our first meeting in November last year, we have had three other meetings including a site visit to a sports centre recommended by Sport England and I believe Mike Weatherly is going along to have a look at the same sports facility to give an idea of what money will buy in terms of a sports centre. We’ve had another Project Board Meeting on the 15^th May so we’ve not been sitting around; we’ve got cross party buy-in we’ve also got buy-in from the Chair of the Economic Partnership who’s a special member of that project board to give what I term as a reality check in these hardened economic times.

 

So given that economic climate there is no doubt that the financial challenges will be significant and we need to ascertain whether we can arrive at a deliverable solution which will meet tests at Planning, the Project Board and we have commissioned some work on a number of viability and design studies so we will know  more about that on the 15^th and I’m very aware that it is a much loved site in the community and we don’t want to sit around waiting an inevitably long time before we start going out to market and as I re-iterate if we can get that report to Policy and Resources in a timely fashion we will endeavour to do so.  Certainly all the colleagues who sit around that cross party table with us, Warren Morgan is one of those members who came on the site visit with me and Tony Mernagh. They will attest to that so we will move as speedily as we can but we need to be very careful in terms of what is deliverable in these harsh economic times.”

 

120.4          Councillor Theobald asked the following supplementary question, “When I asked the question in the first place, I asked you in September or October you then said you hoped it would be earlier. My question, I’ll repeat it again, “will you be adhering to the timetable of going to the Policy and Resources Committee in September or October this year that is later than the time that you said. Could you answer it yes or no?”

 

120.5          Councillor Bowden replied, “Until we have that meeting on the 15^th May where we have commissioned some work from a very reputable surveyor practice I can’t but my objective is certainly to do that. We are not dragging our heels. If I’m going to be slightly political, your administration had four years to do something about King Alfred and you did nothing about it in all four years.”

 

(b)  Wildlife Sites in Brighton and Hove - Councillor Mitchell

 

120.6          “After a delay of at least 2 years, there has been rather an unseemly rush in April to get several wildlife sites across the city officially ratified as local wildlife sites despite the fact that the local groups who care for them have been under the impression that this had been done such as this site at Bevendean Down described in the Friends of Bevendean Downs Pamphlet as a Local Nature Reserve but actually not having the official designation.

 

So can Councillor West please explain how this has happened and where the information on the 120 potential wildlife sites will not be released by the Council to the wildlife group members of the panels who are going to be asked to judge the sites until just 4 weeks before the first panel meets in July bearing in mind this information was compiled by the Council in April?”

 

               Reply from Councillor West, Chair of the Environment & Sustainability Committee

 

120.7          “The first thing to say is about our commitment to nature conservation within the City and the Biosphere Bid is progressing extremely well and the Local Bio Diversity Action Plan as well has been agreed so officers are clearly extremely busy on a lot of work. We also have the benefits of the Nature Improvement Area and the High Level Stewardship Schemes which we’ve been rolling up increasing numbers and work the Councillor Mitchell will be familiar with, the Whitehawk Hill Management Plan work which was very well received by local residents extremely interested.

 

While Local Wildlife Site as I understand were formally sites of major conservation interest; these are a non statutory designation made by Local Authorities and we will be reviewing this to continue the protection of those areas. Officers are working hard to complete that work but they’ve set an ambitious timetable for the panels to evaluate the sites and the panels consist of Conservation Specialists, Friends Groups and other interested people as the Councillor has alluded to. As you mention the original panel dates were for the end of April but some people have actually come back to us and said that the timescales were too ambitious and so there’s not enough time provided to do the work justice.

 

So, as you say, they have been delayed to be in July. I sincerely hope that that is a better outcome for everyone and that this valuable piece of work will be done all the better for it.”

 

120.8          Councillor Mitchell asked the following supplementary question, “The members of the wildlife groups have expressed enormous respect for the current Council’ Ecologist and as Councillor West has said, this member of staff does undertake an enormous amount of work and the Green Administration professes to have a very ambitious conservation agenda and so surely it is essential to have a fully qualifies and experienced ecologist on the Council’s staff.

 

So will Councillor West assure the Council that another Council Ecologist will be recruited to replace this respected member of staff who is leaving, rather than relying on expensive consultants?”

 

120.9          Councillor West replied, “I understand what Councillor Mitchell is referring to. We have a Voluntary Severance Scheme and the current ecologist has applied to take part in that I know that is public knowledge but I somehow feel it’s not something this member should be discussing here particularly but I have actually discussed with Senior Managers, the impact of not having that post anymore and what I’m assured is that the majority of the policy work including the work on these sites will be completed, that the current ecologist will be retained until that work is completed in the summer and that going forward we are actually going to build a team in a different which will be much more deliverable rather than on building yet more policies.

 

Members of wildlife groups should be assured that we will be focusing on working more with them and gaining change and improvement within sites. I can also mention that a coupe of weeks ago I had the honour of opening the very first Friends of Conference that was held by Cityparks and was extremely well attended and the Mayor turned up to give the closing speech and I was very impressed by the turn out and the representatives of the myriad of groups that we have in the city that look after our green spaces were incredibly impressed and so many for the first time got to network with each other and those are the sorts of levels of support work that we want to do.   We want to actually strengthen that volunteer network so that they can do so much more of the good work that they are doing and share their best practice and so on.”

 

(c)   MMR Vaccination - Councillor Wealls

 

120.10      “Brighton and Hove has one of the lowest MMR vaccination rates in the country and in fact 24% of our under 5 year olds are unvaccinated which after when I did a little bit of research on the internet I was actually quite surprised at how high that number was on unvaccinated children and of course children beyond the age of 5 years, the vaccination rate, is actually lower than that.

 

So we do have a very poor MMR vaccination rate in the City. What are we doing with schools and our NHS partners to improve vaccination rates in the City to prevent a measles outbreak the size that we have had in South Wales?”

 

               Reply from Councillor Shanks, Chair of the Children & Young People Committee

 

120.11      “That would be very concerning if that was the correct figure. The figures that I’ve been given is that Brighton has improved quite a lot in recent years and we are now just slightly below the national average over 90% of children vaccinated and we’re slightly behind the national average but the under 5’s is better.   I think the gap we’ve got is when children weren’t vaccinated when there was all the controversy about the MMR vaccination back in 1998 when, you remember, the Andrew Wakefield small study which caused a national panic but obviously we want people to have vaccination because measles is a very nasty thing. So we are encouraging people who haven’t had that vaccination at that age so it’s more the 12-16 year olds who aren’t protected and that was the case in the latest outbreak in Wales.

 

We’re encouraging GP’s to offer vaccination to those people and that’s happening, there are around 20 people per GP who need to come and get vaccinated. Also the Director of Public Health has met with school heads and raised this issue and we’re monitoring the take up, if we did need to get a  mass vaccination campaign in to schools we would do that but at the moment we feel that people are coming forward to be vaccinated probably because of the national exposure that’s had.” 

 

120.12      Councillor Wealls asked the following supplementary question, “I’m encouraged by those numbers actually because the numbers I had were 2010-2011 which were the ones that I got. I appreciate they’re up since 2008-2009 when the vaccination rate was about 10% worse than that so I guess we still have a little bit of work to do with the over 5’s and so it’s encouraging that that work is going on in the schools.

 

There are some ethnic groups in the city that have a particular reluctance to engage in MMR vaccination programs so I would just like to encourage the Administration and the NHS to look at less conventional channels as well as just through schools to make sure that children of all ethnicities are vaccinated accordingly and I’m sure you support everyone in the Chamber in trying to deliver that.”

 

120.13      Councillor Shanks replied, “I’ll ask the Director of Health if there are particular groups that we are not reaching. It is really important and we would encourage who doesn’t feel that they are adequately protected, to go and ask their GP about it.”

 

(d)  Siting of Grit Bins - Councillor Carden

 

120.14      “For many years I’ve tried to get grit bins at certain strategic places. Would you please take another look at this in order to alleviate the mess that is still on the street corners well in to the month of May. We’ve only just got a sweeper up there who’s just about to get round to tidy it up but on all the street corners around, where this grit was deposited earlier in the year, it’s still there lying around in fact it came too late to use on the snow.

 

I asked for grit bins for a long time but we’ve never had the money to produce them, so what they do kindly; when they can finally get vehicles in to Mile Oak they bring piles of grit along and they just chuck it on the street corner and you’ll very often see many of the householders out there sweeping it up, tidying it up to stop it being walked into their houses and it’s still there in May.  Now there’s the economic business of losing this grit because it’s getting washed down the drains and it’s getting washed everywhere so I want a proper receptacle to put it in so we can use it next year, by the time next year comes around it will all have gone down the drain.”

 

Reply from Councillor West, Chair of the Environment & Sustainability Committee

 

120.15      “Last week I met your colleague Councillor Gilbey along with an officer and we actually looked around North Portslade and I was expecting your question to be in a similar vain but the useful thing of our tour then was that we saw there were certain in Down Park that actually we might need to move a grit bin from somewhere to put somewhere else.

 

In that tour I didn’t see piles of grit from the bin leftover but clearly if that is a specific problem and it wasn’t swept up long after it was used then that is a question we can raise with Cityclean.”

 

120.16      Councillor Carden asked the following supplementary question, “Will you do something about it? Not just leave because next year will come and the same thing will happen.”

 

120.17      Councillor West replied, “As I said I will pass on the point it’s obviously well made and thank you for that.”

 

(e)   Stanmer Park - Councillor Summers

 

120.18      “As you know Stanmer Park is receiving much over due attention and is undergoing a huge master plan process with a view to accessing major funding to redevelop it’s old farm buildings, tackle the perennial vehicle movement and parking nightmare and inject new life in to the park’s business offer.   The road that provides access from the main south entrance all the way up to Stanmer House is obviously a key feature of the park but in terms of appropriate and necessary up keep it suffers serious neglect. In law it is a bridleway i.e. for people and horses but in reality it is a very busy vehicle highway.

 

As both landlord and highways authority please could the Council in the spirit of on going consultation with stake holders undertake to seek clarity on it’s maintenance obligations and make a corporate decision on who must be responsible?”

 

Reply from Councillor West, Chair of the Environment & Sustainability Committee

 

120.11      “I agree it isn’t really a bridleway anymore in its use, it does obviously serve the village, the businesses there and the visitors and does have quite a lot of traffic. As you rightly say it isn’t an adopted highway in the technical sense and if we did adopt it we would have to maintain it to a certain standard.  My understanding is it could cost something in the order of £500,000 to bring it up to highway standard. To repair in it’s current designation, I think it’s something up to £70,000 and to resurface it would be something in the order of £200,000 which is quite a big obligation.

 

I appreciate that there is an issue there of work needing to be done but these are quite substantial sums of money and at this point in time we need to look at the future of the park and how that road may or may not be used in the future and how we will work out what we intend to do with that through the development of the master plan and hopefully subsequent funding bids to carry out the work.  I think at this stage in time we don’t quite know what the future is but I have, I hope, clarified for you the status of that road and hope that is helpful.”

 

120.12      Councillor Summers asked the following supplementary question, “Within the context of the whole vision process and putting together the master plan which is a huge amount of work involving an awful lot of rightful stakeholders that at least there will be a commitment to consider that bridleway as a really important asset of the park, hugely important, which will of course have a knock on effect on all the other assets in the park and that in it’s own right there will be a commitment to focus on that and put officer time in to that as well as part of the master plan process and not to let that issue just get subsumed in to the wider context?”

 

120.13      Councillor West replied, “As I say we are working on that master plan and what the vision will be and how the different spaces will work and there’s more than one way in to Stanmer Park and there has been discussion about distributing some of the traffic to come in different entrances.   So I’m not going to get drawn to make a commitment as to exactly how we are going to invest in that road at this stage because I think that that is all tied up in part of this development process that I’m very pleased that you are part of but I think that you have rightly drawn attention to it’s importance and it’s certainly not something that’s not going to be discussed and taken seriously.”

 

(f)     Housing Policy - Councillor Mears

 

120.14      “Before coming into administration the then Green Group were very clear about their commitment to affordable housing and very vocal as I remember. Can the present Chair of Housing reassure this Council that this administration still has the same commitment?

 

We have discussed the affordable element in the City Plan, but we see schemes coming forward where the affordable element is being greatly reduced or taken out and going to shard ownership. As the Chair of Housing I’m sure will want to confirm that this administration is still committed to affordable housing, we do have schemes coming forward, the City does need building and it does need to happen.  I would like the Chair of Housing to confirm that this administration will still be talking to developers to ensure that, if not on site, at least other discussions are happening around housing and can the Chair of Housing agree with me that unless we have some movement around affordable housing, Housing Allocation Waiting List, which is a policy document, will have very little movement?”

 

Reply from Councillor Wakefield, Chair of the Housing Committee

 

120.15      “The answer is yes.”

 

120.16      Councillor Mears asked the following supplementary question, “Can the Chair of Housing confirm to Council; I have raised to the Chair of Housing and also to the Chair of Adult Care and Health around the issue of the Allocation Policy and does this Council only have one Allocation Policy? I have been reassured by the Chair of Housing and I have also been reassured by the Chair of Adult Care and Health that this is actually correct.

 

My concern is that factually I’m not sure that it is and I would like to see it in writing because my understanding is we are still running a policy through Adult Care and Health Committee for extra care housing. Now I have never seen any papers where this has been changed so if the Chair of Housing can’t answer the question today I would like it in writing rather than a straight forward yes or no so we’re very clear within this Council we are only running one Allocation Policy.”

 

120.17      Councillor Wakefield replied, “As far as I am aware we are only running one however I’m going to make sure that officers look in the small print and provide you a written answer.”