Agenda item - Chairs Communications

24.1      The Chair provided the following communications:

“Since the last meeting of this committee, this administration has continued to work tirelessly on our priorities and those of our residents – restoring basic services and cleaning up the city and our neighbourhoods.

Improving the reliability of our refuse and recycling collections has been a top priority, and I’m pleased to say that our new afternoon collection crew has completed its first week of service. They provide a great deal of additional operational flexibility; last week they collected from West Hove, Hollingbury, Portslade and the city centre – refuse and recycling, kerbside and communal.

Today we will be approving another expansion in our recycling service – the second such improvement since taking office 6 months ago. This expansion is focussed on our recycling drop off points and will see 54 new bins for food and drink cartons being added to locations around the city.

We will also be rolling out 21 new containers for waste electrical items. We currently have only 2 such containers, and the only option for residents who do not live near to either of those is to take these items to one of our two Household Waste Recycling Centres. In other words, drive it to the tip. Consequently, a significant amount of electricals end up in household waste, despite containing a range of materials that can be reused.

Last week, Cllr Fowler and I visited Light Brothers in Lewes, our contractor for the processing of waste electricals. We met staff and saw first-hand the range of materials that can be extracted for recycling, including a variety of metals and the lithium from batteries. They are also able to extract any harmful materials to be disposed of safely and responsibly.

We will be reviewing the impact of these new containers and aim to add a further units in due course.

Following the success of our first Big Clean Up weekend in the summer, which saw councillors leading clean-up events in their wards, we are now holding another event, this time focussed on the city centre. On Saturday November 25th, councillors will be leading teams in the area around Brighton Station, as well as St James’ Street, West Street and other high footfall areas. We’d love to welcome anybody who would like to come and join, and residents can find details by contacting either me or their ward councillor.

Today, we’re also bringing forward proposals to increase fines for environmental offences, including graffiti tagging, which has blighted the city for so long. Recently, we have successfully identified taggers and have sent them out to clean it up and paint it out. Since the election in May, we have identified and fined 15 taggers, compared to only 5 in the same 6-month period last year.

Later this month, on November 21st, we’ll be holding the first event in our Re-Imagine Brighton & Hove series, focussed on tagging. The event will bring together residents, businesses, community groups, councillors & officers, police and others to gather views and ideas to help inform our Graffiti Tagging Reduction Strategy, which will come to this committee in the new year.

Having reopened the vast majority of the city’s public toilets, we are very pleased to be bringing forward plans for a brand new toilet and café at one of the city centre’s most used parks, The Level. Questions will rightly be asked about the existing building, the former Velo Café, and its attached public toilet. Serious issues with the plumbing and drainage that stem back to the design and construction have meant that the building is currently unusable, and the costs involved in bringing it back to life are extremely high. The old toilets, tucked away in a discrete external corner of the building, were blighted by drug use and antisocial behaviour. On top of that, the rent was too high and caused successive businesses to struggle. Suffice it say, the project was not a success. We are now actively exploring options for the building, but the scale of the work required and the costs involved mean that sadly it will be some time before it can be repurposed.

What we are proposing today will restore public toilet facilities to the park quickly by refurbishing one of the two period pavilion buildings to become a new public toilet, managed and monitored by an adjoining café. We have already had several expressions of interest in running this new venture, and residents in the area are very pleased that we are taking this action”.