Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies received at the meeting.

Councillor Dixon declared a disclosable pecuniary interest regarding agenda Item 7 (Selective Licensing in Clifftonville West and Margate Central).

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 20 October 2015, copy attached.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor G. Coleman-Cooke seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the ordinary Panel meeting held on 20 October 2015.

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 17 November 2015, copy attached.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Potts seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the extraordinary Panel meeting held on 17 November 2015.

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 26 November 2015, copy attached.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Potts seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the extraordinary Panel meeting held on 26 November 2015.

Presentation Title is on "Our Vision for the Future of our Parks, Gardens & Playgrounds."

The specific question for the presentation is "What plans does Cabinet have to address issues raised by residents regarding planned maintenance of our open spaces and flower beds?"

In her presentation to the Panel Councillor Brimm reported that currently staff working in the parks, grounds and playgrounds were carrying out the following key activities:

·  Grass cutting of parks and other grounds owned by the Council;

·  Sports ground maintenance through the Your Leisure Partnership;

·  Management of shrubs, beds and hedges in parks and other grounds owned by TDC;

·  Tree Management including East Kent Housing;

·  Provision of Allotments;

·  Development, maintenance and safety inspections of Play Areas and Skate Parks including East Kent Housing;

·  Grounds maintenance for East Kent Housing through a Service Level Agreement;

·  Grave digging and maintenance of Cemeteries;

·  Weed control to all parks, open spaces and foreshores (typically three times per annum);

·  Minor works including planned and reactive works in parks, open spaces, toilets, car parks and the installation of parking meters.

The portfolio holder said that not all the staff employed within the service were focussed on planned maintenance. To put this into perspective, in 2010 the Operational Services employed 63 full time staff and last year this had been reduced to 40 full time equivalents, a reduction of 37%. Furthermore, staff do not work on weekends.

Although there had been a significant reduction in the number of staff, the Service had worked hard to maintain service levels. Understandably, there had been reductions in the frequencies of most operations with most routine operations (grass cutting, hedges, shrub and flower bed maintenance) being affected. Council was no longer carrying out in-house high level tree care as was previously the case.

Over the last 5 years, the public, visitors and members’ expectations had remained high. In relation unfortunately, Council no longer had the resources to fulfil these expectations. However Members should note that there were only 10 formal complaints received in 2014/15.

Councillor Brimm explained that Council parks and open spaces were important to the people who live and visit Thanet and were therefore priority for the current Cabinet administration, as demonstrated in the corporate priority one statement which aims to ‘creating a welcoming environment’. Cabinet was working on an Open Spaces and Parks Strategy for the next 20 years. Councillors and residents would be fully engaged during this process in order to inform the strategy, but it is likely that some hard choices would need to be made around the number of parks and open spaces that the Council can support as funding would clearly be limited.

Councillor Brimm said that the Strategy would need to decide on such options as, ‘does the Council maintain all current parks and flower beds to the same standard or a smaller number but to a higher quality.’ Given the significant works required to produce this strategy, delivery is not anticipated until late 2016  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35.

Having declared a disclosable pecuniary interest on the agenda item at the beginning of the meeting, Councillor Dixon left the Council Chamber before discussion commenced on ‘Selective Licensing in Cliftonville West and Margate Central.’

Richard Hopkins, Housing Regeneration Team Leader led discussion and gave a background to the subject. He highlighted the following that:

·  The current selective licensing scheme was a success;

·  Privately rented homes are required to be licenced and landlords are required to effectively manage their properties and keep them in a safe condition;

·  Enforcement of the current scheme started in 2013 after a judicial review that took two years to resolve;

·  About 1000 inspections have been carried out and about 66% of the properties inspected were found to have health hazards or failed to meet other licensing requirements;

·  21 landlords had been prosecuted successfully and had received fines of up to £20,000;

·  All fines are retained by the criminal justice system but TDC applies for a contribution to prosecution costs;

·  Landlords are required to take reasonable steps to ensure that Anti-Social Behaviour does not emanate from their properties;

·  It was observed that anti-social behaviour reported incidents had declined significantly (ie by 28.7% since 2011);

·  The current scheme is due to expire on 20 April 2016, five years after coming into force.

It was against this background that a proposal to renew the Selective Licensing Scheme to cover similar parts of Cliftonville West and Margate Central was developed. This proposal would include an additional 150 licensable properties. Richard Hopkins advised Members that a public consultation had been conducted over ten weeks and 72% of the respondents were in favour of renewing the Scheme as opposed to 18% who were against renewal. Public support had significantly increased from the previous consultation in 2010 which recorded 49% in favour and 44% against the Scheme.

Members agreed that the survey information was comprehensive and commended the officer report as being detailed and informative. They said the Scheme was not detrimental to the heritage of the area. In response to further Member questions Richard Hopkins made the following comments:

·  The council will be carrying out district wide research in 2016 to ascertain whether any other discrete areas should be considered for selective licensing;

·  Enforcement costs were not paid for by the landlord licence fees;

·  Licence fees are not annual and only one fee is payable for each licence, which usually lasts for 5 years;

·  There are discounts for landlords who applied for renewal at least 6 weeks in advance and for accredited landlords;

·  Requirements relating to external decorations will be applied to licences where possible;

·  The public consultation had brought up waste problems as  a particular issue of concern for residents;

·  A condition on waste will be included in the landlord’s licence to ensure that they take reasonable steps to prevent waste problems;

·  Housing Regeneration Team (HRT) coordinate their enforcement activities with the Margate Task Force;

·  Other Council officers outside the HRT would be authorised under selective licensing to increase enforcement  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.

In response a Member query, Madeline Homer, CEx advised the meeting that although Cabinet had set up a QEQM Hospital Cabinet Advisory Group, the group had not yet met as Council was still awaiting the appointment of a new CEx for the East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust.

The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) together with EKHUFT have set up a Strategic Board and TDC officer would be seeking more information on the terms of reference of the new Board and meet the new EKHUFT CEx.

The report was notes.

Members requested that officers in Democratic Services produce and circulate to all councillors forwarding notes that explain the purpose of the Forward Plan. This was in order to provide clarity on how Members can make use of the Plan and its contents.

Members noted the report.