Agenda item

The presentation topic by Cllr Savage, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member Operational Services is on "How effective is the delivery of Operational Services to residents that are not regularly reported on."

Councillor Savage, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Operational Services made a presentation on "How effective is the delivery of Operational Services to residents that are not regularly reported on." The presentation focused on the following areas of the Service:

Crematorium and cemeteries;

Commercial Waste;

Environmental Education;

Playgrounds;

Workshops & Fleet Management;

CCTV;

Coastal Development;

Parking.

The presentation detailed the key functions of each of the main areas of Operational Services and highlighted the performance of the service for the period from April 2018 to date. It was reported that the crematorium service had received a gold award and the burial service a silver award for the services offered to the public. The Memorial stability programme which had started in November last year had tested over 5,000.

The Commercial Trade Waste Service which had been introduced in July 2018 and had managed to cover its costs and was generating income that was expected to be about £130k at the end of the year. The service had 122 new customers signed up and over 170 tonnes had been collected since July 2018, with a four day weekly collection schedule.

The Panel was advised that the Environmental Education team had participated in the national trial to Keep Britain Tidy and experimented with signage on the Margate Main Sands. The signage provided information at a glance to the public on when dogs were allowed on the beach. The service was also working with the Council’s Communications team to develop the anti-litter campaign for 2019.

The Service also conducted 37 annual ROSPA inspections on the Council’s playgrounds and 1,500 weekly inspections. The repairs team had attended to 65 repairs and maintenance that were due to vandalism.

Council operated more than 75 main street cameras, more than 70 car park and stairwells cameras, 30 tower block cameras and 6 re-deployable mobile and covert cameras. The Service had provided 259 evidential videos for the Courts in 2018, 391 reviews by the Police in 2018. They had located numerous vulnerable and missing youths.

The civil enforcement team had issued over 20,000 PCNs between April and December last year. They received 492 abandoned vehicles cases and had removed 63 abandoned vehicles in 2018. They conducted 275 individual school safety enforcement visits last year and also introduced a new TDC Enforcement Twitter account through which the public could report enforcement matters directly to the department.

Since April 2018, the Street Scene Enforcement team had issued 59 FPNs (of £400 each), 190 PDPAs, 772 Section 46 notices, 107 CPWs and 20 CPNs. They had conducted 60 commercial trade waste inspections and 3,755 street scene investigations. Dog wardens had attended to 172 reported cases of stray dogs and 173 noise complaints.

Responding to the presentation the Panel members made comments and asked questions as follows:

• This was a detailed and informative presentation;
• Was any of the revenue generated by the service especially from commercial waste collection put back to street cleaning?
• How much did the electric pavement cleaners cost? Would it be possible for a town council to buy these pavement cleaners through TDC in order to reduce costs?
• Was there an allocation in the 2019/20 capital programme budget for the purchase of more vehicles for the commercial trade waste collection?
• How would TDC support community group efforts for anti litter campaigns?
• Was there a programme for replacing the public bins in the Royal Harbour (Ramsgate)?

Councillor Savage and Trevor Kennett, Head of Operational Services responded as follows:

• Any income derived from waste collection went to the general fund for the council budget;
• From week beginning 04 February, there would be electric pavement cleaners being tested in some streets for a week. It was hoped that the Council would thereafter purchase a total of six electric cleaners. The machines which cost £16,975 each were capable of covering a lot more ground and could pick up more litter than manual cleaning. Town/Parish Councils could join hands with TDC to purchase the machines under a combined order at a reduced cost;
• With regards to the commercial trade waste – The approach was a soft launch of the service in order to slowly build it up and gradually grow the number of customers. The service started as two day collection per week but was now four days. The Council service was non-vatable making the service more competitive;
• The business plan for the commercial trade waste collection envisaged the use of the current vehicles in the first year (in 2018) and gradually growing in the second year onwards;
• The cameras installed at all the tower blocks had recording capability and were monitored. East Kent Housing owned those cameras;
• The Council issued out equipment to community groups to support anti litter local campaign efforts;
• 75 new public smart bins had been ordered to be placed at various points around Thanet. They were larger and would be used for both litter and dog waste.

Councillor Savage thanked Operational Services staff for the work of the department acknowledging the challenges the department faced.

The Panel thanked the deputy Leader for the presentation and noted the report.