Overview & Scrutiny Committee – Wednesday 4 June 2025

Meeting held at the Council Offices, Kiln Road, Benfleet.
Meeting Starts at 7:00pm

Agenda
1. Apologies for absence
2. To Receive Declarations of Interest
3. Minutes of the Meeting held on 9 April 2025
4. Corporate Peer Challenge – Action Plan Progress Update
5. Environment Enforcement Policy
6. Culture and Tourism Strategy
7. Cycling Task and Finish Group Update and Action Plan
8. Update on the Work of the Climate Policy & Scrutiny Sub-Committee
9. Workplan

Agendas and Minutes for Council meetings can be viewed at the link below.

Minutes will be available a maximum of two weeks after the meeting. Where Minutes cannot be seen listed below then they will be contained in the Agenda for the subsequent meeting.

https://castlepoint.cmis.uk.com/castlepoint

good evening members before we start the meeting we are not expecting a fire drill so if a fire alarm goes off please make your way out to the nearest emergency exit and gather at the front of Runny Meat Hall please switch off your mobile phones to silent welcome to this meeting to the overview and scrutiny committee i am councelor Grace Watson the chair of this committee can I ask members to introduce themselves starting from my left yeah I’m councelor Nick Harvey counselor for Northward Camry Island lorraine Bing councelor for Camry Central good evening councelor Carol Sage Camry Island East Ward good evening councelor Lorraine Lman from Aton Ward good evening councelor David Thomas for Winter Gardens Ward good evening councelor Matt Cortez Thundersley South good evening councelor Kate not from Hadley St james good evening councelor Diana Jones Abton Ward good evening councelor Sharon Angel St mary’s good evening everybody councelor Kieran Baler Tarbots good evening councelor Nicola Benson St george’s Ward thank you i would also like to welcome Jenny Bumont and Dale Philipsson who are our new independent persons for overview and scrutiny committee and are joining us remotely this evening welcome to you both thank you can I ask sitting counselors at the back to please introduce yourselves also uh Councelor Michael Fuller environ uh cabinet member for environment i’m here for in relation to item five on your agenda this evening thank you chairman thank you chair good evening all councelor Rob Lilis cabinet member for health well-being and housing thank you item one apologies members we’ve received apologies from Councelor Brooks Councelor Wimbledon Councelor Edwards are there any other apologies no no further apologies thank you item two members interest are there any interest to declare no interest item three minutes are the minutes of for the overview and scrutiny committee meeting on the held on the 9th of April 2025 agreed agreed thank you item four oh sorry i’ll just sign the minutes thank you very much item four corporate peer challenge action plan progress update members we have before us a report from the assistant director policy performance and customer providing update on the progress made against the action plan to address recommendations from the local government association’s corporate peer challenge mr brookke please introduce the report thank you chair and good evening members um so the purpose of this report is to present to the committee an update on the progress made against the action plan uh which was to address address the recommendations uh from the local government association’s corporate peer challenge which took place between the 3rd and the 5th of September last year in 2024 this is the second of two progress reports with the first of these reports coming to this committee in April the recommendation is is that is proposed that the committee resolves to note the progress made in the action plan as set out in appendix one to the report so by way of introduction um sections 4.1 to 4.4 set out a reminder of what the corporate peer challenge is um this is this is broadly unchanged from the report that was brought in April but the corporate peer challenge forms a key part of the improvement and assurance framework for local government section also provide um a summary of what is involved in the corporate beer challenge and in our case this was a 3-day on-site visit from the peer team gathering information and views from more than 25 meetings when they met with over 100 people which was then supplemented by their own research and reading um the corporate beer challenge recommendations are set out in section five there was seven recommendations from the corporate peer challenge report and it’s against these recommendations that the action plan provided in appendix one was developed we’re required to have a progress report review within 8 to 10 months of the original corpair challenge um and publish the findings of that progress review within 12 months um however we’ve just started the discussions with the LGA about the timing of the follow-up visit and it seems that there is a recent trend that um all of the peers who come to the original challenge are often keen to come to the follow-up challenge because they want to see how the organization that they’ve worked with is progressing and therefore because of that it’s likely that probably the peer challenge will be taking place or a follow-up in um in around the autumn time of this year possibly around October that’s just really to allow the peers to have enough um time and notice to be able to organize their own diaries but um we’ll have an update on that once it’s all been booked in in terms of the options um section six sets out two options within the report uh with option two as the prep preferred option and that is to note the progress that is made against the action plan so just coming on to the action plan in appendix one um as requested by members of this committee at the meeting in April um more detail has now been provided within the action plan against each of the actions which now shows the following the status of the action the completion percentage any target dates for any sub actions and then the completion dates for those so I’ll just briefly go through each of the actions as they’re presented and then happy to take any questions so the first action relates to financial planning and addressing the financial gap in future years details of this provided in the right hand column and this action is now complete action two relates to business change program um a summary of areas of focus are also provided on the right hand side um this action is now complete so in other words the program has been developed but it’s now being implemented with the first transformation board scheduled for July action three relates to the development of the new corporate plan um this has been developed and was adopted by council at their meeting on the 26th of March i think I’d have given the update at that time um at the meeting in April but this action is now complete action four relates to developing relationships between senior political and managerial leadership teams um and the update shows that a variety of meetings and process have been put in place since the corporate pit challenge happened this includes regular meetings and briefings and this action is now complete although obviously recognizing that the relation between senior political and manager leadership is an ongoing action so it’s not just a onceanddone action five relates to the approach to risk and performance management across the council with the council increasing officer capacity in this area i think when I last gave the update I said that there were new employees starting in April those employees have started and have been doing a lot of work on this piece of software that we use to hold performance data and our risk registers there’s some other developmental work which includes tracking audit actions which is now in place and then further link uh work to link performance risk and financial reporting as was asked in the recommendation so we’ve got this action currently showing as partially complete but on track for completion by the dates that set out in the report action six relates to maximizing opportunities for effective scrutiny and challenge so we have streaming of live meetings including this one enhanced communications about council activity the bianual castle point together magazine and also use of consultation software to run a range of consultations as listed in the report um at the time that I wrote this report it was flagged as partially complete and delayed although um since then the independent persons as we know um have now been appointed and they were ratified on 21st of May and therefore this action is now also complete the final action action seven relates to addressing a gap flagged at one of the partnership meetings that the the corporate peer challenge team had with partners in the community and voluntary sector about a council operational lead engaging and involving this sector this is the only action on the plan that has been delayed um mainly due to the capacity of the lead officer um and his focus on the housing improvement program um that hasn’t changed since April that housing improvement program um continues and requires his full attention however I’m pleased to be able to uh report that um we have now asked the Castle Point Association for Voluntary Services so Cavs as many will know them to share the community commitment that was part of this action but also our new corporate plan with partners so partners will be cited on these two important strategic documents for the council so that was all I wanted to say to introduce the report i’m happy to take any questions thank you thank you Mr brookke do members have any questions councelor not thank you chair uh could I just ask regarding the 50 people who have been trained in the new software um are there more people that need training in that software in which case sort of how many were you talking about and what sort of time frame so we have um 70 licenses for this software across the council so not every single council um officer will be be using the software however everybody who is either a well starting from the chief executive the directors the assistant directors and all of the service managers and then a selection of other staff who deal quite a lot with performance or risk management so in terms of the training that training has been completed but obviously when we get new people coming into the council who require training on the software they will give that on an as and when basis thank you councelor Cortez thank you chair um on section six you give us the figures um of how many people are engaging with us on Facebook X and LinkedIn um could you firstly also add in YouTube with this being live streamed to see see how many watches we get and also is there any way of seeing how that figure’s grown over perhaps a six-month period seeing if we are engaging with more people as it progresses thanks thank you yeah so so we do have good reporting on this i don’t have that to hand but what I’ll do is I’ll go away and give you a bit more of a trend um analysis of um the engagement over over those platforms and then noted on the um on the on the YouTube views as well yeah we’ll get that information to you thank you thank you Councelor Brading thank you um looking at the plan and as a number of items being put in place what steps are being taken to monitor how effective the this plan is going to be or is what effect it’s having currently thank you so um this is this this is one of the reasons why we have the follow-up visit from the peer challenge team so they will obviously have had all of their detail and be aware of the reasons behind the recommendations that they that they raised uh we put forward the action plan very much with the purpose of saying well actually we believe if we implement these actions it will address the recommendations but very much part of that sectorled improvement would be the peer challenge team coming back talking with us talking through the um action plan talking through the actions that we’ve taken and then I think using various other methods including interviews with key partners members of staff members etc will then arrive at a view as to whether there have been the improvements and and that we have in fact addressed the recommendations that have been raised councelor Broing did you wish to come back yes please um okay looking at item six for example one of the things was the corporate plan encourages greater resident participation sorry and engagement in council business um are we reviewing that on a more regular basis uh rather than just sit and wait for the LGA to come back so so in terms of the um engagement uh in council business so as part of the corporate plan we have something in there around looking into undertaking a resident survey so it’s something that Essex County Council have done regularly but we’d like to do one more locally ourselves so that is a piece of work that’s currently sitting with me and working with members of the team to explore the options around that and how we can best go around that particular one so that is that is an example within the corporate plan of greater resident participating engagement and we’ll be doing that quite specifically with a resident survey thank you councelor North thank you chair um I see on item seven um it’s reassuring that two new community safety officers has started um but however the role relating to health and well-being i see it’s subject to further discussion and I understand the reasons for that discussion but the peer challenge was nine months ago so I wonder if you could just explain just to make it a bit clearer why it’s still not decided where that role of health and safety will sit and how much longer do you anticipate those discussions to be going on for so the um that the health and well-being role um is one that um I believe is being picked up um in the service review for that particular service area there may be colleagues here who might have a better idea of the time scale on those uh but it’s it’s very much making sure that that particular role sits in the right part of the council it was a role that I think was um jointly um it was funded partly by six county council and it was a joint role between us and Roford councils um and I believe that um Roford Council are now have that that particular post as a sort of full-time post within their own establishment but um in terms of the service review I don’t know the time scales on that and when it’s expect to conclude but there may be others in the meeting this evening who who could answer that with a bit more detail but I don’t want to commit anyone at the moment but thank you um yeah I it’s really good question um there is a reason why it’s been delayed and that’s obviously the officer that was appointed into that particular role has now left uh the council so we are looking at options and the reason why we’re doing that is because health and safety across many many departments so where it where it sits or has sat in the past may not be the natural place for it to sit in the future what we’ll do is we’ll come back with a timetable for that as soon as we possibly can for when that will be resolved thank you councelor Brading do you wish to come back yes sorry to uh keep hustling on this but I think there’s an awful lot of work’s gone into addressing the items that the LGA identified and the council has been working on might it be useful for a follow-up plan to have emerged from this giving us details of what you’re doing and the success or things that still needed to be worked on at a later date so so again I think with the with the follow-up visit um there will be further recommendations there will probably be things that they maybe feel we haven’t addressed recommendations as fully as they would have liked to have seen or perhaps other issues that may have emerged since the original corporate peer challenge that we would like to then include in a further um further improvement um action plan so I think that’s something that we’ll be developing this isn’t a kind of like once this plan is done that’s it we we stop there there will be a follow-up action plan and I think that’s something that we could bring into this committee to to to keep a track on thank you Councelor Aninsley yes thank you Chair um council not actually asked both the questions I was going to ask no it’s fine um and I would also like to echo that I very grateful that we’ve got new two new um community safety officers and they’re starting to do some really good work so I’m very pleased with that um regarding the um the appointment of the health and well-being um is that going to be a shared facility with um Roford or is it going to be a dedicated person within Castle Point i’m just um mindful that we’ve got um large areas of deprivation in Castle Point and the need is probably stronger here thank you chair uh thank you for your question uh yeah that that’s one of the issues that’s been looked at at the moment um just to explain part of the significant changes obviously we’re working with uh Sport England active uh active essics uh as part of the place partnership um and the funding that is available through that and that focus of that partnership is around health and well-being and is about using uh recreation and sports for health and well-being purposes and therefore it’s it’s it’s making sense to have have some integration into that partnership because obviously that then levers in other resources um through the the role that that’s doing with wider partners across Essex uh Essex County Council and locally as well um but in terms of maintaining the split role with Roford that that is something that is part of the discussions thank you for that explanation welcome to the independent person Jenny Bumont oh yes good evening everyone um could I just ask a question about um the community and voluntary engagement matter that um you mentioned so the assistant director’s focus on that has been around housing improvement and that was given as a rationale I think in the previous notes with regard to lack of progress and some contribution maybe towards the delay there you’re not talking about review in autumn how confident are you that that will be able to be completed within that time frame now bearing in mind that I think that was sitting at only 25% completion please so I I think with the fairly sort of simple action of having asked Cavs to help us to send out the community commitment and the corporate plan to partners that percentage is probably increased slightly i I think with this particular action it’s quite a tricky one because the that the partnership group was one that was very much looking at health and well-being and it was that it was that group of partners as opposed to those that were more focused on the kind of economic development side of things who raised this point about that feeling like there’s a bit of a void within the council um I think and it says this within the within the report itself that of course there are other partnerships and other partnership work that goes on across the council and I think realistically we’re probably never going to end up with a single point of contact for for partners um but that particular area is one where there is still that still that gap really i think once we have a health and well-being um officer partnership officer in place they could well be that contact um so I’m reasonably confident to be honest and I think that you know in the absence of that and and and rightly with with the assistant director in that area concentrating on the housing improvement program there are other partnerships going on all the time and we do have strong um links across a number of um senior managers across the council into those different partnerships as well so it’s one that I think was was quite a focus of the peer challenge team but I think in partnerships in general we do have a good story to tell and we do have strong partnerships across the piece um so I am reasonably confident that by the time we get around to um the peer challenge coming in again that we should have bottomed out this particular action have a much clearer view in terms of who that single point of contact would be for those partners who focus um principally on on health and well-being related matters okay thank you councelor Arman with the with all the points that we’ve gotten you’ve said they’re completed and I’ll take up um councelor Beardley’s um point do we not have an internal audit system that we could actually audit ourself before we wait for the peer review to actually check on our to be monitoring it have we got any criteria to monitor it against so so so the corporate beer challenge will follow a a a range of areas that they will look at with each of their corporate peer challenges that they do so yes there is probably something that we can do i mean to to a degree I think that the conversations that we’re having here and the conversations we’ll be having with senior managers as well as this action plan was was implemented is a is a form of audit um I can talk with the head of internal audit who we use um and see whether he thinks that there will be some value in doing a piece of audit work in advance of the corporate peer challenge team coming back and doing a further review um and get his views on that um I think that’s probably probably probably the best answer I can give for now but yeah I I’ll I’ll ask the question and see whether um see whether that’s something that he feel that both they can resource in the time that we’re talking about but actually what what the value would be coming from that piece of work to see if an independent look at that would would provide some value towards but as this is an area that I I work in I feel that if I’m being audited I always do a pre- audit get an internal audit done before we do so we can actually plug some of them gaps before the peer we waste the time and getting the peer review in let me ask a question it’s a good challenge thank you thank you do we have any further questions councelor Jones thank you chair uh with regard to recommendation five and just following up u from question asked by councelor not earlier on about the training of officers with regard to the new IT system can you tell me will um will there be an updating of training for um officers after a period of time um we’ll start with that question if I can follow on afterwards thank you yes so I mean there there is an offer from the team that that ran the training that if anyone wants refresher training if anyone needs some support on using the system that they’re always able to do that um personal view but I do think the system is quite intuitive and I think once people have had that training and know their way around it they’re able to to to use it but um we haven’t really sort of formally decided on a a a specific date for some follow-up training it’s probably more likely needed for those new starters who are going to be using the system who will be coming from a from a base of sort of zero really but those who are have been trained already and are using the system hopefully will be able to continue to to understand how to use it councelor Jones did you wish to come back yes please thank you um it’s just that usually in in any organization and even for uh the members ourselves that we have regular regular training um and and an update so despite knowing the routines of measures and so on would it not be a good idea to have on the calendar um regular training for for members um presumably there will be updates to the systems new new sort of measures that come in that are unknown to the officers would it not be a good idea to actually have it on the calendar i think there’s a fair challenge and I think that um as as we use more of the system and we’re very much starting from not using much of the system to now starting to use lots of different modules within the system that as we start to roll out different things there will be that need for that training but um I think I take your point about actually planning some follow-up training i think it’s probably more likely to be on an as and when basis as we do start to roll out the different modules as opposed to a set date where we’ll train people on everything that was in the system but I understand what you’re saying thank you do members have any further questions no members are the contents of the report noted noted thank you agenda item five environment enforcement policy members we have before us a report from the assistant director environment asking members to consider the environment report policy mr jarvis please introduce the report thank you chair evening members um I’m sure we’d all agree that as a council we want to provide our residents and visitors with a a clean and attractive barer uh and in fact we have a to do so we have we have a legal responsibility to do so as the principal litter authority for the burough to do this we we provide street cleansing activities by our contractor Pinnacle but we also need to ensure we enforce against those who clearly who are clearly found using our streets parks open spaces as a dumping ground for their waste there’s a a threepronged underlining principle for this uh when dealing with environmental crime firstly it’s to inform that’s to provide the public with details as to how they can dispose of their waste correctly which we do via our website uh and members of the public can phone in and get guidance from our contact center secondly we educate so we undertake campaigns uh we’ll undertake campaigns via keep Britain tidy uh and possibly our own campaigns and we’ll also engage with the public where we know issues and littering or fly tipping hotspots which would involve knocking at doors see if we can find out information from public if they’ve seen anybody acting suspiciously or dumping waste and finally in force and that’s where it’s clear a person has taken no notice of the information and education we’ve provided and has dumped their waste illegally the this environment enforcement policy gives a clear approach to how the council via its environment team will undertake these enforcement powers um section three of the policy provides details on each offense this detail is important as it ensures officers authorized to undertake enforcement use the correct legislation for the offense they are enforcing if a if a case was to go to court courts are very keen that the right legislation is used otherwise unfortunately they’ll they’ll just throw the case out section four details that who details who the authorized officers are i can confirm that we have five officers authorized to undertake enforcement at differing levels uh sections five and six go on to explain enforcement action uh and the use of fixed penalty notices and community pro protection notices and finally appendix one in the policy sets out the fixed penalty and community protection notice fine levels and I would draw your attention to five within the report which provides further clarification in respect of the fines uh particularly 5.3 which shows fine levels yet to be set and it’s important that we have these these these fine levels set uh at the beginning of the report in 3.1 it provides the recommendations and I’m happy to take any questions chair thank you Mr jarvis um councelor not thank you chair um would it be helpful to define um advertisement in the policy with regards to fly posting a common interpretation of this would be advertising a business or an event however my understanding is that in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 it defines that an advertisement can also be advertising a concern it would be helpful if our policy made this clear it seems to me that there’s an increasing tendency to fly post politically motivated campaigns and concerns across the castle point burough and be it national or local matters i think I’m going to have to take that question away because I’d need advice from our planning department on that one councelor Benson thank you chair um my question was actually for 3.02 the dog fouling um section um it says that it’s an offense for any person in charge of a dog which defecates at any time on land within the burough of the castle point covered by this order not to remove the feces from the land forth with h what do we stand in when what do we how do we Sorry my question is if they pick up the feces in a bag and then walk a few paces down and then chuck it in a bush is that the same thing do do they are they then going to be um you know charged the same so if they’ve picked up the feces um they’ve uh they’ve complied with the legislation around clearing their waste if they throw it into the bush they’ve then committed a littering offense councelor Cortez thank you Chair um with regards to the fly tipping um it says that environmental crime offenses the threshold is is the same as a criminal it’s a criminal offense so it’s got to be proven beyond reasonable doubt with fly posting how can we prove who put the poster up we can prove the contents but we can’t prove who’s actually put the poster up itself no it is always very difficult particularly with fly posting to ascertain who has actually put it up because generally speaking fly posting is is you know is where posters are put up all over the place um and it and generally speaking you’ll find there I know we’ll clean your floors and there’s a mobile number um we have in the past phoned the mobile number uh and as soon as we start to explain who we are phone goes dead so it is very difficult on fly posting to be to actually catch the culprit um but obviously what we need to ensure is that the that the offense is listed so if we do catch the culprit we can we can take action against them um I think one of the things that we would always do in if somebody reports somebody fly posting we’d ask them for it as much information as they’ve got as to who if they know who’s doing it uh so we can uh we can find out from there council Lman on point 3.06 on the fly tipping um I’ve recently been doing a lot of walking around Benfleet um and noticed a lot of fly tipping of fire extinguishers sofas etc and most of these are on unadopted roads so how do we get the reports in how do we know where it is is there someone going out and identifying it and where it is i mean do we have a campaign for the lo them them residents along them areas to say if they notice anything because they are very sparse houses along there that they actually report it and do they know who and how to report it so generally speaking um reports of fly tipping are probably our highest number of reports throughout the month um so we can almost guarantee that if somebody sees something they will report it to the council which they can do on the website or they can do phoning the into the council um we have as I mentioned we’ve got a team we’ve taken on uh a new uh member of staff who is dedicated to enforcement and education uh and they will be taking these cases and they will be going out and proactively trying to find out who’s fly tipped the waist and uh and see if they can find any evidence but I I think in in the number of years I’ve dealt with this the public are very good at knowing that it’s the council that deals with it and they they’ll phone it through and report it to us you wish to come back councelor Lman yes please what sort of time scale because I’ve been watching this particular fly tipping rubbish for the last sort of like nine weeks now and nothing has moved and in fact it’s got worse so you know is there any time scales that it should be removed um so the contract with with our contractor for flight they have to remove it within one working day of it being reported to them but that sounds like it hasn’t been reported to us so if you email myself uh where the location is and then we we’ll take that forward always always helpful councelor S thank you chair um looking at 3.03 03 dogs on leads the introduction of a public space protection order relating to dogs on leads on Cami Island for Is this 24 hours or is this between a set certain time because it just doesn’t say anything it doesn’t give me any timings or anything like that at all and while I’m here you need to look at the the next line down the English um so the there is a set time uh for the dogs and leaves it’s it’s 1st of April to 30th of September and I think it’s between 9:00 and 6:00 but I need to check that for you to come back council yes please thank you chair can you put it in this document so that people can see it and as I said take a look at the next line councelor Angley thank you once again I’ve been beaten to most of my questions um so uh yes I I too was going to mention about um the timing of the dogs on leads um and I was going to suggest that could be amended to 9:00 a.m to 700 p.m but I mean 6 6 p.m is is better um and I was also going to ask could a section of the foreshore be allocated as a dog friendly beach um the tide would naturally clean the beach anyway and there there are certainly sections of the beach which are not accessible to um to some people because you have to climb over um the breakers so um I can’t see why there we couldn’t allow a dog friendly beach all year round if that was a possibility um so that was that one if I can come back to dog fouling made exactly the same notes as my colleague here so that that’s that’s that answered and on section three um 3.0 the scope I would like to know um is does the are the utility companies including the water companies um and and utilities included in this policy thank you uh so we’ll take the the beach area forward and and review that for you um in terms of the utility companies um depends what depends what the the offense is or what you what’s happened obviously through environmental health they’ll have specific powers to deal with what statutory um organizations can do but for instance if a if a utility company came along and decide and they decided to dump some of the waste that they had produced out of the work they were doing then we would probably clearly deal with that as a fly tip but it it depends very much on what specifically has happened as to what legislation can be used you wish to come back councelor Ensley as you might expect I got lots of questions on this subject um if only this was working yeah it’s got it’s gone off again thank you um right yes so on graffiti I’ve written now on 3.05 what will the um environment agency and ECC actually do about enforcement and I have a question on fly tipping if that’s okay yes I will um so on fly tipping 3.06 06 does this legislation apply to the land owner who fails to secure their land and prevent fly tipping occurring is occupier in this sense owner thank you so in terms of the graffiti um the we the we would work with the if if it’s a a county owned piece of uh property or an environment agency owned piece of property we would work with them to get that graffiti cleared um we wouldn’t look to enforce against them in the first instance we would look to work with them in terms of the uh fly tipping uh the occupier can either be the land owner or the person responsible for the piece of land so if you for instance take the if you take the the dikes on Canv um they’re not technically owned by the environment agency but if they’re a main river then the environment agency have responsibility for them i’ll come back to you councelor Ensley councelor Bing thank you i’ve just really got one question and I actually are really pleased to see this report today and I know there are some areas that need to be looked into but in the main my main concern is enforcement of this document because um on canv and I’m sure councelor Thomas will back me up on this every other day two days same bit of flight tipping gets taken at the same places from residents and you get called out and you pick it up great no problem with that but we’re not addressing the underlying problem of the people that are doing this because there are no names on there there’s nothing to say but they don’t they’re massive great bits of furniture because they can’t get them taken to pity and that I think is the biggest problem so I don’t know how we can enforcement is going to be our biggest barrier to this and I don’t know what we can do practically to enhance the enforcement of this so perhaps you could um so as as I mentioned earlier we’ve got uh a new member of staff that started last week whose uh primary focus will be on enforcement and education so uh through Lee’s team I would be expecting us to start to build up uh a list of the hot spots across the burough and we would start to work in those areas to determine what kind of waste has been putting out start to see if we can see where it’s possibly coming from and start to educate in that area as well um it’s very difficult if a sofa appears you don’t know where it’s come from um and so in the end sometimes there’s only so much you can do but also you find if you start to make a presence in that area and start to ask questions in that area it does sometimes start to sort itself out because somebody will think I might get caught out eventually sort of thing so um I think on that question I would say because it’s a new post because it’s something that we’ve not really done very done before in six or seven months time let’s see what sort of how productive it is and what what we’re learning and how we’re how we can take that forward but yeah but that’s but we we certainly want to be proactive with what we’re doing on the enforcement the education side now so thank you councelor Thank you chair um my question I’ve got three points to the the same question um all to do with with vehicles do we actually have any power for what we’re classing as an abandoned vehicle if it is legally taxed emoteed and insured even if it quite simply hasn’t moved for a month or two um secondly do we have the ability to get the registered owners details from the DVLA or are they um barred due to due to uh GDPR um and also what do we do if someone’s selling vehicles from home so their sales vehicles are actually on their own property but it means that all of their personal vehicles are put on the road adding to the the parking problem thank you uh so in terms of point one um if a car is taxed and moted it’s legally allowed to park on the highway unless there’s parking restrictions um what we are finding what we’ve noticed particularly since co with a lot more people working from home cars are staying in place for quite a lot longer um so we do get reports from them as I say if it’s taxing it’s perfectly legal and unable to park on the road terms of point two uh we have a connection with the DVLA so we can and that’s part of the investigation so if we’re of the opinion that the vehicle has possibly been abandoned we can get the registered keeper details off the DVLA uh obviously there’s GDPR around there about who we can share that with and what we got to do with the information but we can get those uh in terms of uh point three um similar to 0.1 really they’re perfectly entitled to park their vehicles on on the road um vehicles that are being sold from a residential property is more a planning aspect I think for the property itself so um welcome to the independent person Dale Philipsson uh thank you chair um I have um a question around outcomes of this of this policy and I’m interested in how um the different categories of environmental defenses will be performance managed and how those various metrics are used to manage the contractor so we work very closely with our contractor uh in terms of not in working out where the hotspots are um the contractor is required when they’re clearing a flight tip to search it for evidence in the first EV instance and then pass that information back to us um and actually we work in in tune because we know that there are hotspots out there so we’d want the contractor very active in in be able to clear those sites um and we match a lot of the evidence we get through service requests through our own inspections against how the contract is performing uh and it it’s very much as I say a work in tandem uh and it sort of provides all the data that we need to see where we need to increase our education and enforcement okay thank you thank you um councelor Harvey thank you um 66 penalty notices how many people have we got in the council that are authorized to issue them and is there any way of us knowing how many they actually issue so we will have five officers authorized to issue fixed penalty notices um because of the way that that we’ve had to restructure the team over the last couple of years there’s not been many being issued but as we move forward we’ll keep a database of what’s been issued and we can provide those details councelor Angel you wish to come back i did and I’d like to just address um what Mr councelor Harvey has just raised um when these um fines are issued these fixed penalty notices are issued are they issued on a handheld um device so that the um fine is automatically registered on the database so it depends on the on the type of offense so if you’re if it’s a littering offense or a a dog failing offense generally speaking that’s something that’s is physically observed by the officer that will be served via a uh fixed penalty book although we will probably be looking at moving towards more towards an electronic way of doing that if you’re dealing with a flight tip generally speaking you’re investigating the f the flight tip first of all so the so that is actually the fixed penalty is served via post to the address in a in a in a document format councelor Aninsley I’m just concerned that that there’s a there’s a risk there that it’s open to fraud i’m not suggesting anybody would but um if it’s not automatically logged um how can we be sure that everything is being recorded so the process that the officer would go through is is is set out uh in terms of how they would so if they let’s just take a littering offense if they if they see a person littering uh they will talk to that person explain to them what the offense is and then they’ll start to take down that person’s details uh and then they will serve them with the fixed penalty notice and obviously we keep a copy ourselves uh and and and then that’s all data logged this end on on the in our on a spreadsheet so we can see what’s been served um what the date for the fine payment is thank you Councelor Thomas thank you Chair um regarding bulky waste so um not that it’s it’s easier than it was to find online but I find the wait time to have a bulky item removed is more than what people expect could be a couple of weeks such as sofas fridge freezers and things like that um normally when someone signs up for a bulky waste collection they have a sort of an earlier date set in mind because they’re having it delivered to their house and I think cuz we take so long to remove it on the booking system this is why some of it is being dumped here there and everywhere um there have been occasions on the website where I don’t know whether we’re reaching capacity or there’s staff issues where bulky waste has actually been stopped at certain points in the year when you’ve gone online is there capacity to keep it running all year round does can or does capacity uh can it be improved to take more bookings so the waste and recycling side is is not my service area so um but we’ll take a note of that we’ll take it back to to the AD for waste and recycling but I would also say it’s a good point we need to understand the link between that and and if that’s increasing fly tipping as well thank you thank you councelor Benson thank you um my question was just about the fixed penalty notices um does it differ depending on the offense the the amount uh yes so if you look at the appendix one to the policy at the end of the policy you’ll see the different levels of um fine level i got you sorry didn’t scroll down that far thanks but but yeah I mean to add to that obviously if you look at the fine level for fly tipping against littering for instance you can see that the government have placed greater emphasis on fly tipping in terms of the fine level than littering councelor Boer yeah just regarding the flight tipping hotspots um obviously you said you’re going to be employing lots of for one of a better term actions weaponry would that include CCTV if it’s a known hotspot and will that be used evidentially covert CCTV possibly yes you like questions like that yes so do I um councelor Lman and we use hidden cameras under a covert situation i know the CCTV might help but they’re not in the unadopted roads and some of the places that this happens and obviously if we do understand where it is these little cameras they can be hidden so well and I think that’s the only way of sort of catching some of these people or groups that are littering okay so it’s not really a question but yeah we have got the equipment to do that you have got the equipment okay lovely councelor Cortez thank you again chair um you said that part of prevention or under this uh point 2 purpose uh 2.2 prevention it’s place litter and dog waste bins in areas where there’s high footfall um firstly they also need to be emptied quite often certainly in the summer months you go past them and the bins there and it’s got all the rubbish piled around it um and also we we could do with having the bins that allow um cigarette butts and ash to go in the top um rather than people just throwing their cigarettes on the floor thank you we’ll take that point away i mean the the the litter bins we buy now have stuff plates on the top of them so they should be able to be put them in the bin but we’ll take the points away about the emptying and stuff so councelor Harvey Thank you chair a couple of points on fly tipping i find it really strange that in one of my sign written vans I can chuck a mattress in it book it at Bitsy and go get rid of it but I can’t take it around the corner to Benle is there a reason for that because if you can get rid of it locally and somebody can a neighbor can do you a favor you’re not going to fly tip it my neighbor has got an Amarok pickup which he uses for his family it’s got a back on it it’s a It’s for him it’s a car he’s not even allowed to take it in the tip with a bag of rubbish in it because they say it’s a commercial vehicle that’s my first question i don’t understand the answer to that one at all so the the recycling centers are managed by Essis County Council so it’s not a rule that we’ve set it’s a it’s a rule that Ess County Council have have set so uh I can’t obviously provide an answer for that one but uh uh my second one is going back to the uh fixed penalty notices your officers are going out on patrol are they a policeman can ask you to prove your name and address when he writes a ticket out have they got the same power because I could if I was going to get one I’d just say I’m Steuart Jarvis and give some Mickey Mouse address no how are they ever going to find me you may give my name but you don’t know my address so um so part of the the training that we’ll do with the team and getting them authorized there’s powers of in legislation that gives the officer it’s a requirement of the person to give the name and address so um we’ll obviously be working quite closely with the community protection team that’s just started and we’re also looking to form bigger and greater l uh links with the police as well so um just to help help us in those matters so and councelor Thomas thank you again chair um three very quick questions all regarding um the enforcement officers so um enforcement officers uh dog failing is a big issue I presume across Castle Point certainly at the back of my house where the lake is and a lot down the seafront and that is a big thing online anyway people moaning about it so um I can’t say I’ve ever seen an enforcement officer so do they wear uniforms when patrolling um the other thing is do they have cameras on them and are they GPS trackable to say they are actually patrolling the areas they’re supposed to be patrolling and um that’s about it at the moment i may come back with another question depending on your answer so uh all staff wear um PPE and it’s Castle Point livered um as I mentioned earlier we’ve got a new gentleman started last week so he’s only just started so we’re we’re having to to prep him up uh they are equipped with body cams uh not only for recording evidence but obviously for their own protection uh and they also have a a people safe device which is a um it’s again it’s a it’s PPE but it’s also trackable as well so um but we will put in place patrol areas so we know when they are when when they’re dog founding is one of those things you’ve got to be there on the time it happens to to actually deal with it so yes come back yeah go on then thank you chair um so in most areas people tend to walk their dogs at certain times of day anyway round about dinner time lunchtime and early mornings or midm morning it sort of dies off um I would like and I suppose everyone else here would like um updates on how many people tackled over this how many fines issued on a monthly basis even if it’s just a report coming out to us so we can see how it progresses over time and that enforcement action is actually happening thank you yeah we’ll take that away Councelor Jones thank you chair um with regard to fly posting I know that councelor not asked this question earlier on but um there are many instances of fly posting around the burough certainly in the mainland where where I live and where I drive around and I’ve seen many many posters small large that have remained in place around the railings um are we you know are the enforcement officers going to be attending to these quite promptly so there’s two answers to that uh in terms of fly posting um I would expect our contractor to be removing that as as they see it uh but also uh I know we’ll be working with the planning department on the on the sort of the advertisement side to make sure that we’re we’re taking the enforcement action against those those banners correctly um although I’m 99.99% certain that banners on railings won’t have the permission of Essex highways to place them there on a highway structure we we we just need to find a way of making sure that that is correct um but we will be looking to ensure that advertisement and where we can definitely um ascertain who the person is the actions taken against them councilors I think we’ve we’ve asked a lot of questions on this tonight councelor Aninsley not working again um it’s just not working again um on the forfeite orders um are we able to actually sell anything that we’ve um seized and um the proceeds go to a community fund uh I don’t believe we’re legally allowed to sell items on unfortunately mr jarvis how frequently would you like to give regular regular updates on these things i think I’d like to take that away as I say we’ve got a new team so the manager has started so I’ I’d like to work with Lee and the operations managers to so we can set that out um but what I think we can probably come to an agreement on that within a month and come back to you uh and let you know on that with any recommendations noted members I will move the recommendation set out in paragraph 3.1 of the report do I have a second okay i apologize we’re still going with questions um thank you chair it’s not so much a question as uh just to point out that there are grammatical errors in the report uh as there were in the previous report as well which I didn’t uh bring up at the time uh uh by 4.1 in the introduction uh it says that the council will do enforcement I believe it should be perhaps use enforcement there’s another one under 7.1 where it says let me just find it uh therefore and reduction in environmental crime I think it means any uh followed by within the report it the policy itself if I can get this to move uh on page 11 please bear with me um at the top of the page it says it is an offense for any person in charge of a dog or dogs does not have does not to have the dog or dogs on a lead there’s there’s an error there obviously and come uh page 13 under 3.09 09 uh the middle paragraph which starts the CNA 2005 also makes an offense etc etc the next sentence this only applies to persons who are during a business of carrying out restricted works so I believe that’s a mistake as well council Jones can I ask if there is any spelling discrepancies or other discret discrepancies in the report can you please email the officers so it can be corrected before the meetings thank you if it’s councelor Aninsley thank you chair um we’re going to be asked to uh vote on the recommendations however earlier in the report it said that cabinet have um agreed certain fines i would like to propose um what I think they should be i think they’re far too lenient on the ones that they haven’t agreed um so be so before we vote on that I would like to to propose what I think is is is a better fine and and see whether or not people agree with that um and I also wanted to to ask um this that we we have a mini crime wave occurring in this burough what powers does the legislation give us to tackle juvenile delinquency right thank you uh so in in terms of the uh juvenile delinquency that that that’s not for this policy that is uh well obviously if if they’re if they’re littering or they’re fly tipping then we’ll we’ll deal with that through the through the process but uh obviously they’re they’re criminal matters as well unfortunately so that’s that would be for the police uh just to say on the the fine levels that haven’t been agreed as yet just to note that the default the mac the minimum discounted penalty and the statutory fixed range penalty are stat in statute so we can’t go any higher than those those levels councelor Aninsley did you want to make any additional recommendations i did i don’t really um know if I follow what um Stuart has just said there but um I I’ll I’ll go for it anyway so um on point three failure to produce waste documents business um the statuto fixed penalty is 300 i would like to see that as being £1,000 um it’s same with um four because these people that are are illegally transporting waste and dumping it they can make £300 in one in one day is not going to be a deterrent um but if we’re not able to do that then hands are tied but I would like to recommend that that is um increased to a,000 pound reducing to 300 for early payment on both three and four thank you Mr jarvis is that is that a possibility uh sorry no sorry if I didn’t explain myself correctly so though the the the the maximum fine is set by government we can’t change the maximum fine that’s as high as we can go unfortunately oh wait council Lman just to go back on that i I know what you’re saying is is correct but after three fines it’s all automatically goes to court and then that would be when the higher penalties come in so I think that’s a legal the we can’t do anything else other than stat stratey it’s not what out of our hands thank you and hanging’s been put you know not allowed now we don’t hang people right i don’t remember saying that so right thank you Mr jarvis um members I will rem I will move the recommendation set out of paragraph 3.1 of the report do I have a seconder councelor Aninsley thank you is that agreed members councelor Fuller do you wish to leave the meeting now as you’ve got another one by leave chairman yes if that would be acceptable thank you very much agenda item six culture and tourism strategy members we have before us a report from the assistant director climate and growth which provides details of the progress of the tourism task and finish group and presents the culture and tourism strategy for consideration mr masters please introduce the report thank you chair and good evening members this report in front of you highlights the work of the task infinish group that was established to look at improving tourism in Castle Point based on the work of the cast and finish group there is clear scope to develop the proposition for tourism to encompass cultural activities including heritage arts and creative cultural part of the work of the tourism uh task and finish group involved mapping key visitor attractions within the burough and the key assets uh and this piece of work was provided to the consultant which ultimately fed into the strategy at the cabinet meeting in November members agreed following the work of the group to uh to a report setting out UK SPF expenditure plans which included the recommendations to commission a consultant to write a draft tourism and culture strategy following this we undertook a very competitive tender process just before Christmas with 11 responses um received to the uh tender an organization called curated places were appointed in early January to carry out the work um owing to an considerable amount of experience in other um regional strategies and other strategies of a similar nature across the country um they undertook a considerable amount of um engagement locally there is various workshops with key stakeholders um one-to-one interviews which are included within the appendices of the strategy as well as workshop sessions with key groups and local organizations etc um all of those are documented included in the uh appendices of the strategy um we reconvene the task and finish group on the 29th of April where members received the first draft of the strategy so the strategy itself is entitled fresh horizons which you have with you it sets out to uh an exciting vision we feel to make Castle Point the best place in Essex for lifelong creativity it has seen a wider pool of stakeholders I say in business and creative and the tourism sectors engaged in its development and what it does is it places the council as the facilitator rather than direct deliverer um so bringing those groups together to to sort of grow the creative side of it first then then growing the tourism sector growing the local tourism spend etc um the strategy has six clear pillars that form the foundation of an action plan uh with a set of 30 actions so it’s u in total um and the strategy itself looks beyond uh even potentially the life of the council beyond to 2030 um and yeah positions Castle Point we feel in a good good footing in terms of visitor economy um following the work of the task and finish group members of that group were provided we sorry were provided with a copy of the strategy uh and invited to respond to any comments we did receive comments um which were very productive um and largely around the destinations um some queries around that um some feeling that it didn’t draw out strongly enough some of the tourism assets um particularly can be seafront um noting these challenges we went back to the consultants and and raised this and asked them to amend the strategy to provide specific sections on the key destinations so what we what we come back with was spotlights and highlighting opportunities around these destinations for Hadley Canva and Benfley as a gateway destination um and there are a number of subrecommendations for those um and actions for those particular destinations um cabinet members were also provided with a pre-briefing on the 13th of May where they made some suggestions around um further KPIs um and return investment which is included within the document um uh as as a yeah and page 10 I believe um the report itself recommends to members that they one approve the drive culture and tourism strategy for adoption and two that the actions set out in table one of this report taken to deliver the short-term actions arising from the strategy we’ve made some of these recommendations uh sorry within the um table one because in truth the capacity within the team to deliver on this strategy given its ambitions um we don’t have we don’t have the expertise um in the creative and cultural sector um so it would require us to look to utilize reserves or future UK SPF funding to appoint a cultural officer um a tourism officer and then put a extra a resource into marketing and branding so we we’ve got a a good offering to promote so use you know a lot came out around um what to do in Castle Point local guides that sort of thing so we we’ve included that following the members recommendations um I think that kind of sums it up quite well as I say we we’ve come up with some quite strong recommendations strategy itself does around building the foundations interventions and then the activation so there’s a lot there to to read um it’s but yeah happy to take any questions at this point thank you Mr masters we have question from councelor courts thank you chair i’ve got quite a few questions that I’ll come to later um firstly can I say personally speaking as a member of the task and finish group the document that was produced at the end of it had no relevance to what we was discussing whatsoever um and secondly how much did we waste spend on that strategy thank you uh the commission was £30,000 of UK share prosperity fund money it feels like something that could have been done on chat GBT because it’s got no relevance to Castle Point throughout it i mean we we feel it does we we we did we didn’t six six pillars just just seems very cheesy and sales speak and has no relevance to anything that was discussed we didn’t mention any pillars let alone six of them okay um well okay councelor Bing thank you um I attended two meetings of the tourism task and finish group and I the second one the draft report wasn’t presented to us in advance of the meeting so we had no opportunity to study the draft report um and we were trying to look at it during a presentation from this um consultants group which was very difficult at the end of it um I think a number of us were very concerned that there’s a very heavy bias towards culture and the arts within the report um and we understood we were there to look at tourism and how to you know bring tourists into the bar so I think we were quite concerned and did express that at length following that meeting and I think those on the um finish task and finish group would agree with me on that um there was very limited discussion when when I asked how many um businesses on can be seafront were approached to um participate in what they felt were the barriers towards increasing the tourism which I think is fundamental to us being able to do anything within the burough um I was told that there was one at the um hotel on Cami and that one group um on Canvi didn’t want didn’t want their responses publicized but we would be furnished with those but we haven’t seen those at all um and unless we identify some of the barriers towards the tourism I think we’re very limited in taking reactive um steps to increase it i understand and I I’m wasn’t aware that anybody at Hadley Park any of the businesses at Hadley Park were spoken to [Music] um I feel it’s so heavily biased towards culture and very limited towards enhancing the tourism towards our barrier so um it would have been I think useful for some of the discussions we had some of the suggestions that members made have not been included at all um and we live in the barrack and I think some of our suggestions could at least have been given some consideration so I’m going to ask because we’re asking the council to commit £385,000 towards enhancing or going further with this that’s a lot of money i’m not convinced it’s going to have the desired results within our bar burough so I’m going to request that the report be referred back to the tourism task and finish group so that they can look further into it and make their comments and suggestions to be added to the report thank you thank you councelor Councelor Thomas thank you chair um regarding KPIs what’s the base level how do you measure that you’ve got an increase in in visitor spend of 15% how is that measurable i don’t I just don’t understand how you can measure that and where your base figure is coming from thanks would you like to answer any no b would you like to answer uh yeah just just I have to come back to how we measure that but there is data out there that is collected by various agencies in terms of tourism spend and tourism visitor numbers i’ve seen some of that data myself in the past so is it local data collecting local data on issue on matters like that is actually really difficult to do and quite resource intensive therefore um as I said we we’ll come back exactly what the source is but there is data out there which does measure tourism spend and visitor numbers to particular areas but we’ll come back in terms of where how that data is collected councelor Cortez thank you again chair just things that are missing we’ve we’ve just spent or committed 2 million pound on on doing up the paddocks I don’t think the paddock is mentioned as as a way of bringing people into the area I don’t think hoff offices mentioned we haven’t mentioned the transport museum castle Point has got in it the the first mini roundabout in the UK in it and we haven’t even mentioned that to have the first of anything there was just so many things that are not in that travel and tourism guide or or strategy that it shows that it hasn’t been done by anyone that knows the area at all ian Buff please yeah can uh chair can I recommend to the committee that we defer this um and actually defer this back to the task and finish group you’re raising a number of questions that quite clearly you feel have not been addressed and I think it’s only appropriate that we allow the task and finish group to have further discussion and debate on those issues and then further report to be made back to this committee are the committee happy with that right we move on then to agenda item seven cycling task and finish group update and action plan members we have before us a report from the assistant director climate and growth which pro provides details on the progress of the work of the cycling infrastructure task sorry I’ll get me words out in a minute task and finish group mr buff please introduce the report thank you chairman um Manda Pal who uh wrote this report sends her apologies for seen she had a pre uh pre-existing engagement um but thank you for um for this opportunity to go through the report this report highlights the work of the cycling infrastructure task and finish group which was established by the this committee in November 2024 the purpose of the group is to consider investment in cycling and walking networks which can increase the use of cycling walking for community and daily use which includes things like trips to shops school or to community facilities so it didn’t include leisure cycling so it didn’t for example include mountain bike usage at Tadley for example the role of the group also provided input into the emerging castle point local cycling and walking infrastructure plan uh that has been prepared by sis county council for brevity i would refer to that plan as the LC whip um the report highlights the work of the task and finish group including engagement with residents and businesses the latter with businesses is absolutely vital as the work task and finish group also consider the provision of cycling storage facilities at workplaces and key destinations such as supermarkets this work working with businesses will be continued by uh will be continued by officers part of our ongoing business liaison and uh and when we deal with planning applications the fundamentum issue that the group was seeking to address is the very low use of cycling in particular as a form of transport for commuting at a level which is below 1% 1% is the county average for the use of cycling um and we were below that level it actually translate to about 400 people who use cycling for for for commuting which is low the task and finish group has met three times and one on one occasion it included a presentation from the lead officer at uh active travel at the active travel team at Essex County Council on the emerging LC whip uh which was discussed by the group at that meeting the LCH whip itself is set out in appendix one it provides a detailed picture of how the plan has been developed um and an incredible amount of statistical information um which is crucial as it provides evidence supporting funding applications for infrastructure investment but plainly without an LC whip we will struggle to secure uh investment in our infrastructure within this burough particularly for Messics County Council it also provides evidence to secure developer contributions and as evidence for planning policy as well the LCH whips also sets out priorities for investment the task and finish group cons uh consider these priorities and generally agree to them however the group particularly pressed for prioritization of the Canvi town center to Benleet station route which is CP10 and the Benfleet uh uh Benfleet station to Lee station route which is CP12 i’m pleased to report that these have been included in the draft LC whip which is set out as set out on page 69 of the report these two routes are supplemented by two other priority routes the A13 Sadler Farm to Hadley which is CP2 and Tar parts to Benfleet which is CP7 the task and finish group raised concerns about the use of the A13 due to congestion and typography the continuation of the task and finish group which is one of the recommendations in the development of an action plan will ensure members input into measures that will help improve safety on the A13 particularly on bread and cheese hill unfortunately we can’t do anything about the actual hill but what we can influence is making sure that cyclists in particular who use that hill um have very safe facilities um given that the speed the reduction in speed um that they will experience and also that is a congestion hotspot as well the task and finish group also expressed concerns about external connectivity for cycling to neighborhood counseling council areas i can advise that Essex County Council are preparing an Essex wide plan which will cover these issues we will also continue to liaz with South Council on crossboundary issues between the two burs the two areas the council’s express concern are at Sadler’s farm and at Ray Wheeler the recommendations are set out in paragraph 3.1 of the report as uh um that the committee recommends the cabinet that the LC whip be approved subject to the amendments uh which I’ve outlined set out in paragraphs 5.16 and 5.8 and that the task and finish group works with officers on the development of an action plan to develop cycling infrastructure within the burough thank you i’m happy to take any questions thank you Mr b members do we have any questions councelor Cortez thank you Chair um just one small point um it’s bike week that’s coming up next week um are we going to be running some council coms just to try and encourage people i appreciate that most of the Essex County Council stuff they said can’t be done for about 2 and a half years but can we just try and encourage people with our comms what with it being bike week next week i will speak to our comms team about that but yes I will urge them to run some coms councelor Aninsley uh yeah thank you a couple of um points I’d like to make i’m a cyclist uh our roads are so dangerous i mean um I actually saw counselor Cortez the other day and as I was cycling back home just around the corner um somebody pulled out straight in front of me and I was nearly knocked off my bike um and that’s in a quiet road there’s so much traffic on the roads it’s not healthy you’re breathing in pollution all the time i I don’t know how it’s supposed to be um you know a healthy way to travel it’s not you know it probably kill you quicker than um driving to be to be fair um now cycling can be a cheap um activity to do if you if you had the safe um routes to do it um but there are families that can’t afford bicycles and I’m just wondering if we can do a bicycle recycling scheme um there are so many bicycles that you know when when I do go to the tip perfectly servicey bicycles are are chucked in in the skip um I think that we should do something about that and um pass them on to need you know families in need or you know you know young people or or people that can’t afford a bicycle or a car or something like that thank you thank you i I I also ride a bike and I agree um it is it is a dangerous activity unfortunately and that is why things like the LC whips are so important because the aim here is to improve uh the uh the facilities and the infrastructure of cyclists in terms of cycling re recycling scheme I think that what we’ll start off by doing is finding out what schemes are active in the area um we’ll take we’ll take that away and report back on that um and then from there we can then make a call as to whether or not that’s something we need to investigate further on the recycling scheme i did actually take a bicycle out to a scheme um that was in Rochester roford i always get those two mix in Roford so um you you you drop the bike off and they um mend it and um you know give it to I think those these ones actually went out to Africa it’ be nice to to produce them you know to for for our for our community i’ve personally used one as well councelor Brading picking up on that point that councelor Rainy said I would like to point out that there is a scheme that is already run in schools where um disadvantaged families are offered free new bikes um because I know children in our school and we had eight last year which is very welcome but although the schools they do run cycling proficiency for children or youngsters um unfortunately the the roads just do not facilitate any cycling i mean you know the paths are quite congested and those cars that are not parked on the p path anyway don’t actually help um and I I don’t know what we can do because our roads are quite narrow so I don’t know how we facilitate that further thank you thank you um the LCH whip does contain actually on pages about page uh 60 66 to 68 some of the more detailed recommendations now these are not set in stone and as I said earlier the continuation of the task and finish group will enable us to actually have an input into some of the detail implementation of this um but you’re you are absolutely right the the balance here needs to be struck between obviously motorists using the the roads and the ability to access freely across the burough and at the same time people been able to use uh bikes safely within those and some of the measures they’ve introduced have been quite clear essex County Council have that they would seek to do this within the existing infrastructure in some of the measures they’re actually proposing to take away for example there may be a central island down the middle of a road which would then become just a a normal white line and that would then provide greater road capacity then to actually put some cycling facilities in um but all of these issues I think the next phase of this is that is that designing that detail that detailed action plan councelor not councelor Aninsley I’ve got you down thank you chair not so much a question but I just want it noted that we’re really grateful to the amount of time that Mike Simmons put into this and uh I mean you know going down early in the morning standing outside Ben Fleet Station and some of the stories he told us and and I also want to thank um the members of the public that we invited in came in and and they put a lot of time into that as well so I want that to be noted thank you thank you for that council not and yes we do thank them very much councelor Cortez again mine’s not Thank you Chair mine’s not a question so much it’s just to talk about um we discussed during the the task and finish group about the recycling schemes and and Holly managed to find loads of schemes for us um that maybe we could do as a council again publicize those that there are cycle um refurbishments and donation schemes locally that are available for people Thank you that’s great so yes thank you chair um can I just come back on both of those points um first of all thank you very much for um highlighting the work of White Simmons uh he’s not here tonight because he retired yesterday so but I’m sure we do have his uh contact details so we will pass those on to him so thank you very much for that and yes as part of the uh assessment in terms of the recycling schemes that are available I absolutely agree with We we we should be promoting those thank you thank you Councley thank you um I I don’t think that we got the capacity on the roads to to to segregate an area for cyclists we we we just don’t we don’t even have a capacity on the roads for two cars to park pass most of the time i I would much prefer to see and and a healthier way would be to um to use footpaths which like the the one that goes from Bentley station to Hadley and on onto Lee i mean that’s a lovely cycle but the path is so um it’s lumpy it’s ruted it’s it’s a very very uncomfortable ride um and if you want to go up to Hadley it’s a very steep climb going the other way um towards Pity well you’ve got to take your life in your hands i’ve mentioned this before so when you go from Benfleet station to Pity you go to along the the the um coastal path and it’s it’s an ankle turner it’s it’s about so wide it’s ruted um I’ve I’ve seen I I mentioned this before a young lad actually fall off his bike down into the into the into the um the tide was out fortunately but into the creek um to continue o to go to pity you have to go underneath the fly over there’s no good paths uh it’s we we need the infrastructure because once you get to the other side of the A130 the the paths are actually quite good but the the Benfleet section is absolutely deplorable and we really need something done about that and then you can get away from the road you don’t need to go on the roads if if these paths are made safe and um cyclable and walkable more people will use them and and they’re a bit of an ambush as well because you know they they’re so out of the way um you know something needs to be done and we need to we need to you know promote our waterfront more um this goes back to the the tourism bit but yeah I I I just don’t think that um it’s it’s feasible to to use the roads they’re too dangerous thank you thank you um points very well made um as I mentioned there is a Essex wide LC being prepared and we’ll take those points in terms of the connectivity through to Pity uh to that group in terms of CP12 which is the benefit station to Lee the proposal is to actually repave the entire route to take out the uh the various uh unsafe and uh lumpy I think was the phrase he used bumpy uh elements of that so that be refurbished and that will then become a dual purpose dual purpose walking and cycling route uh and by by refurbishing it that will encourage more users yes councelor Rinsley um one other thing that I um wanted to mention about that route is there is nowhere nowhere between Benfleet to Lee to sit down i mean can we get benches put along there because that will encourage lots of people to to go there and you know just go halfway go a third of the way sit down and come back and it’s beautiful there you know you can watch look over the marina watch the sunset um but there is just nowhere to sit down at all as part of the detailed discussions we’ll have with us county council will take that for councelor Jones thank you chair i’m just looking at the the report where you um the design response where there are potential interventions of um how you would increase the comfort and safety of riders in the burough how would you envisionage some of the the interventions to actually happen i don’t have a I don’t have a full answer on that i’m afraid but um this is where the action plan needs to be kicked needs to kick in so they’ve identified priority routes so they’re the they’re the main routes that will be tackled first so they’ve identified them as high medium and low and there’s four routes that they’ve identified as as priority routes um the detailed design work of that needs to take place but most crucially we need the funding um and that’s where the LC whip is so important because in order to secure funding whether it be through Essex County Council funds whether it be through government funds recycling funds whether it be through section 106 agreements and such like we need the firm evidence that the LC whip provides so as part of the detailed planning of this there will be I would anticipate I would anticipate that for each of these routes there will be a detailed implementation plan which will set out how that implementation will take place and I’d start to identify where that funding can come from councelor Jones you wish to come back yes please thank you so let’s say you have certain uh measures that you wish to put in place you know h how exactly which organization would you turn to to to see that actually put in place so if it’s on highway land it would be Essex County Council it currently is if it’s on private land we would have to work with the private land owners um and uh as part of of part of those improvements obviously if it’s private land in this existing footpath or existing cycle way or brideway then they have legal obligations to make for those paths anyway so that that that’s that’s one of the reasons why the focus has been on existing footpaths and bridal ways because that does make it easier because they’re already in existence any further questions members members I will move the recommendation set out at paragraph 3.1 of the report do I have a seconder council thank you sorry members getting a bit dry and tired as well is that agreed members item item eight update from the climate and policy scrutiny councelor Edwards isn’t here however I understand a meeting has been scheduled for the 16th of June and an update will be provided at the next overview and scrutiny committee meeting thank you thank you and we move on to the last item on the agenda the work plan members the updated work plan has been circulated members I would like to add a review of the HMO’s houses of multi multiple occupation to the work plan are there any questions or further suggestions is that a Are there any questions or further suggestions thank you Councelor Cortez hello Chair um just wondered if there was any update regarding my question from the last meeting have we had a response from Essics County Council about turning on our street lights yes there is an update on that um uh a report is expected to go to members next month on this uh on this item councelor Cortez thank you appreciate it councelor Enley yes thank you um I would just like to say I think that there was too much on this um overview overview and scrutiny today there was uh several very long reports that um we needed to to work through um I I I just feel that it should have been split really into into two separate meetings i don’t know how other people felt about that yeah councelor Jones I just want to second what councelor Enley was saying that there was a lot uh on the agenda for tonight and in particular that the reports weren’t just short reports they were at length and for us to be able to look through them thoroughly um and and bring to bear our scrutiny um really it was in my opinion and I agree with councelor Aley that it was too much and I think we are not the only two who think that Thomas uh yeah thankfully what one of um the things we were looking at tonight was pulled for obvious reasons uh that we come back to uh yeah it’s too much for one night for agendas in there um seven days to read through this amount of paperwork is not enough I have brought this up before I cannot do it in seven days and so can not some other members we have full-time jobs it’s a lot of reading it’s a lot to digest it’s a lot to pick apart um this amount in one meeting is uh we can’t go ahead keep going forwards with this man in one meeting and expect us to scrutinize properly and effectively thank you members the points are well made um I’ve noted that we’ll look at uh we’ll look at future agendas going forward to uh to to to make sure that the workload’s balanced thank you thank you members are there any further questions or suggestions no then members that concludes the business for this evening thank you for your attendance i’d also like to thank our independent persons for joining us and uh we look forward to working with you again the meeting has closed at 2042 thank you