The Council is asked to note any statements made by the Leader of the Council.
Councillors may then ask questions of the Leader on his statements.
Minutes:
The Leader of the Council (Councillor Stock OBE) made the following statements:
(1) Housing Infrastructure Fund Success
“Members will be aware of the recent Government announcement that £100million from the Housing Infrastructure Fund will be spent in the District to support delivery of the Tendring / Colchester Garden Community. This is a spectacular achievement for the District and the largest single investment in Tendring for a generation or more.
This funding will provide a link road between the A120 and A133 and a rapid transit scheme to alleviate congestion in the area.
I have supported the Garden Communities project from the outset purely because of the “infrastructure first” approach. We have all seen far too many large new housing developments that have simply placed an unacceptable burden on existing infrastructure, causing misery for existing residents as well as creating a new community that is fundamentally flawed from the outset.
This Council, through its unanimous approval of Section 1 of the Local Plan, signalled its clear intent to Government that we want to do things differently and the timing of this announcement so soon after our decision is no coincidence. It demonstrates that the Government is as determined as we are to see the success of Garden Communities.
I would like to acknowledge the key role that Essex County Council played leading in the submission of the bid to Government, as well as our other partners Braintree and Colchester district councils, and to thank the Officers involved in securing this major, transformational investment for Tendring.”
(2) Clacton Town Centre
“I am pleased to also let Members know that the Council’s bid to the Government’s High Street Futures Fund for Clacton Town Centre has been also been successful.
£150,000 has been allocated to the Council to assist in preparing a detailed business case as a bid for significant grant funding next year which could be in the region of £10-15m.
That is an excellent future prospect which we will work hard to achieve but I know our residents and businesses want to see positive action now in order to tackle current problems as well as planning for the future.
I am therefore pleased that Cabinet on Friday will consider an ambitious vision and programme for change to position Clacton by 2030 as a thriving place for residents and visitors. Alongside this will be a ‘Plan of Action’ which outlines short, medium and long-term interventions along with £250,000 from the Council’s regeneration budgets as a starting point for delivery.
Short-term actions proposed - which could be carried out before any potential Government funding - include improved access and more parking, creating a performance area in the town square, and groundwork for future schemes such as a commercial property study and a review of licensing policies.
I would like to thank all those involved in developing the bid, including the Clacton Town Centre Working Party where partners and businesses came together to develop proposals aimed at ensuring a vibrant and successful future for Clacton.”
(3) Waste And Recycing
“The roll-out of the new waste service is a mammoth task.
Other than council tax billing and the annual election canvass, waste is the only service which affects every single household in our District, and therefore impacts upon every one of the nearly 150,000 people who live in this District.
This operation has seen more than 58,000 new wheelie bins delivered to homes and completely new collection routes right across the District over a ten-week period. Planning has been going on for more than a year to ensure as smooth a roll-out as possible.
This has included speaking to colleagues at other Essex councils who have been through a similar process, and their feedback has always been that this type of change can take up to six months to bed in.
Councillor Talbot, the Portfolio Holder responsible for waste and recycling, will have more of an update in response to questions elsewhere in this agenda, and I would not wish to steal too much of his thunder, but I do want to thank him for his dedication and commitment to ensuring this has gone as smoothly as possible.
However, I am pleased to be able to say that over 98% of households received their new bins as planned.
We know, however, that 1.72% of households did not – although the vast majority of these were delivered last week by our contractors during a planned ‘mop-up’ period.
We also recognise that there have been teething problems with waste collections during the roll-out, and on behalf of Tendring District Council I would like to apologise for that, and to apologise to any Tendring residents who have been inconvenienced in any way as the new waste collection system has been implemented.
With an operation of this size and scale some element of disruption was always going to be inevitable, and whilst the numbers are tiny as a percentage of the total population I fully recognise that for the individuals concerned it can be very annoying and irritating to have any issues at all with your bin collection service, so as I say I do apologise to anyone affected.
The issues have mainly centred around new crews having to learn new routes and, during the transition period, running the old and new systems in parallel.
We are continuing to work with Veolia to address these issues, but are already seeing the incidence of problems and complaints reducing dramatically now that we are wholly on the new system.
Finally we are also now seeing the evidence that the amounts and proportions of waste and recycling have been changing significantly as the roll out of the new system has been implemented and this too has contributed to the challenge of bedding in the new arrangements.
The news on that is very good. But I will leave it for Councillor Talbot to cover later on. I would though, like to thank our staff and officers, and those Veolia employees on the front line, for the hard work they are doing on our behalf and the commitment they are showing in dealing with any issues that have arisen during the roll out phase.”
(4) Exercise Adler 4 – Monday 16 September 2019
“To the best of our knowledge Exercise Adler 4 is the largest East Coast emergency planning training exercise taking place this year.
It will be a live exercise involving real ships, real people and a huge range of emergency services, public services, business and voluntary organisations. It is being led by the Harwich Haven Authority and has been organised jointly with TDC.
Without giving too much away the emergency planning scenario involves a passenger ship in difficulties being evacuated at sea and a second vessel catching fire and docking at Harwich International Port. There will be about 100 “live” casualties to be brought ashore.
A Major Incident will be declared and Tendring District Council’s District Emergency Response Centre will be opened and will be coordinating all Council activities.
The following gives an indication of the event participation in terms of multi-agency partners, scope and size;
Agencies who will play their part in the exercise include HM Government (with Ministerial involvement), Police, Fire, Ambulance, Harwich Haven Authority, Essex County Council, a wide range of voluntary organisations, Harwich International Port, Felixstowe Port, Greater Anglia Railways, Border Force, Marine & Coastguard Agency, RNLI lifeboats, Public Health England – the list goes on…..
This will be a major and invaluable exercise which will test our Emergency Planning arrangements in as near as possible a “live” situation.
So I would like to take this opportunity to remind and reassure local residents not to be alarmed if they see this large-scale emergency services response around Harwich on September 16, as this is for the exercise.”
The Leader of the Council then responded, as appropriate, to questions about his statements asked by Councillors I J Henderson and Allen.