The Cabinet is asked to note any announcements made by Members of the Cabinet.
Minutes:
Illuminate Festival, Harwich
The Leisure and Tourism Portfolio Holder (Councillor Porter) made the following announcement:-
“I would like to highlight to Cabinet the amazing event which took place at the end of November on a crisp evening when all of Harwich was both lit up and packed with families enjoying an incredible light and sound display.
The Illuminate Festival took place on the evenings of Friday 29th and Saturday 30th, bringing a lantern parade, Tunnel of Light and projections right along the old town seafront.
Similar festivals have been held at destinations across the UK, The Netherlands and USA as places with links to The Mayflower and its Pilgrim voyage mark the historic anniversary. Next year sees the 400th anniversary of the Trans-Atlantic crossing and a year of events will commemorate the landmark, with Illuminate held around Thanksgiving period.
An estimated 6,000 people attended Harwich Illuminate Festival across the two days, to enjoy the stunning projections along buildings on The Quay and onto Christopher Jones’ House.
Friday saw a lantern parade led by Spark! drummers and containing children from around the town who helped make giant puppets and lanterns, as well as a performance by a 90-strong choir (including our retiree today, Martyn Knappett) which was projected live onto The Pier Hotel. Saturday began with a fireworks flight display by Fireflies, and had a carnival feel with stilt walkers, jugglers, face painting, puppets and more.
There was an incredible buzz throughout the two days, and this is only the start of our commemorations.
A huge thank you must go to our staff for organising such an incredible event and to our partners, most notably The Pier, Harwich Haven Authority and the Harwich Festival, as well as all of the performers and our hosts.”
Councillor I J Henderson, on behalf of himself and his fellow Harwich and Dovercourt Ward Members thanked the Head of Sport and Leisure (Mike Carran) and those Officers from all parts of the Council who had been instrumental in helping to make this event such a great success.
Waste and Recycling Collections
The Environment and Public Space Portfolio Holder (Councillor Talbot) made the following announcement:-
“After all the work that had been put into the introduction of major changes to our Waste and Recycling collections by the staff in Environment Services, the latest statistics supplied by the County Council as the disposal authority, show that the Cabinet’s intention that our re-cycling rate must be increased - is well and truly being achieved, thanks to their efforts.
Our residents, notwithstanding many introductory difficulties, must be congratulated on their co-operation with the Council in helping us achieve a quite exceptional turn round of which we can all be proud of.
September is the first month where a true comparison can be made with last year – pre the new system.
In September 2018 Tendring’s recycling was 29% of all the waste collected, but the County inform us that in September 2019 our recycling rate was now 41.8%. Let me repeat that – Was 29% now 41.8%.
Food waste collections rose by 186% that is from 119 tonnes in September 2018 to 340 tonnes this year.
Our recycling, the Red boxes collecting newspapers, scrap paper and card and the Green boxes collecting plastic bottles and tin cans, went up by 34%, and even the glass collected at the local bottle banks has increased by 46% - due to the efforts of individual residents to whom I express my thanks.
You may guess that most of these increases in recycling are of the waste that once was going direct to landfill where statistics for the same period in 2018 show that we delivered to the County for landfill over 2800 tonnes and now this year’s September’s the delivery is 2000 tonnes a reduction of approximately 800 tonnes which we assume must now be being recycled.
The Cabinet join me to thank all our residents for their superb efforts made over these last six months, in adapting personally to the changes to their Waste Collection System.”
The Leader of the Council (Councillor Stock OBE) thanked the Officers concerned for their diligent response to residents’ concerns and complaints during the difficult introductory period of the new waste and recycling collection service.