Agenda item

Subject to the required notice being given, Members of the Council can ask questions of the Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holders or Chairmen of Committees.

 

The time allocated for receiving and disposing of questions shall be a maximum of 30 minutes. Any question not disposed of at the end of this time shall be the subject of a written response, copied to all Members the following working day unless withdrawn by the questioner.

 

There are two such Questions on this occasion.

Minutes:

Subject to the required notice being given, Members of the Council could ask questions of the Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holders or Chairmen of Committees.

 

Two questions had been submitted by Members as set out below:

 

Question One

 

From Councillor Davidson to Councillor Talbot, Portfolio Holder for Environment & Public Space:

 

“As TDC quite rightly encourages its residents to sort their refuse and to recycle as appropriate, can the Portfolio Holder for Environmental Services please advise Members whether or not TDC ensures that the refuse collected from Council provided bins in public places is sorted in order to ensure that any recyclable material does not go to landfill?”

 

Councillor Talbot replied as follows:-

 

“Our recyclable material which is collected at the kerbside is already processed by the householders of Tendring in to its separate components and in doing so provides a high quality, sought after product which requires either none or basic sorting and this is the basis of our waste and street sweeping contract which encompasses litter bins.

 

Whilst the capture of recycling material from public litter bins can provide an additional stream of recyclable material, the quality is of far lower quality with contamination from food and drinks materials being very common place. And whilst bins with separate recycling compartments for different materials are also available these too are prone to high levels of contamination as users place mixed waste in any possible bin compartment.

 

The authority provides over 1,200 plus litter bins which are located across the entire District to both residents and visitors to the area, all of which can accept a combination of both mixed litter, food waste and wrapped dog waste, to sort and process the waste from these street litter bins is currently not within the scope of the contract or the authority’s budgets.

 

The authority is committed to increasing the amount recycled as best highlighted by the recent introduction of the new waste service which has seen our recycling rate increase by over 10% and as part of this commitment, Officers will continue to explore all possible avenues to increase our recycling within our current budgets.”

 

Councillor Davidson then asked a supplementary question to which Councillor Talbot responded.

 

Question Two

 

From Councillor I J Henderson to Councillor P B Honeywood, Portfolio Holder for Housing:

 

“I am sure that the Portfolio Holder will agree with me that everyone deserves a decent and safe home to live in. 

 

Can he therefore advise me of any future action that this Council intends to take to make sure those relying on rented housing are protected against rogue landlords who appear to have no respect for the welfare of their tenants?”

 

Councillor Honeywood replied as follows:-

 

“With nearly 20% of our residents living in privately rented housing it is important that we use all the powers available to us to make sure tenants are protected from landlords who do not comply with the law.

 

We have a very strong and effective private sector housing enforcement team who are dedicated to ensuring tenants live in decent and safe homes.

 

Over the past year some very strong action has been taken across the whole District to protect tenants from unsafe housing. This has included serving prohibition orders and assisting tenants to find alternative accommodation in a number of cases.

 

Indeed, Councillor Henderson will be aware that action to improve some poor quality housing in Dovercourt is currently being undertaken.

 

Our successful bid to the Government’s Private Sector Housing Innovation and Enforcement Fund has resulted in an award of £100,000 to survey the privately rented housing in Jaywick Sands. The information gathered from the survey work will inform future landlord engagement actions and where necessary enforcement action.

 

While this action does focus on one particular area I would like to stress that the outcome of this initiative will be looked at closely and if successful can be used as a blueprint for securing future funding for other areas.”

 

Councillor Henderson then asked a supplementary question to which Councillor Honeywood responded.

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