To receive any statements by the Leader of the Council, Executive Members and Deputy Executive Members.
In accordance with Procedure Rule 4.2.23 the total time allocated to this item shall not exceed 20 minutes, and no Member shall speak for more than 5 minutes
Minutes:
John Halsall, Leader of the Council
During the last three months since you honoured me as Leader of the Council, I continue to be astounded by the high quality of our Officers, their commitment and the breadth of their engagement. They are well motivated, positively addressing issues and have a can-do attitude, which is pervading everything we do. The sparks given from the blue-sky thinking is electrifying. We have been able to achieve a huge amount in a very short time. It is a compliment to Susan Parsonage and her Team and the Executive.
Only last Thursday, as UllaKarin mentioned, within hours of a fire at a private nursery we had mounted an exercise to where they could be open on the following Monday, which is a great compliment to our Officers.
Of course, we do not have the powers to do everything and cannot resolve every problem. Some of our Members who constantly criticise Officers in the Council would do well to remember that. However, the Borough is there to serve residents and improve the quality of the lives of the residents. Our Officers are fully committed to do just that and do an excellent job.
Coming around the corner – maybe or probably – will be Brexit. The merits of or not are not for here. However, we have been planning in the event of leaving without a comprehensive withdrawal agreement for some considerable time. A wide-ranging risk register has been established by a cross-functional team of Officers under the chairmanship of our Resilience Manager and are in the process of enacting robust countermeasures. The process is integrated with the national preparations. At the last time of asking these preparations are restricted, so I am unable to share them, but I will be doing so through the Leaders and the Executive if relevant as time nears. Pauline Jorgensen will be the Executive Member heading up this activity.
Bridge Farm has been in the Waste and Minerals Plan for many years and it is only now that there has been considerable local opposition. I have been frankly surprised that it was not removed many years ago particularly given the quantity of housing built nearby. However, I can confirm that it has now been removed from the Waste and Minerals Plan. I can also announce that Pauline Jorgensen will be bringing forward a paper to assemble the best legal and planning team that we can muster to contest any appeal which there may be for this and any other important appeal that there may be in the future. Because of these two vital and important activities, I will be working on highways to ensure that the momentum continues and will share this portoflio with Pauline.
Congestion is at the top of the concerns for our residents, which has been well covered by the questions. We can do only what we are doing to expand the network which is building four new roads – however this capacity will be consumed quickly. Wokingham Borough has the highest concentration of vehicles per household in the UK. We are unlikely in the short to medium term to affect this, so we must be smarter in using the roads using technology, planning and information. We are in the process of identifying the sensitive roads (which incidentally does not make the other roads insensitive). We are looking at various technological solutions for switching traffic lights and diverting traffic. In the short term, a sophisticated system is now been used to identify the impact of street works and make them off peak.
We were delighted to receive the 50,000 responses to the consultation. As Wayne said, approximately 95% were against the Government’s housing target. The Government is now aware of the strength of feeling. I am very grateful to the residents and Members of this Council who encouraged responses. The next steps are to negotiate with Government our Local Plan Update. I am awaiting imminent dates to see the new ministerial team.
The Climate Change agenda is now very well advanced and including elimination of single use plastics, which we may not get to the Motion tonight. Primary health concerns are being pointed out to the CCG in a new forum of WBC, NHS and CCGs. New initiatives are being planned for fly-tipping, travellers and vandalism.
Finally, the Council response to the Heathrow consultation was the support of the Council to be conditional on the need to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases including carbon emissions, not the status quo, the need to reduce the current emissions, and to demonstrate a clear pathway to carbon neutrality by all means, which may include offsetting, it being demonstrated through monitoring that a suitable site within the Borough that any increase in the proposed number of overflights in Wokingham Borough will have no adverse effect on the health and quality of life of residents. The need for Western Rail access and associated improvements to Twyford station. As a Council we must protect jobs and the economy as well as the environment. It is not a binary choice. We must do them all.
John Kaiser, Executive Member for Finance and Housing
Wokingham Borough Council backed Gorse Ride regeneration programme has taken a significant step forward with the start of construction of the first phase of this £8million scheme.
The former Cockayne Court care home and seven surrounding bungalows were demolished in late 2018 and these will be replaced with 46 new homes ranging from three-bedroom to one-bedroom apartments. Upon completion in late 2020, these new properties will be made available across a range of affordable housing tenures including social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership, as well as purchase by existing homeowners within the Gorse Ride community. The work forms part of a much wider community regeneration project in Finchampstead. In total, the regeneration will provide 280 new social and affordable homes whilst enhancing the community in which they sit. There is a very strong community, as we heard earlier on, within Gorse Ride and this marks the first steps in its regeneration for the existing community as well as for prospective new residents. Council Officers and staff have worked with tenants throughout the planning process. The planning application for Gorse Ride phase two is expected to be submitted in late 2019.
Having a home to live in is a basic human right and no matter what the level of homelessness in the Borough to be homeless means you are 100% homeless, coupled with the impacts of homelessness this can be devastating for individuals and families. Homelessness can affect everything that people do - health, education and employment. Reducing homelessness and rough sleeping is a key priority for the Council. Wokingham Borough is committed to supporting those at risk of homelessness and people who sleep rough. The Council has a new draft strategy. The consultation will run from 9-27 September. The strategy has four key priorities: early intervention and prevention; working towards ending rough sleeping and tackling hidden homelessness (people who are back home and sofa surfing and so on); building more affordable homes; and supporting our vulnerable residents. To address these priorities, the Council is proposing to support development of a night shelter, work with long-term rough sleepers, looking closely at the hidden homeless in the Borough and reducing its use of emergency and temporary accommodation for the homeless.
The last issue I would like to talk about is fly-tipping. It had become all too common an occurrence in parts of the Borough and I would like to announce that in conjunction with the Executive Member for Environment and Leisure, a new Council initiative to deter fly-tipping. Residents and landowners are inconvenienced. It is dangerous and unsightly, on top of which the cost to the Council in time and money to clear up fly-tipping which could be in worthwhile services such as Adult Social Care and highways. To combat this, the Council will be launching a new project; we will call it Countryside Watch, looking to reduce fly-tipping in Wokingham, working with land owners, Parish Councils, residents and the Police. With the Council’s initiative, we will be looking for a range of measures which will hopefully lead to the reduction of fly-tipping and its consequences. Actions such as warning posters, the sort of ‘you are being watched’ message, and penalties clearly displayed, supplied to land owners and Parish Councils to display in sites which suffer from persistent fly-tipping. We will investigate the use of covert mobile CCTV; fly-tipping direct line into the Council; encourage residents to report registration numbers and fly-tipping incidents that they might witness, anonymously if they wish to. We will provide leaflets to builders’ merchants and other outlets highlighting the Council’s large waste disposal service we offer; education -presenting at schools on general littering; working with the Police to stop vehicles carrying suspect loads. Any companies caught fly-tipping will be blacklisted from the Council’s contract list as well as naming and shaming.
UllaKarin Clark, Executive Member for Children’s Services
I am pleased to announce that Wokingham Borough Council has now completed the first phase of the expansion of Addington School in Woodley. There are now two new MUGAs (multi use games areas). Sensorial activities are crucial for brain development and therefore a new sensory path which allows for play using our five basic senses has been created. For those that do not know what it is that is touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. We have also extended the car park. The next phase will be to build a single storey block with four class rooms, a cafe and a common room. These improvements to Addington will make it possible for the School to enrol another 50 students next year.
Once again, schools and academies across Wokingham have achieved some outstanding outcomes in external tests and exams, thus making Wokingham one of the best places in the country for children to learn and grow-up. The data in relation to progress 8 is still to be validated and will not be available until later in the year, but I can tell you some of the provisional outcomes of the statutory assessments.
· The EYFS percentage of pupils achieving a Good Level of Development was 77%.
· The Key Stage 1 percentage of pupils achieving expected level or above was:
o Maths 81% (last year it was 76%);
o Writing 74% (last year it was 70%);
o Reading 80% (last year it was 75%)
· The Key Stage 2 percentage of pupils achieving expected level or above:
o Maths 84% (last year 79%)
o Writing 84% (last year 78%)
o Reading 81% (last year 73%)
· Key Stage 4 percentage of pupils achieving 9-4 at GCSE:
o English 82% (last year 62%)
o Maths 79% (last year 60%)
o English and Maths combined 73%
· Key Stage 4 A Level provisional outcomes:
o A*-C 74%
I hope that you would like to join me in congratulating our children and students because this is a very, very good.
The Northern House School Trust has recently informed the Department for Education and the Regional Schools Commissioner that they would not be able to run the five schools within their Trust. This has resulted in the Regional Schools Commissioner seeking alternative providers. Wokingham has continued to use and support the local provision and currently has about 30 children placed at the school. It is intended that we will continue placing children at the school subject to a new sponsor being found. This forms part of the basis of our long term strategy to make use of local resources to support children with additional needs.
Pauline Jorgensen, Executive Member for Highways and Transport
As you may guess most of my postbag covers three topics; road resurfacing; congestion and parking. There is a lot of it.
I am pleased to say that we have just published our next quarter’s road resurfacing plans which show that we have used available funds, helped by additional Government pothole funding of £1.117m, to make some progress in resurfacing residential roads which previously have failed to meet the threshold for resurfacing in our very constrained financial environment. We also, I am pleased to say, performed 298 repairs in August alone. I am determined to continue to improve the quality of our roads as much as funds allow and we are significantly increasing the funding in the budget next year for road repairs.
John has eloquently covered some of the things that we are doing jointly on congestion so I will not go into that again.
We also recognise that dangerous and illegal parking causes particular concern, especially around school pick up and drop off and we are doing something about it. Enforcement of these transgressions, through fixed penalty notices, can only be carried out by the Police but I am pleased to announce that we have gained agreement from the Police that we can now introduce Parking Information Notices (PINs) which will allow our Officers to ticket cars that are parking on corners and on pavements. Details of locations and vehicles involved will be collected and passed to the Police to take action as they deem necessary. We will pilot a PIN scheme from October this year and review the success of this at the end of the year with the intention of continuing it if it proves successful. We will also increase the number of Parking Enforcement Officers by six in order to respond to residents‘ demands for improved enforcement and to allow us to improve enforcement and safety around schools in particular.
Parry Batth, Executive Member for Environment and Leisure
I would just like to draw your attention to some of the initiatives that I would like to put in place to help the residents of the Borough.
My colleague and friend, Councilor John Kaiser has already outlined an action plan for fly-tipping and I totally and whole heartedly support that. We will be putting that into action very, very soon and hoping that this action plan will go a long way to either dramatically reduce or get rid of the ugly fly-tipping in the Borough.
Food waste collections, I have already talked about. These have gone well during the first quarter and approximately 6% of food waste has added to a 56% overall recycling rate in the first quarter with tonnages holding up in the second quarter which is July and August. Plans are now being put in place to start collections in flats in a coordinated way from 1st October.
Rats, we have had quite a few problems with rats. We are aware that there are a number of areas in the Borough experiencing significant problems and we are looking to establish a cross agency approach to address this issue and are hoping to include Thames Water. The first meeting of the Officer group will take place very, very soon and we will work up an action plan about which we will brief you about in due course.
Lastly, the new Bulmershe Leisure Centre, which is taking shape very nicely. It is well on course for completion, hopefully in the Spring of next year. The new facility will be wonderful news for the Borough residents who can look forward to a six-lane 25 metre pool and ancillary facilities for the residents to enjoy.