Environment Select – Special Winter Maintenance Meeting

Last night (Tuesday) saw a special meeting of the council’s Environment Select Committee take place to consider issues around the theme of winter maintenance, the ‘offical’ phrase for issues around gritting and bin collection amongst other issues.

As well as the usual officers from the borough in attendance, Ian Stevenson the strategic director for Environmental Services from the County Council to answer any comments or concerns we have in that direction.

The meeting saw a proportionally higher number than you would normal expect from the committee’s membership of Glossopdale Councillor’s in attendance with several Glossop Councillor’s substituting for other’s not able to attend along with one or two extra’s.

A wide range of concerns mainly were raised before I spoke, but interesting nothing about the pavements in Glossop even though a number of Glossop councillor’s spoke before I did. There were however useful and valid points that I hope the county will address around ensuring the when road’s such as the Snake Pass are shut, signs details the road are shut, are placed far enough away (ideally at the end of the M67) to ensure HGV vehicles etc don’t reach the bottom of the Snake Pass where there is not enough room to turn around essentially blocking the road further making access difficult for both local residents and gritters !

For my own contribution to the meeting I started off with concerns other the lack of road gritting around the estate, including the absence of a snow plow until quite late on in the weeks of snow. The problems that this lack of gritting caused along with the apparent poor communication with local bus companies that meant Gamesley (although not as bad as parts of Hadfield and Tintwistle) had a number of days without buses.

I flagged up concerns with school closure information with the county council’s website referring you to a BBC website for details of school closures that was Derby based and didn’t include in particular any details on schools in Glossopdale, and limited information on the High Peak.

Moving on to High Peak issues, I flagged up concerns with the speed of the response to starting gritting, the mixed messages in some of the media releases that were made, such as the early statement saying no pavement gritting would be done by the borough, which people from outlying areas of Glossopdale would have seen in the papers, yet if they went in to the centre of Glossop the pavements were been gritted.

I also flagged the need once the borough had made arrangements to start pavement gritting for the county for a clear approach on gritting been needed, to cover all areas in the council’s ownership and not passing the buck by saying the council have no responsibility on areas within the management of High Peak Community Housing.

Bins were next with like most other members in attendance an initial thanks to the frontline staff doing the work and trying to keep the service running, but a need for clearer feedback on information on how the service is running, and better updates on when there are delays how things will be caught up, I flagged this because towards the end of the period the Council were advising local residents to put green boxes out as normal but it was several days after the normal date when they were actually collected, and it would have been better to revise the schedule and advise local residents accordingly then just keep the advise boxes etc should be left out until they would be collected.

I flagged up concerns over the steps to the co-op which whilst several in attendance commented that they are owned by the co-op and as such not the council’s responsibility, it was the council’s scheme to do them up and there are a well used route through to the station, that shouldn’t have been left so long before any effort’s on gritting them were made.

I also expressed the concern that now almost a month on since the end of the snow, the steps are still full of the grit that was put down, and haven’t been cleared up making the area not look as intended which is apparently again due to the issues over ownership, but something I hope will be tidied up whilst work on resolving those issues is ongoing.

I finished with questioning that when the county council made the review, what consideration was given to how the service would be provided once the original arrangement for the borough to do pavement gritting had ended, and was October / November when the review took place really the best time to be considering changes to winter arrangements.

Many of the issues I raised were noted, however the response over what arrangements had been put in place to provide the service was ‘woolly’ at best with no clear answer been given that any arrangements had been put in place, there was however agreement that perhaps the review should have been considered at a different time of year !

The meeting continued with a whole host of other issues been raised including more on the paths in Glossop, with a general view that the paths in Glossop Town Centre are more than just a winter maintenance issue, along with issues around grit bins and people steeling grit, questions over why community payback / service people weren’t been used to clear the paths, and the general issue around whether people should be clearing the own paths / shops fronts and if the can get sued for it.
So what comes next – Tuesday’s meeting was a useful opportunity to raise the various concerns and issues we had, which I hope will be taken on board by the officers from the borough and the county despite in some cases there been a view that the technology in place for monitoring some things was more reliable than what people had actually viewed happening on the ground.

For the county there will be a review of performance around the gritting network, a review of grit bins, but they expect no additionally routes other than those already covered will be gritted.

For the borough a winter maintenance policy will be put together and will come back to the environment select committee in the summer covering such issues as what pavements will be covered and there priority, arrangements for salt and grit supplies, issues around the ‘bin’ service, grit bins along with how all of this will be communicated to the public.

Congestion charge sub committee

Last Thursday evening saw the latest meeting of the Greater Manchester
Congestion Charge Sub Committee.

The meeting that was scheduled so we could check any details prior to our
meeting with officals from the charge scheme reviewed some additional
information on how many people would be effected and what 'destinations'
they were traveling to across Greater Manchester.

The meeting also reviewed a proposed list of questions that we want to
answers to about the scheme covering areas such as how rail services would
be extended, what support there would be providing additional parking
spaces, any improvements to bus services, ticketing arrangments and
clarifying what exemptions and discounts there would be available.

We also started to look at the arrangements for the public meeting that will
take place at the beginning of October at Glossop's Bradbury House for
getting the views of the public, the issue will also get a mention at the
forthcoming round of area forum meetings which are taking place this month.

Manchester Congestion Charge

Last Wednesday evening saw the first meeting of the sub committee established by the environment select committee to look at the effect of the proposed Manchester Congestion Charge on the High Peak.

Only myself and New Mills Lib Dem Ray Atkins were in attendance along with a number of officers including Spencer Cooke from the soon to disappear and then reappear as something slightly different (due to a change of funding body) Hope Valley and High Peak Transport Partnership.

We agreed the terms of reference with slight amendments to include the impact of the proposed charge on other policies of the council and bodies the council is involved with such as the SPITS strategy (South Pennine Integrated Transport Strategy) and in particular what effect there will be on parking around local rail stations should there be increased usage following the implementation of the charge.

In terms of how the committee will work I was elected chair and we agreed that when we had sufficient details to consult upon we would (as well as other methods) include opportunities to take views from interested members of the public and other groups.

We did however note that with the forthcoming elections in the Greater Manchester area, although officers have a meeting with various officials from Greater Manchester in early April we probably won’t have any further / more concrete information on the congestion charge to consider until after the local election period towards the middle of June, however if you have any views on what you’ve heard so far about the proposals please let me know.

Environment Select

Thursday evening saw an extra meeting of the Environment select committee to
consider the bids for the councils refuse collection and recycling contact.

I can't comment to much on the meeting at the moment as the majority of the
meeting was held in "part 2" / confidential due to the commercial nature /
the issues under consideration.

It will be an issue that I will come back to, as I think an extra note on
the decision reached on the committee's recommendation to the executive will
be useful.

I will however comment that given the result news stories with regards to
'bin taxes' around how much rubbish you dump, the recommendation not to
include 'kerbside' plastic collections for recycling may well be
short-sighted.

Environment Select

Last night saw a meeting of the Environment Select Committee, a good range of issues up for discussion with particular discussion on the forthcoming rules for the WEEE directive, and the Public Realm enforcement strategy, both of which will discussed at the Executive on Tuesday.

The item on the WEEE directive stems from the need that the council now has to ensure that the amount of electrical and electronic equipment going to landfill is reduced and the amount sent for recycling increases.

A number of electrical retailers (such as Curry’s) will be providing a ‘take back’ facility for their customers when purchasing new appliances and the like. However there is an expectation that a number of households will want collections of electrical goods too big to be disposed of in the black wheeled bin or that they cant return in another way.

So far, items like this have been collected as part of the normal bulky waste collection which is charged at up to 5 items collected for £10, but due to the need for these goods to go to recycling this will no longer be possible.

As such the bulk of last nights report was to consider a recommendation to the executive on a way forward with the options been either to continue with the existing bulky waste charge or to charge separately for these in the same way as fridge’s and freezers.

A discussion followed which to a recommendation from the committee for a £10 charge per ‘large’ item with it been ok for a smaller item to be included inside. Consideration was also given to having the charging on a sliding scale based possible on size and weight.

I abstained from supporting the recommendation because whilst I appreciate there is a cost to providing the service, I think the £10 charge per item is a bit excessive and although the report believe there is unlikely to be an increase in fly-tipping if the recommendation is approved. There hasn’t being (and there won’t be until after the recommendation is approved or otherwise) any consultation with bodies such as High Peak Community Housing, who have experienced problems caused by the existing bulky waste policy.

The public realm enforcement strategy is looking at improving the ways the Council and our partners can tackle those that cause the public realm not to be clean tidy and safe.

It follows on from a draft last September which has been out for consultation, with amendments been made to the original following comments around the Council’s stance on ‘information posters’, and the need for the Council to be more considerate in how it responds to those posters promoting community and not for profit events and the overall need for the document to contain less jargon and be easier to read.

The main highlights from last nights deliberations were around some forthcoming work which will hopefully lead to Police Community Support Officers to be able to issue fixed penalty notices for ‘low level environmental crimes’ such as littering, dog fouling and so on.

A further point discussed was around the need for a review on bylaws with regards to dogs in public spaces. Which the committee decided after a brief discussion that further by-laws were not needed at this time to tackle the few exception to the majority of generally well behaved dog owners, rather enforcement of existing rules would be better to target those causing the problems.

A final point on the meeting was raised by the Executive member for the Environment around concerns that officers without the approval elected members had removed an item from the agenda. A report on this was requested from the acting chief executive, so more on this as soon as there are further details.

Environment Select

Monday night saw the first meeting of the Environment Select Committee.

The first item of business was the election of chair and vice chair, by a process where the candidates wanting the job had to apply for the post, and then present themselves to the committee.

As a past chair of this committee I put myself forward, alas I didn't have much luck, with the support of the controlling group on the council instead going to former coalition partner and New Mills councillor Ray Atkins instead.

The normal business of the committee followed with a report on the extension of the 'binnovation' scheme to the Central area of the borough (New Mills, Chapel, Whaley Bridge, Dove Holes).

Followed that was a report on measures to tackle people leaving their bins on the street following them being emptied by the council.

The report which will go to the council's executive sought members views on 3 options, one doing nothing, the second zero tolerance, and the third and favoured by the committee was looking at each case as it arises.

The process that will be followed if approved by the executive (as I expect it will be) will be that on receipt of a complaint, an investigation by officers will be made to be followed by various warning letters and revisits requiring action by the resident leading to if no action is taken by the resident to a fixed penalty notice for a fine of £100.

Environment Select

Monday night saw a meeting of the Environment Select Committee, amongst the items for discussion were reports on Noise Enforcement, sustainable design, and winter maintenance, along with updates on Binnovation, and Environmental Enforcement Policy.

The update on Binnovation, was a little disappointing with the report for consideration, having already gone through the council’s executive committee, instead of going through the scrutiny process as it should have done.

Although in the end the decision would probably have ended up the same, it is concerning about how serious the council takes scrutiny, when from the details advised last night it was know some time ago that the executive meeting considering this report had been moved before the Select committee meeting.

The report on Winter Maintenance was added because I felt it important to raise the issue of getting the council to work better with all the various agencies that work in the particular area’s to work better together and hopefully improve the way that local paths are gritted.