Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Blackdown House, Honiton

Contact: Chris Lane, Democratic Services Officer  01395 517544; email  clane@eastdevon.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

41.

Public speaking

Information on public speaking is available online

 

Minutes:

There were no public speakers.

42.

Minutes of the previous meeting

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 3 and 31 October 2019 were agreed and signed as a true record.

43.

Declarations of interest

Guidance is available online to Councillors and co-opted members on making declarations of interest

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

44.

Matters of urgency

Information on matters of urgency is available online

 

Minutes:

There were no matters of urgency.

45.

Confidential/exempt item(s)

To agree any items to be dealt with after the public (including the press) have been excluded. Thereare no itemswhich officersrecommendshould be dealtwithin thisway.

 

Minutes:

There were no confidential/exempt items.

46.

Decisions made by Cabinet called in by Members for scrutiny in accordance with the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules

There are no items identified

Minutes:

There were no decisions called in.

47.

Police and Crime Commissioner

Minutes:

Members noted that this item had been withdrawn due to the restrictions of purdah. The Chairman confirmed that the Police and Crime Commissioner would be invited to a future meeting of the Committee.

48.

Presentation from the Recycling and Waste Team

Minutes:

Members of the Committee received a presentation from Andrew Hancock, Service Lead – Street Scene and John Golding, Strategic Lead - Housing, Health & Environment on aspects of the Waste and Recycling contract. Members noted that all the materials collected were valuable resources which were put to good use to give both environmental and economic benefits. They were used as secondary raw materials for manufacturing, used to make products for agriculture or used to generate electricity.

 

Members noted that the system produced segregated materials which were of good quality with good levels of demand despite volatile market conditions. The total material sales income in 2018-19 was £902,022 and the total recycling credits income for 2018-19 was £852,714. The District recycling rates were just under 60% which put East Devon in the top twenty districts for recycling in the country. We were also the second lowest producer of residual waste in the country. The arrangements for vetting the processors who bought the recycled materials were also discussed and a webpage on the East Devon website giving details of end destinations highlighted.

 

During discussions the following points were noted:

 

·       All of the recycling materials were at the moment traded in the UK. Infrastructure does not exist at present in the south west to recycle much of the material.

·       End destinations are recorded through a statutory reporting mechanism. Once our materials are sold, we don’t have the legal or technical ability to track material from East Devon, but all processors are vetted to ensure they are EA compliant and that we are doing the right thing with our material; legally, ethically and environmentally.

·       Information on our environmental responsibility and end destinations is now published on our website.

·       The cost of the waste and recycling service was circa £6M and this was reduced to £4M by monies from the sale of recycling materials.

·       What happens to black plastics? Black plastics were not picked up by some optical sorters and were often left in recycling stream. Any which were not sorted for recycling were put to energy from waste production.

·       Our system was all about the quality of our recyclables.

·       People should be encouraged to buy drinks in aluminium cans rather than plastic bottles as this would reduce plastic and also give us a valuable recycling income.

·       There was a very low price for recycled glass at the moment, 0.2p per tonne.

·       Damp cardboard could still be recycled.

·       A large amount of smaller electrical items, such as mobile phones and computer screens could be recycled as long as they fitted in the green box.

·       The service was working with ‘Recycle Devon’ to encourage home composting. Information would soon be on the East Devon website as a well as recycledevon.org.

·       There was zero waste being sent to landfill at present.

·       It was more carbon neutral to send crisp packets to the energy from waste centre than recycle them through Terracycle.

·       The contents of the dog waste bins were currently being sent to the energy from waste  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48.

49.

Section 106 Funding and CIL Update pdf icon PDF 37 KB

Minutes:

Members noted that the report was designed to provide an update on progress with changes to the systems and processes regarding the collection and spend of monies secured through Section 106 agreements and CIL. The report related to both the Council response to the Finance audit of these issues published in 2016 and also concerns previously pressed by Members.

 

Ed Freeman, Service Lead – Planning Strategy and Development Management reported that the reason for the recommendations was to enable the completion of the project to provide a new fit for purpose system for monitoring the collection and spend of Section 106 and CIL monies.

 

It was noted that the majority of monies collected through Section 106 agreements were for open space and play. The Council would occasionally collect monies for other matters and it would depend on what it was as to how spend was determined. For example if it is a contribution for affordable housing then we would engage with housing to determine how that was spent. The only case that he was aware of a tourism contribution being collected was the Fortfield Hotel in Sidmouth where in the spirit of participatory budgeting the Council were engaging with the Town Council and awaiting their proposals for engaging with the community and local businesses over spend. In principle where appropriate we would look to engage with the local community.

 

During discussion the following points were noted:

 

·       Getting the database completed and launched was important to allow Councillors to understand the information and database. It was hoped that this would be available in the New Year.

·       Need for users to have confidence in the system for monitoring 106 and CIL monies.

·       The data was constantly evolving and changing.

·       Need to provide training sessions for town/parish councils on the new system.

·       Concern that the new information system for S106 and CIL should have been done sooner. The depth of information available was important.

·        Will Councillors receive regular emails on the progress of S106 and CIL? Ed Freeman agreed to check the functionality of the new system to ensure that this was available.

·       We were ahead of the game compared to other local authorities. The new system was ‘state of the art’ and not currently available within Exeter City or Teignbridge. A lot of resources had been put into the new system of information provision. The previous system used was a system of spreadsheets.

·       Have previously tried to find out information on S106 in Exmouth and found it difficult. Hope that information would be logged. Ed Freeman confirmed that the system would be well monitored.

·       Is there a policy for deciding how s106 money is allocated to proposed projects? Who are the decision makers?

·       Previous issues with lack of staffing.

·       S106 and CIL was an extremely involved and complicated area of work.

·       Hope that the new system would provide greater transparency.

 

RESOLVED: 1. that the progress that has been made available to support the implementation of the new system for monitoring Section 106  ...  view the full minutes text for item 49.