20 October (Part 1) - Bins, Bridges and Broadband
When Council meetings are held on successive days the reporting of them is
inevitably delayed and never more so than now, one is three weeks behind the times!
However for now BiB returns to last Thursday’s Places Scrutiny meeting,
to conclude with recycling issues.
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, North End) pitched in with fly tipping again
because at the last meeting, Cabinet Member Craske accused him of being
the fly tipper’s
friend when Stefano suggested that the practice was likely to increase. Councillor Borella said
he could “clearly see a very large increase in fly tipping going on as a result
of Council policy for a number of years”.
Councillor Craske’s response was to say that “starting on Monday is our
new
pilot for the enforcement of fly tipping and litter, people who let their dogs
leave a mess behind. Do members of the opposition support that pilot scheme? So
that’s a positive thing we are doing to tackle this issue and I am looking
forward to seeing this start and there is a very good campaign starting on
Monday to promote it. Billboards everywhere under the slogan Don’t be a Tosser”.
A week of staff training and patrols from the 24th October.
David Bryce-Smith
said that fly tipping had been higher in the last quarter but overall fly tipping “is at a similar level to
previous years but we are treating this issue seriously”.
Councillor Joe Ferreira (Labour, Erith) said there had been “a spike in the
number of missed bins”. Mr. Bryce-Smith said that there were 23 million
collections a year and “the number of missed bins is much higher than we would
want. We are working with Serco to address that. Serco has no ability to
differentiate between a badly performing crew and a good performing crew and the
[IT} integration we are getting will enable better monitoring”.
Some bins are reported missed when crews are merely running late, the improved
IT will solve this problem “and there will be occasions [contamination for
example] when they are left for a reason”.
A question from Councillor Danny Hackett (Labour, Lesnes Abbey) about delays to
planning applications and the broadband black spots in Thamesmead and Sidcup
found Mr. Bryce-Smith apologising on behalf of “the Planning Service, we
have had significant staff turn over, two thirds of the team left during the
year and had to be replaced. That’s been coupled with increasing volumes of work
that has impacted on the termination time overall and it has been a challenging
year. We have introduced a retention scheme for staff which has also helped in
attracting new planners. The service generates more income than it costs.”
“On superfast broadband we have had positive discussions with Virgin in
particular who are provided with details of major developments in the area so
that they can get in early. We are also working with BT but it hasn’t been so
positive as with the likes of Virgin.”
Councillor Cheryl Bacon, standing in for its Chairman Councillor Val Clark
reported on the recommendations of the Transport Strategy Sub-Group which have already been
reported
here in some detail. However since then London Mayor Sadiq Khan has made
his
announcement on river crossings without mentioning any that would make landfall
in Bexley. “He should be reminded of where we are and who we are and what we
need to deal with regeneration and housing that are needed in Bexley”.
Councillor Borella whose party had suggested the creation of the
Sub-Group commended its report.
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) whilst welcoming the new destinations, was
concerned about the Thameslink proposal to run a train from Rainham to Luton Airport which
would not stop at Belvedere or Erith but would stop at rarely used stations like Stone Crossing in
Kent and the proposed reduction from six to four trains per hour in services serving Slade
Green, Erith and Belvedere.
Cabinet Member Alex sawyer noted his concerns.
The following Agenda item was the Regeneration update which was
reported out of
sequence on 14th October.