Agenda item

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and its two appendices in the agenda supplement and to make the following resolutions:

(1)  That the revised Litter and Fly Tip Action Plan attached as appendix 1 to the agenda report be approved.

(2)  That expenditure of £13,300 funded from reserves be approved to enable the appointment of one part time Project Officer for one year to undertake communication initiatives relating to fly tipping and litter.

(3)  That expenditure of £7,500 funded from reserves be approved to provide resources to support publicity campaigns related to fly tipping and litter. 

(4)  That £10,000 from reserves be approved to enable litter enforcement in low littering areas.

(5)  That the entering into an agreement with East Hampshire District Council on the basis of ‘Scenario 3’ as set out in appendix 2 to the agenda report be approved to provide litter enforcement for a period of three years, with the detail of the scheme delegated to the Director of Planning and the Environment and the Cabinet Member for Environment Services to finalise.

(6)  That the intention of the Chief Executive be noted to report to the Council her use of Article 10.02 constitutional delegation to discharge the enforcement functions detailed in paragraph 6.2 of the agenda report to East Hampshire District Council under powers granted to the authority under section 101 of the Local Government Act 1997.

RESOLVED

(1)  That the revised Litter and Fly Tip Action Plan attached as appendix 1 to the agenda report, as amended by the revisions in the third agenda supplement to the figures in appendix 2, be approved.

(2)  That expenditure of £13,300 funded from reserves be approved to enable the appointment of one part time Project Officer for one year to undertake communication initiatives relating to fly tipping and litter.

(3)  That expenditure of £7,500 funded from reserves be approved to provide resources to support publicity campaigns related to fly tipping and litter. 

(4)  That £10,000 from reserves be approved to enable litter enforcement in low littering areas.

(5)  That the entering into an agreement with East Hampshire District Council on the basis of ‘Scenario 3’ as set out in appendix 2 to the agenda report, as amended by the revised figures in the third agenda supplement, be approved to provide litter enforcement for a period of three years, with the detail of the scheme delegated to the Director of Planning and the Environment and the Cabinet Member for Environment Services to finalise.

(6)  That the intention of the Chief Executive be noted to report to the Council her use of Article 10.02 constitutional delegation to discharge the enforcement functions detailed in paragraph 6.2 of the agenda report to East Hampshire District Council under powers granted to the authority under section 101 of the Local Government Act 1997.

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report, its two appendices in the main agenda supplement and the amendments to appendix 2 reported in the third agenda supplement.

This item was presented by Mr J Connor (Cabinet Member for Environment Services) and Mr R Barrow (Cabinet Member for Residents Services).

Mrs A Stevens (Divisional Manager Environmental Protection) was in attendance for this matter.

Mr Connor made the following points:

·       In response to the increasing cost to Chichester Contract Services of clearing litter and fly tips, the Cabinet approved CDC’s Litter Strategy action Plan in September 2017.

·       The delivery of the Action Plan was on target, with some very successful initiatives to date. The report outlined proposals for outstanding projects. The main outcome of the strategy continued to be making litter and fly-tipping socially unacceptable in Chichester District.

·       This was a corporate project, driven by three departments: Environmental Protection, Chichester Contract Services and Public Relations (PR). The strategy had three themes: cleaning up Chichester District, better enforcement against offenders and sending a clear message that CDC was doing so.

·       As year one was ending, the work had been very well received. The reputational value of the work to CDC was high. The public not only expected CDC to do this work but it placed great value on CDC having been so pro-active in this respect.

·       Throughout the first year various PR campaigns were regrouped and delivered under the new brand ‘Against Litter’, which theme ran through various campaigns, the main ones being: litter enforcement; ‘adopt an area’ (158 areas had been adopted by local communities); and the ‘Green Dog Walker’ scheme (300 plus had signed up).

·       Enforcement action had been taken against fly-tippers and those who dropped litter and CDC continued to use these successes in publicity messages.

·       The litter enforcement trial undertaken with East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) could be regarded as a success, as it had covered its costs and reduced the level of litter in the city centre.

·       The second year would continue to focus on achieving behavioural change leading to fewer incidents of fly-tipping and littering, the two main areas of significant cost to CDC.

·       A key part of the project was the continuation of litter enforcement. The report proposed continuing to work with EHDC for three years on the basis of two officers patrolling on three days of the week but allowing some flexibility in the number of patrols should littering drop significantly.

·       It was also proposed to show a presence in areas where there was little litter by purchasing additional patrols on occasion as a precautionary measure at a cost of £10,000 over the three years, as shown in para 3.4 of the report, although that sum could possibly be reduced by income from penalty charges if any were incurred in those areas.

·       The other key area was ensuring that the public and businesses received the right messages and it was proposed to put a new campaign together to tackle fly-tipping and litter on the roads. In order to develop this, a new part-time PR project officer was required at a cost of £13,300, with an additional funding requirement of £7,500 for materials.

At Mr Connor’s invitation, Mr Barrow also commented on this item. He recalled his role in introducing the first stage of the action plan and chairing the member/officer working group. There was no doubt that the action plan had been a great success and the enforcement patrols had helped to convey the joint message that (a) littering was wholly unacceptable and (b) the community had an important part to play in not only reporting incidents of littering and fly-tipping but also securing behavioural change to eradicate this social scourge. He emphasised also the great importance of the reputational value to CDC of the action plan. He strongly supported the ongoing work and the proposed agreement with EHDC on the basis of scenario 3 in the second appendix. He enquired about enforcement in towns and villages, low littering areas compared with the city centre.  

Mrs Stevens formally reported the amendments to the figures in scenario 3 in appendix 2 (page 70 of the main agenda supplement) which were circulated in the third agenda supplement. As a result there were consequential amendments to the second bullet point in para 8.1 of the report namely:

·       In the fourth line, the figure of ‘£7,500’ should be ‘£12,600’.

·       In the fifth line, a full stop should be inserted after ‘reduce’.

·       In the fifth, sixth and seventh lines the words ‘resulting in a risk that there will be a small cost to the Council of between £4,300 and £16,000 per year depending on the number of FPNs issued.’ should be deleted.

·       The aforementioned deleted words should be replaced with the following words as a new sentence after the sentence in the fifth line which now ended with ‘as FPN numbers could reduce’ and the final sentence which read ‘This risk will be mitigated by the flexibility to reduce patrol days.’, namely: ‘If it reduces to five, there is a surplus of £800; if it reduces to four, there will be a small cost to Chichester District Council of £11,000.’ 

In reply to Mr Barrow’s question about towns and villages, Mrs Stevens said that these areas had yet to be discussed but a proactive approach would be considered.

Mrs Stevens said with regard to the text changes to the report (fourth bullet point above) CDC’s aim was to be cost neutral.

Members commended the action plan’s evident success in securing improvements in the first year and expressed optimism about the ongoing work in the second and third years.

Mr Connor, Mrs Stevens and Mr Barrow responded to questions on points of detail from respectively Mrs S Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) and Mrs E Lintill (Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Community Services) as to:

·       Project 2 in para 6.1 of the report. It was important to ensure that both tradespeople and householders were fully informed of their responsibilities in the proper disposal of trade waste. Where waste had been fly-tipped, all the circumstances of the case would be considered before deciding who should face penalties. CDC would choose to pursue where possible the offending tradespeople rather than householders. 

·       The education of children about tackling litter issues was vitally important. Item 6 in the action plan’s first section (Sending a clear message), namely running the Waste Buster programme in five local schools each year, was marked as being delayed and dependent on a launch initiative by West Sussex County Council in 2019. If this could not be achieved, an alternative means of realising this objective would be considered by the member/officer working group. One option might be to use the part-time project officer post being recommended in para 3.2 of the report to undertake work with school children. Mr Barrow pointed out that the Waste Buster programme had been launched by the Inter Authority Waste Group (IAWG), of which he was a member, and its current focus was recycling and not waste. He had, however, requested the IAWG to consider extending the remit of Waste Buster. At the IAWG’s next meeting he would pursue this and also the reported delay to Waste Buster schools programme, the fact of which he had been unaware.     

With Mr Dignum’s permission, Mr A Moss (Fishbourne and Leader of the Opposition), who was present as an observer, addressed the Cabinet. He highly commended the report and described the achievements and objectives as fantastic. This was a very important priority for CDC and it was important to ensure that future budget-setting meant that the programme paid for itself without the need (as had recently happened with some minor corporate plan projects) to call on reserves. He mentioned that during a recent weekend four large bags of litter had been collected from the Chichester College campus and this illustrated how necessary it was for CDC and other organisations to promote the anti-litter message.

Mr Connor replied that the action plan was now underway and the intention was certainly to finance the programme from the budget and not to have to resort to reserves.  Mr A Dignum (Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Growth and Place) added that in future years the litter and air quality (agenda item 10) schemes must be financed out of the base budget.

Decision

The Cabinet voted unanimously to make the resolutions set out below, which incorporated the amendments made by the third agenda supplement.    

RESOLVED

(1)  That the revised Litter and Fly Tip Action Plan attached as appendix 1 to the agenda report, as amended by the revisions in the third agenda supplement to the figures in appendix 2, be approved.

(2)  That expenditure of £13,300 funded from reserves be approved to enable the appointment of one part time Project Officer for one year to undertake communication initiatives relating to fly tipping and litter.

(3)  That expenditure of £7,500 funded from reserves be approved to provide resources to support publicity campaigns related to fly tipping and litter. 

(4)  That £10,000 from reserves be approved to enable litter enforcement in low littering areas.

(5)  That the entering into an agreement with East Hampshire District Council on the basis of ‘Scenario 3’ as set out in appendix 2 to the agenda report, as amended by the revised figures in the third agenda supplement, be approved to provide litter enforcement for a period of three years, with the detail of the scheme delegated to the Director of Planning and the Environment and the Cabinet Member for Environment Services to finalise.

(6)  That the intention of the Chief Executive be noted to report to the Council her use of Article 10.02 constitutional delegation to discharge the enforcement functions detailed in paragraph 6.2 of the agenda report to East Hampshire District Council under powers granted to the authority under section 101 of the Local Government Act 1997.