Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Thursday 13 February 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Thursday, 13th February 2025 at 7:30pm 

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1 Minutes - 26th November 2024

Hello and good evening, everyone.
Welcome to the 13th of February 2025 edition of the environment OSC.
My name is councilor Jamie Coakley.
I'm the councilor for St. Mary's and I'm the chair of this committee.
Here with me this evening is councilor Judy Gasser, the cabinet member for the environment
and Paul Chadwick, the Executive Director
for Environment and Community Services.
Just Chair's notes, I'll ask that members of the committee
introduce themselves when they first participate
in discussions, and officers can also introduce themselves
when they're called to present their reports.
Starting off, are there any apologies for absences?
No receipt.
Full house, good news.
So item one on the agenda is the minutes,
So I just want to ask members are there any objections to confirm in the previous minutes as a correct record?
That's agreed

2 Declarations of Interest

Item two are there any declarations of pecuniary other registrable or non -registrable interests
Councillor white
I'm a member of community renewable energy Wandsworth crew
Who do have dealings with the council by John? Oh?
financial benefit for my involvement with the organization.
And who are you again?
Hang on a second, give me a minute.
Council Paul White for Tooting Back Ward.
Thank you, Council White, that's noted.
Okay, so with that moving on,
we can move on to the substantive items.
So our first one, or potentially first three,
if the committee's happy with it,
since the first three items, items three, four, and five,
are very closely related.
That is the Climate Action Plan, the Retrofit Strategy,
and the Climate Doption and Resilience Strategy.
I propose that we have an officer presentation
from Mr. Hager, and we'll then,
we can then question and scrutinize the three pieces together
and then we can vote on the three separate papers
at the end of the discussion
and if members are happy with that.
Councilor Cady.
Good evening, Councilor Cady.
Just a quick question.
Some committees were only allowed
sort of one or two questions per paper.
Does that mean we'd only be allowed
one or two covering all three,
or are you quite happy,
because I've got questions on all three.
So will that be okay to stick with that?
Yeah, that's fine.
We haven't previously put question limits in.
I think Councilor White's got quite a few.
So yeah, no problems there.
Okay.
Okay, great. So if everyone's happy with that, Ms.
Ihages, you want to come and set up your presentation?
I think. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Why are you setting up?
Yeah, good evening, everybody. And I'm very proud to be introducing all the work that the team's been doing over the last year and that they're going to do.
But I'm going to be serious just for a moment and just to say climate change is real no
matter what anybody says.
We've just had the hottest ever January.
We've had terrible fires in Los Angeles.
We've got flooding across the world, hurricanes.
There are lots of problems.
But it's not too late.
There's still a lot we can do.
And here in Wandsworth we are doing everything we possibly can to meet our climate targets
and to support our residents through the changes.
Mr. Haggard is going to present a report of all the action we've taken in the last year,
all our plans for the year ahead.
The climate team is working incredibly hard.
We've got a very thorough adaptation resilience strategy.
That's how we keep our residents safe and well in extreme weather.
And a retrofit strategy, in simple terms, how do we help our residents adapt their homes
so that they're warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and save on electricity bills
or energy bills.
And just to say this is a cross council initiative, Mr. Hager and the team work with all their colleagues across the council.
And every single director is contributing whatever way they can.
And for example, the transport department, the highway department, they're electrifying all the vehicles.
The housing department is bringing in a landlord licensing scheme.
And part of that scheme will to ensure that landlords offer properties with a decent level of energy efficiency,
which is good for carbon emissions and it's good for our residents' bills as well.
Children's services work very closely with schools because we know how passionate young people are about this.
So we're educating them, we're supporting them, we're decarbonizing the schools where we can.
And we work with partners across the borough because we have a very challenging target, 2043, to be carbon zero.
We won't achieve that alone.
We're working with partners, health partners, business partners, education partners across the borough to achieve that together.
So Ms. Hagger will present all of our priorities for year ahead.
Yeah, absolutely everything is important, but my particular priorities is we're working on a biodiversity action plan.
Because we have pockets of really good practice across the borough, but they're not sort of codified, brought together at the moment.
So they will be, we will have an action plan coming our way, I think, in the summer.
And we ask our residents to feed into that as well.
So I'm very proud about that piece of work.
I'm particularly interested as well in how planning can help us achieve our targets because there's an awful lot we can do through planning to
Encourage residents to do the right thing to support them to do the right thing make it easier and to make sure that developers do
The right thing as well. So over to mr. Hag out and just we're doing incredible work
And thank you very much the offices for everything they're doing
Thank you
Great me and can I'm gonna get the way the big screen then
That's it. Thank you very much. You can't discuss them. Thank you cheer
So I'm gonna run through the three reports
we've got in front of you.
So we've got the ones with climate action plan update
for the previous year and the refresh
and new action plan for this year, for 2025.
We've also got the ones with retrofit strategy
and we've got the ones with adaptation
and resilience strategy that are all before you.
So just quickly to remind the committee
of our approach to tackling climate change
and that it's three key strands to what we do.
So one is about becoming a carbon neutral organization by 2030.
So this is about reducing carbon emissions from us as an organization.
So it's about looking at our buildings, looking at our vehicles, and also operating in a more sustainable way with skills across the organization.
The second part is about creating an environment that is low carbon, sustainable, and resilient.
So this is about using our powers, our influence across the borough to be able to create that
resilient environment and also to promote low carbon approaches and reduce carbon emissions
across the whole borough.
The third is about working with communities so they can take action on climate change.
As Councillor Gasser said, we can't do this on our own as a council.
It needs everybody in the borough to come together.
That includes residents.
It includes businesses, partners, community organizations,
all working together to take climate action.
And combined, these are all gonna take us
towards our target of net zero borough by 2043.
So I want to highlight a few things we've done.
This is not an exhaustive list.
There is a more exhaustive list in the papers,
and I'm sure there'll be questions about some of those
as we go through the agenda.
But I want to highlight there's been an increase
in bike hangar storage, so we now have 1 ,374 bike hangar spaces across the borough.
We've also run anti -idling campaigns to target air pollution in hotspot areas, and we've
delivered warm home packs to reduce energy use and fuel bills for fuel -poor households.
We've delivered those to over 1 ,500 households, alongside some other interventions to really
sort of like go a bit deeper and to help some of those households more to reduce their bills.
We've got seven green flag parks with a new green flag park for Coronation Gardens.
We've also delivered the Cleaner Borough Plan with increased recycling rates and a new lower
emission fleet.
And also we've done climate action micro grants throughout the year supporting community groups
and in particular Sustainable September which is really showcasing climate action across
the borough and how the community is getting involved.
And there's a few more things we've done.
So we've delivered decarbonization projects
to Roehampton Leisure Center.
We've got more on -street EV chargers.
Bids have been submitted to the Social Housing
Decarbonization Fund to bring in that external funding
to be able to deliver more.
There's been community involvement in parks,
conservation, biodiversity.
Southside Library of Things is one of the top three sites
in the UK.
There's also been flood protection work
at John Burns Primary School.
So that's a bit of a taster of some of the things that have been delivered throughout the year.
I'm now going to move on to the Wandsworth retrofit strategy.
So this is a strategy that's been in development for a long period over the year and my colleague here,
Ali Malvan, has led on that.
And it's important because for nearly half of carbon emissions in Wandsworth come from domestic housing.
So it comes from our residents' homes and primarily from gas and electricity that's used there.
to heat and power them.
And there's therefore a need for an increase in retrofit,
so reducing the energy use within those homes
and switching away from fossil fuel powered heating,
such as gas boilers towards things like heat pumps,
increasing the amount of solar panels that there are.
And we need to increase this
so that we can reduce carbon emissions.
There are a lot of challenges around retrofit,
especially on funding, and who's funding it,
how's it gonna be funded,
How can residents do it themselves?
How can the council support it?
And there's a real need to work in partnership on this
and for the council to play a really leading role
in bringing some of this together.
So we've developed a strategy which provides
the high level ambition and direction of travel
for retrofit.
It sets out the extent of the need for retrofit
and why we need to act and why it's important.
It also highlights the need to work in partnership
and how we can do that.
It also sets out the role of the council because previously it's not really been well defined.
It's not been clear about actually what is the stuff that the council should be doing.
And I think some partners and some community organizations have not always been clear about
that.
So it sets that out.
This is what we can do.
This is what we can influence in terms of retrofit.
And then actions to deliver against the retrofit strategy are included in the ones with climate
action plan for 2025 and will be included in future iterations of that plan.
So just in terms of a quick overview of what's covered,
so we've got a section on social housing,
which is looking at how we can maximize funding
and opportunities for retrofits,
and also engaging with our social housing residents.
There's a section on private sector,
which is about providing clear information
on retrofit for residents,
encouraging take -up of retrofit,
supporting those who are struggling to pay their fuel bills
and improving the energy efficiency of their homes,
and also engaging with landlords as well,
because the private renter sector
is obviously really, really important within Wandsworth.
There's also a section on place -based approaches,
which is looking how we can retrofit whole areas
and some of those approaches that we can develop
around that, identifying heat networks
and also promoting community energy.
Also looking at funding, looking at how we can bring in
external funding to drive retrofits,
including government funding,
and also looking at external finance
and whether there's options around bringing some of that in
as well and driving investment into the borough.
And the final section is about green skills,
promoting and supporting green skills
and careers in retrofit.
The other strategy that's on the agenda
is the Wandsworth adaptation and resilience strategy.
So Wandsworth faces a change in climate
and that is very clearly set out within the strategy.
There's a lot of detail about climate projections,
about climate impacts and the climate risk mapping
that's been done by the team.
and this work has been led by Nicky Wheeler in the team.
We need to prepare for this changing climate
and we need to build the resilience of our infrastructure
and our communities.
There's already been a lot of work done on this
at London level.
There was the recent London Climate Resilience Review
which produced a series of recommendations
for all sorts of organizations across London,
including for local authorities,
and that has been a real driver for the adaptation
of the new strategy that we've developed for Wandsworth.
So we've developed that strategy
to address this in a lot of detail.
So the strategy itself presents the climate risk
and vulnerability assessment for the borough.
It also provides a framework for us to work with
so we are robust and consistent on our approach
to adaptation across the borough.
It also sets long -term priorities to guide
and inform the council's work around climate adaptation and resilience, and also importantly
informs local stakeholders of climate risk.
Some of those – some of our stakeholders, some of those organizations may not be aware
of some of the risks that are associated, so this is a way for us to set that out quite
clearly so that they can understand the risks for themselves and the risks that are posed
to the borough as a whole.
Also this is leading the way in London, so other boroughs are interested in what we're
Since the London Climate Resilience Review came out,
we're I think the first to publish
an adaptation resilience strategy
that actually takes that on board.
And lots of others are very interested in finding out
about how we're approaching this, what we're doing,
and what we're gonna do in the future as well.
And that's really, really positive feedback for us to get.
So in terms of the strategy,
there's an element there about embedding
adaptation and resilience across the organization,
including in our sort of internal governance.
so making sure that officers across the council
are thinking about adaptation resilience
and building that in.
Ensuring a joined up approach to adaptation resilience
so we can maximize the impact
and increase capacity of the council
to build that resilient borough.
So how do we work with partners?
How do we bring this to other teams
within the council as well?
It's also about compiling and analyzing the data required.
We have climate risk mapping
that is publicly available on the website.
And so it's about developing that even further
so we can deliver more, we can identify more.
And then it's about implementing effective adaptation
and resilience measures across the borough as well.
Particularly targeting those areas of highest climate risk.
So those areas that are most vulnerable to climate change
but are most at risk in targeting our efforts there
to address the risk that we understand.
And then ensuring formal monitoring and evaluation of it
as we go along, so making sure that we're taking
an adaptive approach to how we're doing it
because we recognize that climate change
is not going to progress in a uniform and linear way.
It's going to change and we need to review
where we're going, where we are with this,
and what the changing requirements are.
So it's building in some of that flexibility
and adaptability to how we approach this.
And then finally I'm gonna talk quickly
about the ones with climate action plan for 2025.
So there's three key priorities within that.
One is around delivering the actions to support
the retrofit strategy, delivering actions to support
the adaptation resilience strategy,
and also that stuff around working with our communities
and residents and partners on climate action.

3 Wandsworth Climate Action Plan Update 2025 (Paper No. 25-50)

There's also the biodiversity action plan,
which Councilor Gasser mentioned.
There's a decarbonization strategy for our buildings,
which is coming out this year.
There's the second phase of the Cleaner Borough Plan,
which is set for delivery.
There's work around improving communal heating systems
and social housing, and continued roll out
of sustainable transport as well,
with EV charging, cycling infrastructure,
and school streets.
And that is a very short list of what
is in quite a detailed action plan in the appendices.
So I'm going to leave that there as an introduction,
and then I'm happy to take questions.
Thank you for that, Mr. Heiger.
And you're definitely not exaggerating when you're talking about condensing it down.
That was so round.
It's nearly 200 pages of detail that he's managed to sum up really eloquently there.
So yeah, so now we can consider the three papers.
There'll be a lot of questions and there may overlap between them, but we have our whole
our climate team ready to answer them.
Councilor Caddy, let's go first.
Thank you very much.
I'll just preempt my remarks by saying that I totally agree
that climate change is an absolute focus
and absolute priority for everyone,
so I'm not questioning that.
I guess my big picture question based on the paper is
are we gonna actually get there in 2030?
I wondered if there was some kind of graph
or some kind of table which shows us essentially
how we get from where we are now, which is actually looking at the numbers, sort of going
slightly backwards this year, how do we actually close that gap and get to where we need to
be in 2030 for being a carbon neutral organisation, and then obviously 2043 at a net zero borough,
and how each of these kind of projects and sort of lines that we're looking at, how each
of them contribute to that big picture, because there's nothing that sort of comes together
and shows me how we're gonna bring that carbon down.
Very specifically, I also wondered how the carbon impact
is kind of being measured, because I think one of the things
that it says in the paper is that high represents,
I think, was it a 25 to 50 % reduction
in that particular area?
And just looking at some of the examples,
for example, improving cycle parking,
I'm not quite sure how I understand
how improving cycle parking equates
or how anyone would calculate that that equates to a 25 to 50 % reduction of carbon in that area.
And then finally, in terms of the numbers, I just want to make sure obviously 5 million
is an enormous amount of money that we're investing. And I want to make sure that we're
investing it in the right places. So are all of these projects that we're looking at, are they all
calculated to kind of bring the biggest bang for our buck in terms of getting to that net zero
position and I guess what would be really useful to see would be to see a kind of carbon
estimate for each of those projects so that we can see whether we're actually doing the
right things to get to where we need to be by 2030, 2042.
For me that was kind of the big thing that was missing from this paper.
Thank you Councillor Cady.
Would Mr Heiger like to take those on?
Yep, thank you very much.
So in terms of getting to our 2030 carbon neutral goal, the decarbonization strategy
which I referenced in the presentation, that is going to set out a detailed pathway to
2030.
There's a lot of work that's gone into developing heat decarbonization plans for all of our
buildings to really assess actually what needs to happen to reduce carbon emissions from
those particular buildings and to put them all together into a program that sets out
what we need to do.
So that's going to be coming there and that's going to be very very detailed in terms of setting out
What projects will deliver what carbon reductions in the future?
Thank you, and just on the cycle hangers as the example, yeah, so the carbon impact measurements, I mean those are
Estimates because you can't measure all of the carbon for every single
Project is very tricky to do that. It's quite intensive to do that
So we do have sort of rough calculators to sort of use,
to estimate that, and certainly when you mentioned
about sort of the bids and the projects that are there,
when they're brought forward, there is an expectation
that officers are looking at how much carbon can be saved
from those projects, and that's part of that decision making
but I think Mr. Conner wants to come in on that.
Thanks, Andrew.
And so for those of you who don't know me,
I'm Claire O 'Connor, I'm Director of Climate Change Communications and Policy.
So in answer to the five million and making sure that the five million is allocated where it's going to have the biggest impact.
We have a climate change steering group.
That's an internal group of director level across every single directorate.
I co -chair it with Catherine Burstyn, who's obviously one of our directors of finance.
And we also have Paul Gelotti, who most members know, who one of his functions is around audit.
So it is an incredibly robust meeting.
We scrutinize the bids that come forward.
We don't put forward every single bid that comes.
And we look very much towards the impact that those projects will have towards our 2030
target and also our borough -wide 2043 target.
Yeah, did you want to come back on?
Can I just very briefly come back on that?
Because the thing that worries me is I can understand that cycle hangers are a good thing.
people want them, they're good for encouraging cycling.
What I can't understand is how they contribute
to a big reduction in carbon across the borough.
And I think we should just be really clear
about why we're making decisions.
And if we're investing 860 ,000, I think it was,
in cycle hangers, that's okay, that's fine.
But we shouldn't be pretending that there's gonna be
a big carbon effect if there's not.
And I can't understand how having several more
Cycle hangers across the borough is going to be able to reduce
Sort of significant levels of carbon across the bar. It just doesn't make sense to me
So I just I'm just trying to sort of triangulate whether we're actually looking at some of the right things and making the decisions
within the right framework
And so the example of bike hangers would be encouraging cycle use which means that you're avoiding journeys that would otherwise be more polluting
so potentially you would be
instead of using a petrol car.
And so carbon savings come that way,
and that's how you would work out
actually how many avoided journeys and things like that.
And that's where the carbon saving would come from.
Just to come back, my experience of cycle hangers
is that people don't necessarily reduce the number
of car, you know, it's just somewhere better
to store their bike, and I have no problem whatsoever
with cycle hangers and people having places
to store their bike.
I would just be astonished if people necessarily
reduce their journeys significantly.
A lot of people I know who use cycle hangers
used to store their bikes in their hallway.
I would just be surprised
that the number of journeys was reduced.
I may be wrong, but I just wanted to make sure
that we're sort of really focusing on bang for our buck
when it comes to carbon reduction.
Yeah, I think, okay, I think we've gone a bit back and forth,
so did a member of the committee
want to come in one more time on that,
and then we move into some other lines of questioning?
Yeah, so I'll come in.
So I think we've used the high, medium, and low impact for quite a few years, so it's
quite an established thing that we've used as a team and to present the actions to this
committee.
I hear your point, Councillor Cuddy, but obviously the team is well experienced in terms of identifying
the impact, and they are constantly keeping up to date with all the national research
and the national best practice to ensure that that informs the decisions we take and the
approach we take in the borough.
So we had Councillor Belton next, then Councillor Osbourne, then Councillor Kirk.
So Councillor Belton.
Tony Belton, Battersea Park Ward.
Can I suggest here that rather than comments and a reply,
we have a more open discussion because I certainly wanted to add to all sorts of things that Councillor Gaddy said.
rather than going back to the officers.
I mean, we can just discuss all of it,
and the officers can come in at the end or some.
It just seems to me it might be a better way of doing it.
If you want to approach questions to other members,
you can.
But I think Andy's questions were directed at the officers.
Yeah, but I want to go on about the cycle parking
and just be repeating it all.
So I mean, it would have, I just think it would, in my view,
It would be better if it was a general discussion,
but you're the chairing.
I want five kind of areas at the moment.
One is incredibly trivial, and then it
gets more and more significant as we go up.
Incredibly trivial, I don't want to answer to.
Incredibly trivial is there are a couple
of typos in that presentation.
I happily point them out afterwards if you want,
but there are a couple of typos.
I said that's incredibly trivial.
I think Councilor Caddy's point about somehow or
rather quantifying the individual items we're talking about and
the net impact of those, I'm sure is incredibly difficult.
But I'm also sure that it would be very helpful indeed if we knew whatever Councilor Caddy was talking about,
or I'd be talking about, that that actually was relatively minor and cosmetic.
and the level of it, I think that would be quite helpful.
And therefore, I also agree with Councillor Caddy
that it would be quite nice to have a sort of
running checklist if we possibly could.
I also think that, I'm sure the officers
have considered this, but again,
it came up in Councillor Caddy's comments, really.
There's a little bit of a confusion, I think,
between those steps which are definitely about prevention,
or our attempts to prevent climate change,
and our purely defensive actions in the event of climate change.
So can I suggest I may be wrong, someone obviously pointed out I'm wrong,
but it seems to me the flood defences of John Burns, incredibly valuable to have,
but I don't actually see how flood defence of John Burns stops climate change.
So I think prevention and, sorry,
prevention and mitigation are two separate categories.
And I think there might even be a third one,
which is encouragement, enticement,
like I would say about the bike hangers.
Let's argue about whether the most cycle journeys or not.
But if there are some, and fewer car travels,
then there has been an impact.
So what we can do to encourage and entice.
Just as a side, I love the one with the flowers
around the tree towards the end of the presentation.
I don't know whether you saw that.
Just think, why isn't it like that in my road?
And of course in some roads there are.
And I think that's a serious point.
If we try to put flowers around every street
all over the place, it would obviously cost an awful lot for goodness knows how much impact,
perhaps not very much.
And I just wonder in terms of this and the main issue I'm coming to is whether, although
we're trying to encourage the private sector, we're not hitting the really big public sector
because the biggest public sector of all, of course, is your and my house.
That's where the biggest investment by masses
is gonna happen in the next 10 years.
And so for instance, if I took the tree plant,
something completely off the wall,
like a prize to the Battersea as opposed to the Tooting
or the Putney or you know, the prettiest street
or something in the borough,
which actually got the people doing it rather than the council because the council couldn't possibly do it all.
And so look outside the council's abilities. Now that's relatively trivial.
What is much more important, I think, is the figure you showed in the presentation about the scale of global warming that comes from domestic housing.
Now I think I'm a reasonably good, responsible,
ecological kind of person.
Had the roof insulated for ages, double glazing,
gas boiler, shoot me down, Councilor White.
So a bit off there.
But I actually don't know, I've never bothered to find out
what the infrared picture of my house would look like.
And I don't, I mean although we may all have these things
that you have to have nowadays if you're gonna sell a house,
what is it called, C, this certificate, yeah.
Although we've all gotta have those,
I've got my doubts about the value of that.
But the actual infrared picture, I think,
shows a real, and what if the council,
instead of trying to do everything,
just, and there's gonna be privacy issues here,
I'm sure, just to get in the way,
and just did infrared down the road,
like whoever they are and who did street mapping,
the street view, Google Street.
If they went up and down the road just doing infrared of everywhere,
and showing so you could see how much you might be horrified,
because they're the people with the real money,
like him and me.
I mean, to be honest, as opposed to the council doing everywhere,
we have cash and we do our houses up and we spend money on putting attic extensions and
we do all sorts of things we do. So that, so I wonder whether we're encouraging that kind of
private investment enough, even though we're trying, that we've got to think outside of what
the council can do because as the paper admits, quite honestly, there's no way the council can do
it on its own. So we've got to encourage as much as possible from the private sector and
that includes individuals. So that I think is a major issue I think. And I think although
the officers have tried very hard and we all agree with the objectives etc. etc. I think
that bit's missing about how we actually get to the big spenders, people, how we get to them.
I'll give one example of that, and that is district heating.
It was mentioned in terms of social housing.
I don't understand this, so I don't know, but
Councilor Marshall once produced a piece of paper which said something like,
if you're going to have heat pumps actually so expensive, relatively expensive and
inefficient doing it house by house, do it for the whole of my terrace.
I live opposite another terrace, do it for the whole of the two terraces.
So it's there collectively and possibly the council could help that.
and therefore you could have it on a wider scale.
Again, encouraging private investments.
Those are my comments.
Thanks for that.
On your third point, I'll quickly leap to defense
of the officers that our plan is the climate action plan
and so that does always include a heavy emphasis
on resilience and adaptation.
It's not specifically just about preventing climate change
and achieving our net zero, but...
Do you want to come back on Councillor Bellatine's other points?
Yeah, I just want to emphasise that it's about adaptation and mitigation, so it's about reducing
carbon emissions, but also facing it to the reality that the climate is changing, and
so we do need to take action on that.
Actually, on that, Nikki can go into a bit more detail about some of the stuff around
the balance between it.
Hi, I'm Nikki Wheeler, I'm policy and program lead in the climate change team.
It's a really good point, and if we were sort of having this conversation 50 years ago,
then absolutely the priority should be mitigation.
Unfortunately, the world didn't reduce greenhouse gases, so the climate has changed.
The adaptation resilience strategy, the data is split into observed climate changes and
projected, and we can see very clearly from the science that temperatures have risen in
in Wandsworth since the end of the 19th century.
Precipitation patterns have changed.
They've overall decreased over summer
and increased in winter.
And furthermore, we can see from the projections
across all scenarios and across all climate hazards
that there will be further changes.
And I think a final point,
even if we were to hit net zero, say tomorrow,
because of how greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere
for hundreds of years, the climate is still gonna change,
and therefore we do need to adapt.
There were a couple of other points there as well which I wanted to talk about there.
One was around, Councillor Belson mentioned about the flowers beneath the tree, and actually
that's a really good example of community action.
So I wanted to bring in Georgina who leads on our engagement work, just to talk a bit
about how we engage with people and how we involve people in action on climate change.
Thanks, Andrew.
So the Micro -Grant Program, the Climate Action Micro -Grants that we launched last year have
been really successful for us, both in terms of the impact but also the learnings that
we've generated.
And we've been working with a number of groups, similar to the initiatives that you've been
talking about, Councillor Belton.
So particularly Green the Grid, which is probably some of you may already know, is quite a well -established
an ambitious group based in Southfields,
but keen to green the grid, quite literally,
people's front gardens, public space and so on.
And there are a number of other examples
of schools, community groups, and individuals
who are keen to run these sorts of initiatives.
We had 60 micro grant applications overall,
and we awarded 35.
Really strong representation across the borough.
And for those of us in the room,
you can see some of the photos from the micro grant programs
on the wall over there.
And it really shows the sort of breadth of ambition
and creativity that residents are hoping to achieve
with our support.
And the micro grants were up to just 500 pounds,
so it's quite impressive to see the level of activity
that's happening across the borough.
One of the final points by Councillor Bailton
was about housing and especially about the role of individual households in terms of
retrofit and taking action. And that's an area within the retrofit strategy. So I'll
hand it to Ali to expand on that a bit more.
Hi all. I'm Ali Mulvhan, Policy and Program Lead within the Climate Change and Sustainability
Team and I led on the retrofit strategy. So I think it's fair to say that the strategy
outlines what is within local authority control and what is within our influence. And the
and a crucial part of that is recognizing
what can we be doing to affect change
and particularly behavior change in residents.
So I see three main areas for us,
one being securing and attracting funding
for private residents to use within their homes.
Another is establishing private and public partnerships
to really create and draw in funding
and also be aware of the innovation and technology
that is changing in this sector
that will inform the residents' retrofitting plans.
And finally, it's the information and awareness
that we can put out to residents to help them
and guide them in what changes they can be doing
in their homes, all of which is laid out
within the strategy of our plans coming forward.
It's coming back.
Yes, I think that's, Councilor Gasser,
you wanted to add something?
I was just gonna add to all that.
I've been to a couple of really good events recently,
and other colleagues in the room have been as well,
where there's been information exchanges for residents
and crew energy being there and the company,
whose name I've horribly forgotten,
but somebody will remind me,
who are setting up sort of district houses,
generating energy together and sharing it out.
Like just remind me, remind me the name of the company.
One Zero.
One Zero, that's right.
And they said there are some really interesting
initiatives going on and perhaps colleagues
can explain better than I can about what that initiative is.
But I know there's some 30 or 40 households in Erlsdorf
have signed up to this initiative
and it's somehow generating energy together.
I don't know, I'm not technical.
Somebody can explain it.
So, Councillor Belton, hopefully you can come
to one of these events and see there's some really exciting
stuff happening actually.
But an expert is gonna have to explain exactly
how this scheme works.
So, Councillor Burton, did you wanna come back
on any of the points?
Yes, I do.
I'm pleased that more is going on than you think
I allowed for.
And perhaps more is going on than I'm aware of.
In fact, I'm sure more is going on than I'm aware of.
But I don't, with respect, don't need to be told there's a,
I certainly don't need to be told there's a crisis around.
I was going to say coming.
It's not coming.
It's here, isn't it?
So I don't think that was particularly relevant.
I'm still concerned that there's just too much dependence
on what the big institutions can do.
I'll give you another example,
which Council White knows only too well, I'm afraid.
One of my constituents happens to be
a professor in this business.
And he also happens to be a leaseholder
on a flat -topped estate.
And if you think of the GLC estates,
the old GLC estates in Putney and Battersea Park,
There are lots of flat top estates.
And he's been after me to do something
about having a solar panel.
And this is not, I think, to do.
But we've had, unfortunately, we've not got very far,
largely, with the housing department.
Now, I'm not blaming the housing department.
I'm sure it's got its own priorities.
but the housing department wants to resolve all insulation problems and solve all the
insulating work across before approaching things like putting solar panels on.
We've got a really enthusiastic international expert, a professor in the business, he's
given up, he's given up lobbying me, I haven't got anywhere. So I just, I mean
the institution will find it very difficult, particularly the institution like
the Housing Department. I'm sorry I'm not knocking my close friends in the Housing
Department, many of them do a fantastic job, but they have a, they have legal and
other responsibilities about the buildings which is so great upon them.
They live through that spectrum, that view, and they're not using the skills and abilities
of some of the residents there who have ideas.
I think that's probably true across the board, and I think we've got to break out of that
as much as I'm not criticizing people at all, but this is a discussion to try and get the
best out of everything, isn't it?
I'm not knocking people.
And I know Councilor Caddy actually agrees with me
in general principle.
And we all agree with Councilor Casse.
Like it's a really serious issue.
End of story.
Thank you Councilor Babbitt.
I agree like it's important to have a really joined up
approach between housing and the environment team
as another example, especially because they'll be
responsible for doing a lot of the retrofit work.
Did anyone on the team want to come back on those points or should we move on to another
question?
Only to highlight that I think there is really good joint working across the council.
I think we can always do better.
I think we have some real experts in the borough.
I think we've started to have more of them come out to our network events and find out
who they are, but I think we can always find out more and tap into the expertise in the
borough.
I think to Councillor Belton's first point,
I think in supporting residents who can afford
to retrofit their homes to see that it's an issue
through things like identifying where the heating
is coming out or identifying who that they can talk to,
that is an area of focus for us.
I think we can do better and we are always looking
for creative ideas that we can help to engage
residents more in this particular area of fraction.
I'd also say to Councillor Belton, if your neighbour does want to get involved, we have
a lot of networking events and ways for residents to get in touch with the Council, so try and
get him to come along to one of them.
It would be good to hear from him.
Councillor Osborne, did you want to go next?
He was sent a criticism of me to stop me making these comments.
No, no, I was just saying bring him along, because if he does have good points, then
it could be something to learn from him.
Councillor Osborne?
First of all, typos aside, I thought it was an excellent presentation well presented,
and I'm grateful for it.
One of the – and that's relevant to something else that I want to say, which is one of the
things that's happening here, and I think it's a good idea to merge the three papers
together and have a general discussion.
I think that is useful.
One of the things that's going on here is that we have to have so many different things
going on across such a broad spectrum of activities because the program requires it.
It's the only way this can be achieved.
And remembering them all and getting them all organized into something we can understand,
I think, like the presentation, I think is important.
It's a sort of, I'd like to have a copy as a sort of aid memoir
of what's going on and what we're doing.
I know that in each case I have to drill down a little bit more
to get more information.
And indeed, I think that's the case in the papers
that we've got in front of us as well.
You can't go into enough detail in paragraph by paragraph by paragraph,
but you can give us a taste in the documents
that we've got this evening of what's happening.
I think it's relevant to the way that actually if I may say Councillor Caddy approached the question of the bike hangers
I think we do need to interrogate each paragraph a little bit to get a better understanding
of how relevant it is that what's going on is to the
program on all the different programs on climate change
so having said that that basic introduction I
Let me hone in on one in particular, just because it interests me,
which is the Library of Things in Southside.
I am interested to know where does that fit into the programme,
in the same way as bike -hangers, how do they fit into the programme?
What are they achieving? How is it measured?
I note the comments in the paragraph, paragraph 62 on page 16,
about the performance of the Library of Things,
and that's its measure of its contribution.
But I'd be interested to know how the performance
is measured, what the performance means.
I'm intrigued by the idea that it's in the top three
performing locations across the UK in its contribution.
I'd like to know what the other two are for a start.
So a sentence or two on how it is contributing.
And a little bit more flesh on the bones
of the story about the Library of Things.
Just this evening, just on this one thing, there are about 18 things here I could pick
out and ask the same sort of question.
But just give us a bit of flavor on that one because it particularly interests me.
Mr. Hagger, do you want to come in on that?
It's encouraging to think that you want more detail.
I was conscious that it's quite a lot of papers that have been put in front of you.
I was conscious of the page count.
But in terms of the purpose of the Library of Things,
that's basically an opportunity for people to be able to go
and rent things instead of buy them.
And the reason it's important in terms of climate change
and carbon emissions is everything we use,
everything we buy, everything that's made,
generates carbon emissions.
If you can reduce the amount of stuff that is made
by being able to rent it and reuse it and share that,
then you reduce the amount of carbon emissions.
And so that's why we've supported Library of Things
and why we've got that in Southside Shopping Center.
So that's the purpose behind it.
And that's how it fits in with the overall climate approach.
And it fits in with a circular economy approach
as well about that reuse and repair and sharing
and making sure that stuff isn't wasted and is thrown out.
And in terms of the performance, Ali
can update a bit more because she leads on that.
Thanks, Andrew.
So currently the Library of Things in Wandsworth has been in place just over a year and it
is one of the newer sites in London and some of the more used sites are longstanding and
they are Dalston, famously is the most high performing site.
Second to that is sometimes Hammersmith and Fulham but in the last two months Wandsworth
has overtaken Hammersmith and Fulham and is the second highest site for November and December
and last year.
And that's reported in, we get monthly statistics
through which base on a number of KPIs predominantly,
the number of hires and the carbon savings associated
to that, taking the metric around what it would have cost
to purchase it as opposed to borrowing a shared resource.
Thanks, yeah, it's a really impressive scheme
and for any residents out watching,
if you need to do some DIY and you need a drill
instead of spending a hundred or a quid on one, you can just rent it in the Library of
Things, and that's another example.
Save money, save the planet.
I think, Councillor Cook, you wanted to come in next.
Thank you.
I was delighted to hear Councillor Belton's opinion that the State can't do everything.
I'm in total agreement.
But thinking of things which we can do, as a Council in this context, while this is all
conceptually very coherent, it strikes me,
certainly acknowledged all the work that's gone into it.
When you try and find tangible concrete,
I can't recall the problem of using this context,
tangible actions, two in particular jump out.
And I have to say, I think they're rather lackluster
in what they actually tell us,
and I think it's really a bit alarming.
So I think they're both on page 14.
The rate of installation of EV chargers
has definitely slowed.
It would be useful to see a graph,
but we should be accelerating that, and we're certainly not.
And trees, 1 ,000 trees sounds like a lot.
But when you divide it by the number of wards,
it's probably about 50 trees per ward, which
ain't all that many, really.
And so I think there just needs to be a hugely more
ambitious approach.
and those are pretty much the only sort of hard actions
I can find in there, and I find that a little bit
concerning really, that when you look at the things
which we actually have planned,
they're really not, they're not terribly impressive,
it's a lot more, which I guess is
Councilor Caddy's point as well.
Mr. Haggard, I think we maybe previously talked
about the EV charges, and I think you mentioned
maybe it was grant dependent, the amount of numbers,
but did you want to come back to Kirk's specific points
on the charges and the trees?
Yeah, I'll start by caveatting that I'm not
overseeing the delivery of the EV charge points
and that's the transport strategy team.
But my understanding of it is that it's largely
central government grant dependent and it goes in phases,
so it doesn't necessarily track neatly with calendar year
and there is another phase of installations
that are being planned out now
and they will then be delivered.
So it's not necessarily a year on year increase
that's neat.
It tends to track the funding that's coming out
to deliver it.
So that's one of the factors behind that.
In terms of trees, I think I'll hand over to Matthew
to answer that.
We've talked about trees on many committees, haven't we?
We are very ambitious about trees,
and a thousand is quite considerable
when you look across London, the amount of trees that are planted, particularly trees
rather than whips and things like that, which lots of other local authorities plant and
claim as planted trees.
But they take a lot to maintain and keep as well.
So for me, it's more about how do we protect those trees and help them sustain and not
lose them as part of the journey.
So we're replacing more trees or we should be replacing less trees and the net gain should
be greater.
That's what we should be targeting.
But in addition to that we as part of our social value for all our procurements now
We're seeking contributions, and we can plant more trees above our thousand target
So you know watch this space. We're not we're not complacent here
We will keep keep trying and keep trying to grow the the population of our trees in the borough
Thank You mr. Ed I think
Just gonna add to that I may not have discussed this with mr. Ed yet, but yes
I'm very ambitious about trees, and I want to see a lot more trees
but it's something to discuss in the future.
Definitely one more.
Councilor Ed Brooks.
Thank you, Chair.
Councilor Ethan Brooks for Thamesfield Ward.
Jumping to page 154 in the climate,
amongst the climate adaptation and resilience maps.
Side by side, we have graphs about
where there are high pollution hotspots
opposite a map of pollution risk in the borough.
On page 155, we have graphs that show
the two different Putney High Street measuring sites,
sky high compared to the other sites in the borough.
But with the map opposite,
Putney High Street area appears to be the lowest
air pollution risk part of the borough.
As we, but as we heard in the presentation,
This risk map is going to be used to direct where mitigation efforts are directed in terms
of where the council focuses its actions on lessening the risk of air pollution.
Why is it that we're going to deprioritize action to reduce air quality, air pollution
in the highest polluted parts of the borough?
Climate change?
Yes, I'm gonna ask my colleague, Nikki, to answer that
because she's the person who's been doing a lot of work
on adaptation of resilience.
Thanks, Andrew.
Yeah, no, it's a really good point.
With the climate risk map, basically risk is presented
based on exposure to different climate hazards,
one of which is air pollution,
so that's the map that you can see on page 154,
and the other is vulnerability,
and risk is calculated by a combination of exposure
to those hazards and the vulnerability
of the population living in those areas.
So how the map calculates the risk,
it gives exposure and vulnerability an equal weighting,
because we know that although air pollution is high
in Part Nii, the vulnerability of the population
is shown to be relatively low within the borough.
So factors like prevalence of asthma,
younger populations aged naught to four,
who would typically have kind of more severe impacts
from air pollution.
And I think a really important thing to highlight
with the climate risk map is it's relative
within the borough, it's not absolute.
So air pollution is high in Part Nii.
The data shows that it's higher in other areas of the borough
and the data also shows that the vulnerability
is higher in other areas of the borough.
So if we look at a borough -wide picture,
it's not saying there's no risk in Putney,
it's just saying that the risk is greater
in other parts of Wandsworth borough.
If you're saying that there are other areas
of the borough that are higher,
why are we looking at graphs on page 155
that show the two Putney High Street measurement sites
as the highest listed?
I'd also flag that you might be measuring the population that lives in and around Putney
High Street based on the multiple indices of deprivation, but that's not who's necessarily
on Putney High Street.
Putney High Street contains a major railway station, people commuting from all around,
people traveling into Seaford and Football Club, all sorts.
they won't be captured by any sorts of indices of deprivation that you could possibly have.
Yet they'll be at huge risk of the air pollution there as well.
So I don't think we can say that you can base a risk map off of the local population to
start with.
But if it's the case that the council's going to focus its actions based on this sort of
risk map, I still think that we should focus our action
where air pollution's the highest.
Yeah, sorry, I will.
So, Claire O 'Connor, Director of Climate Change, again.
So I think we are constantly adapting
and reevaluating the maps and bringing in lots
of other different sources of data.
So this is one iteration that we'd look to build on.
I think we work very closely with our air quality team,
so we're aware of also who uses Putney High Street
and the commuters and also the impacts
that you're talking about.
I think it's important to say these maps
are to support us to take an approach.
It's not about not concentrating
on Putney High Street anymore,
and I wouldn't want you to take that away.
This is part of a wider view that we're taking
as a council around risk,
and there still will be work around the air quality
around Putney High Street taken forward by our team.
So I just want to make that really, really clear.
Thank you.
And yeah, I haven't had lots of conversations with the air quality.
They definitely mentioned Putney High Street a lot.
I think, Councilor White, you were next.
Thank you.
First of all, I'd just like to compliment the team for this three
reports, because I think the width and the depth of it and what's
covered is really, really quite impressive.
Like some of the people have said tonight, though,
my worry is about the resources and the capacity
to be able to do everything, which
is going to be a massive effort.
And you need, coming back to something that Councillor Cook
said, you need state funding, really,
to underpin this, to allow the private sector to come in.
And whether we're going to see that is obviously
a mute point, but I wanted to also, a couple of points
that were mentioned about, Councilor Belton raised
a really good point around the community getting involved
and obviously I'm a member of a community group
and I think there is expertise out there
and that gives us more capacity and I don't think
that we're drawing on it enough,
As Councillor Belton pointed out, and I think the trust,
I know that the roofs of the particular estate,
there was worry about maintenance and there was worry about insurance as well.
And the longevity of a scheme, will people continue to
have that involvement and enthusiasm to carry the scheme to the end?
But I think that you've got to, we've got to trust.
Because if we don't, we're not going to get there.
And as I say, the community, especially in a place like Wandsworth, the skills and the commitment are there, I think, that we could be using.
One of the schemes that Councillor Gasson mentioned is very similar to this, but it's obviously in the private sector.
And it would be drawing upon, very similar to what Councillor Belton spoke about,
upon the resources of an area where they can build scaffolding, they can bring everything in,
and then reduce costs so that people can actually put in a heating system,
the solar panels, and do all the insulation as well.
And that brings me to one of the other points that was raised.
I mean, it's really a question of fabric first or adaptation first.
And if you put fabric first first, then unfortunately you're going to have to bring in hybrid systems sometimes.
and so that will need gas heating back up at times
because you're still gonna need a system
and that will be cheaper to do.
If you did it the other way around,
you could actually change the heating
and the lighting system so that they would be decarbonized.
So that job would be done
and then you could come and do fabric first afterwards
but that would mean that the actual adaptation you're bringing in, the heating system, the solar panels,
certainly the heating system is going to be more expensive because it's going to have to do a lot harder
because the fabric first work hasn't been done. So I hope that spreads a little bit of light on that.
One of the points that Councillor Caddy mentioned about the cycling hoops and the hangers,
I mean, this is the idea about a modal shift, isn't it?
I mean, we're looking to basically provide the infrastructure to encourage people to
make that shift across.
One of the questions I want, because I've spoken for far too long, so I'll give you
a question here.
I mean, our chair is going to one of the centers of low pollution and high cycle use over the
weekend.
I'll leave you to guess which city he's going to.
But they have achieved a massive reduction in pollution.
They've achieved a much more safe environment.
And it started a very, very, very, very long time ago, and it started with these sort of
adaptations.
But they've made massive strides, or massive cycles, I don't know.
But how are we going to get to a situation, or will we ever get to a situation where we
would be able to have that infrastructure that people would, in a large sense, move
from car vehicles to cycling?
Mr. Hagger, do you want to come back on those?
Yes.
So there was a paper that recently went to
Transport Committee which did provide an update
on what's going on across the borough
in terms of cycling and the infrastructure there.
So I would say have a look at that.
And that really sets out what's being done
across the borough.
And there's a taster within this report,
but there's much more detail in that report,
and that sets out a bit more.
To come back to some of the other points you said
about getting the community involved.
That's obviously something we try to do
as much of as we can.
We've got the Montserrat Sustainability Network
that brings people together.
I know that you've been to some of those meetings
and seen how many people come along
to talk about climate change, to share expertise,
to speak to us and speak to other people as well.
And that's really important,
and that's something that we want to build on.
As we said earlier, there's always more we can do,
and we're looking to do more on that
and trying to really utilize that community involvement
because we can't deliver this all ourselves.
We need the community to come along with us
to take that on and to deliver it.
And you mentioned about some of that stuff
about bringing that into specific areas
and that's definitely part of the retrofit strategy.
So looking at place -based approach
and how we can bring together an overall look
at particular places to see how we can retrofit
and reduce carbon emissions from those areas.
And community energy is a part of that.
heat networks are a part of that,
investment is a part of that as well.
So it's definitely stuff that's in there.
It's still early stages because
this has not been done elsewhere.
There's no set model that is there that we can follow.
There's other people trying some of these things
and we're keeping an eye on those things.
We're keeping LinkedIn with those things
to make sure that we're learning from that
so we can take that learning
and apply it here in Wandsworth as well.
Thank you.
I think it's definitely worth keeping Councillor White's comments especially about the fabric
first approach and being a bit more efficient, cost efficient, definitely keeping them on
hand.
So I think Councillor Caddy was next and then Councillor Annan and then Councillor Jeffries.
So Councillor Caddy.
Thanks very much.
I'll be really quick because I think probably I now know the answer.
It was really about retrofitting and it was just to sort of I guess reiterate what Councillor
Belton said, it's clearly going to be really important that privately owned homes and we've
obviously got the cost, retrofit cost for council homes,
it would be really good to have a kind of roadmap
of what we need to do for the 45 .5 %
that's coming from the domestic homes.
What does it look like between now and 2030
in order to achieve what we're looking to achieve?
Because I fear it may be a huge challenge
and it would be really good to sort of understand that
or see that sort of represented,
but I suspect that's probably a work in progress.
I would be good to see the sort of intermediate targets year on year on how much retrofitting
is done and the progress we're making.
Did you want to come back on this specifically?
Tracking the exact number of retrofits that take place is incredibly hard to do because
a lot of it happens in private households.
They don't need to actually report or register anything with us as a council or anywhere
really, because a lot of it will be done under permitted development, it's home improvements,
it's not necessarily I have now retrofitted my house in one action, it's normally, quite
often it's going to be spread out over a number of years where there's some insulation that
goes in, some solar panels, a heat pump, and that's done over an extended period.
So retrofit is a bit of a process.
So tracking that is really, really hard, and having some sort of target around it is also
really hard to do because we don't have reliable information on this and also we don't necessarily
control it either.
So we wouldn't want to set a target that we can't directly influence and control.
What we can do is track where we can and use proxies where we can and report on that.
And as we've always been with the work on climate change, be open and transparent about
that to show sort of what we would want to see and then see what we can actually observe.
but there would need to be that understanding
that it's not necessarily gonna be an exact figure
because that information doesn't really exist.
Councilor Anan, did you wanna come in?
Yeah, my name is Councilor Julian Anan
and I'm representing Battersea Park Water.
And coming to retrofit, I've seen that in the papers
you stated that one of your strategies
is to support families and home like council homes with the warm
home parks and then also I've seen in the papers that what you're trying to do
is also to support families who are special dose on low income with true
crew energy with efficiency bulbs and then thinking words so if I'm with you I
didn't know that thinking words like one sweat council support thinking words I
I knew them before, but I didn't know that.
One Sweat Council is also part of the people
who support them.
How are we making sure that the end user,
that is the residents, are being informed
or being, the awareness is there for them
to know that this is available for them?
Because I work with the charity
and I meet a whole lot of people
who don't know that there are these office available
for them. Me, myself, I didn't know a whole lot until I read this paper. So, how many
charities are you working with to make sure this office that we have in One Street Council
is being shared out there, that people get to know about this? I know Crew Energy does
the energy, like the efficiency bulbs and all that. Thinking was give electricity like
which I for you to charge your, when you have pay as you go. But it's just one organization.
and how many charity organizations are aware of this.
How many counselors have this information
whereby when we are doing surgeries,
we can even advise people,
because some of the people,
they will come not just because of housing issues,
but they will come because they've got other issues
whereby we can advise them that,
well, this is available, and then inform them.
When we say assets for all,
we have to make sure this is available for everyone
who is on low income.
So please, can you please share much more information
on this and also please, please make sure
that counselors are aware of what is the office
once would cancel half -world residence
and also voluntary organizations, please.
I imagine one of the cons, officers, or the partnerships
would like to comment on that.
Yeah, thank you.
So I'll speak about the Warm Home Packs
which are a targeted intervention
that we funded through the Cost of Living.
and we have data that we update annually
to advise which homes are low income
and which homes have a low energy efficiency rating.
As ever, it's a data source that can be out of date.
It will be out of date as soon as it's published.
There will be an element of error
and discrepancy around that.
But we target every household on that list
and send them a letter directly inviting them
to collect a warm home pack for free
from any of the locations.
The locations that we ask residents to collect them from
are either the council reception, which I'll be familiar with, or local libraries.
And we work quite closely to form partnerships with community centers and other organizations
who may well know of people that would be in need.
So there is a fairly broad rule or guidance around the distribution of warm home packs
that if a resident is in need but hasn't received a letter, or if a resident is in need or believes
that their neighbor might be one, then there is an allowance to enable them to collect
them.
And we do form partnerships throughout that process
and have done with Age UK and other services
that visit particularly vulnerable groups
throughout the borough and provide them
with a number of warm home packs
to distribute via their means as well.
Thanks.
Do you want to come back on that, Chancellor?
I'm going to say this because I visited
one sweat food bank.
It was when I visited them before I got to know
that there are warm truths that people
can use at your homes which was given to them by Crew Energy for it's all part of this.
You can't worry to be one. If I haven't referred a client or residence to One Sweat Food Bank,
they wouldn't know that this is available. So how are we going to make it more available
like this awareness system because if the person does indeed food bank like items, food
items, it means the person is not going to go to food bank. And I can't be sending people
to the food bank like every three, four weeks.
It has to be like maybe four times or five times in a year.
So the gap in between is really a lot.
So with that part, because I know it's not that much expensive,
like with which it was, it's not too much expensive.
Please make it more wide for a lot of community organizations
that people meet them daily.
I meet people daily, like every day.
Today I met like 25 people who they need this, they need that.
I can say, okay, all right, because I can't send you to the food bank
because you don't need food, but you need this.
So I could give you this.
And I know we have only crew energy,
who is distributing that, which is just one organization.
And how are they reaching out to other charity organizations
within the borough?
Yeah, and I think it's a really good point, Councilman.
I think every year we try and improve the way
that we communicate about the warm packs.
I think this year we've done more
in terms of the targeted interventions,
and also putting packs in libraries
and having them in the community drop -ins.
But I think it's an important point you raise
that if you're not aware,
then there's more that we need to do.
So we'll take that away as an action to talk to crew
about how we can reach out,
to talk to our partners
and the Voluntary Community Sector team again
about how we can reach out.
And also, we're very conscious of not bombarding counselors
with lots of information,
but this could be one that, as you've highlighted,
is really important for all of you to know
for your surgeries, and so we can take that away as well.
I think that's a really important point that Councilor Allen has raised.
There are a lot of people that would slip through the crack when receiver, when maybe
receiver opened a letter from the council and the only way that they would get this
information is from a local charity or community group that they go to that if we partner with
well and we let them know about it then they could tell them on our behalf and make it
a lot easier.
I didn't understand what the meaning of that was.
It's so much of a big way for me.
How do I explain this to this woman who has English as their fourth language or fifth
language, who needs an interpreter before she will understand what I'm talking about?
So please.
Councillor Jeffries, have you given it?
Thank you, Chair.
It's James Jeffries, Councillor for Thamesfield Ward.
I just wanted to come to what the covenant member mentioned about the role of planning
in all of this, and I just wanted to make two points.
The first is, as a resident, perhaps more than a counselor, all of the new -build developments
in the borough are understandably rightfully insulated to the nth degree, and for those
of us who live in those blocks, shared ownership in my case, that works fantastically well
in the winter.
There is, I think, actually a really important flipside to that, which is that in the summer,
those blocks are absolutely excruciatingly hot, and I don't think that there is a flat
in our block that doesn't have a portable air conditioning unit which undermines the
entire point of improving energy efficiency.
And particularly for those of us with kids, actually that situation has been borderline
dangerous at some point, particularly when the kids are younger.
So I don't know what the council can possibly do within its own sort of planning purview,
but I would just like to note that as a resident.
And my next point may be slightly less helpful
and may be quite political, but there is a genuine point
underlying the question.
The government, Rachel Reeves as chancellor,
announced some changes recently to the planning system,
essentially ensuring that developers would be able to ignore the newts and the bats when
it comes to unlocking new development. Clearly there is a balance to strike between development,
getting new houses online and also protecting and improving biodiversity. Where does she
and the administration set on that topic.
I appreciate there's some political framing there,
but I think it is a matter of topical interest
to the public, and I think they'd be interested
to understand where the administration might set on
the balance between protecting and improving biodiversity
and unlocking development.
It's not something we've had a chance to discuss yet,
but we do need a position, absolutely,
and with Councillor Hogg and Councillor Belton and others,
we do need a position.
I mean, I know where I stand, but yeah,
so I can watch this space and I will discuss with colleagues
and get back to you on that.
Thank you, and yeah, as a member
of the Plan Applications Committee,
I do always feel like I wish we did have stronger protections
on that, and that's hopefully something
that we get to see develop more in future.
And on your first points,
did officers want to come back to that?
I've also very much emphasized with having been
even in a council block on the Doddington during COVID
when it was about 35 to 40 degrees,
some of these blocks are very overheated
and is there something else that we could combat in that?
I think the only thing I'd say is that
I think it points to the need for the adaptation
and resilience strategy and to take that long -term approach
to a changing climate and stuff like that, like overheating.
Councillor White.
Thank you, Chair.
I just wanted to add about 17 questions.
I put them down into about four, so to save everyone being bored to death.
But I think they can come to two areas.
is what one sort of is actually around, Councillor Jeffries' inquiry really about planning.
And the other one is around education.
But sort of the first one is an outside one about pollution is on paragraph 32.
It's interesting how many anti -idling civil penalty notices have been issued in the last three years,
which would indicate the seriousness of how we're taking this.
and then go on around the planning.
With developments, we talk about car clubs,
but how many car club spaces do we insist,
particularly if we can take these three developments
that are mentioned in paragraph 29,
how many car club spaces are being provided?
And then further question on from that is that
do we need a planning SPD with a lot of this in to make sure that we can actually resist
developments that are not in the interests of the climate and residents of the borough.
So I think that would be a question on the spaces for the car clubs that we'll have
to take away, because obviously no colleagues from planning are here this evening. And similarly
the comment around the kind of the SPDs, I think that's quite a technical one that we'll
take away and come back to you, Councillor White.
And if you can indulge me, Chair, on the other one. The other one's really about education,
as I say, and we face a real problem, especially with the election in America, that climate
change denying groups will try to impact certain elements, certain groups of people within
our community.
Are we taking that as a risk factor?
Are we thinking about that?
And the second one really is about the work and skills.
I mean, 14 plus education is going to be really important to try and change people's idea
because when I was growing up, I was probably the only one of my friends who actually didn't
go into construction in some way.
But it's fallen out of trends now, younger people aren't attracted to construction, but
There are so many new with off -site building and everything.
A lot of it's done within an IT purview.
So a lot of people might be attracted to it,
which traditionally wouldn't be.
I mean, women, for instance, might be much more attracted
to construction in the way that it's done now.
I mean, what are we doing to try and encourage schools
to try and give a technical education,
at least a level one technical education that people at schools might be encouraged to go
forward into construction and into the new green industry because we haven't got enough
people, we haven't got enough workers at the moment.
Brexit, there was a massive, massive mistake on many counters but one of them was actually
denying industry the skills that they needed
at a vital time.
So what about the replacement workers?
Where are they gonna come from?
Thanks for that.
In terms of retrofitting skills,
that's addressed in the retrofit strategy,
this section on green skills.
We recognize that's really, really important.
There's been a lot of work being done
across the whole of South London,
South London Partnership, in fact,
George Union team was working directly
with South London Partnership on some of that work
around developing green skills.
So there's a lot going on.
South Thames College have been very, very involved in that.
University of Roehampton are very involved in it.
They've launched the, I can't remember what it stands for,
CTEK, I can't remember what the acronym is,
unfortunately, at this moment.
But that's around developing new approaches
around sustainable construction as well.
There's a lot of stuff that's happening within Wandsworth
and across South London as well,
neighboring boroughs that we can learn from
and where people can go and get skills.
And so that's a really important part of it.
Within the retrofit strategy,
it sets out some of the demands around skills that we need
and the amount that's needed.
And there's a lot of work done by
colleagues in economic development,
especially with Work Match,
around how can they get placements sorted out,
how can they develop skills for people.
And part of it is about talking about how retrofit offers a really good career for people.
For people who are in school now and can get the skills, people who are maybe sort of starting
training, maybe people who already work in construction and can retrain and gain those
skills as well.
And there's a career there for them to earn good money working locally because the demand
is going to be there to work locally as well.
So I think it's about framing it all together into one sort of package and making sure everything links together.
And that's part of what we try to do as a team is work across different partners, different organizations,
across different teams within the council as well, to try to bring this together, make sure those linkages are made.
Climate denying propaganda?

5 Wandsworth Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategy 2025-2030 (Paper No. 25-52)

I'm not sure that's my job description.
I would say that we use a variety of ways of engaging with all different communities
and communicating and we're always looking to expand and look at different ways of doing
that.
I think it's about having conversations, and I think we encourage conversations throughout all of our engagement work.
Councillor Bairton.
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks for letting me come back.
I've got just two or three points I want to make.
One in the friendliest possible way, not being confrontational at all, but
Councillor Cook says he was pleased to recognize that I didn't think the state had to do everything.
can I suggest to him that capitalism itself has a little bit of a problem
coming to terms with what one of the officers said about making anything
causes some level of carbon. So if you're gonna have capitalism and gross and so
on we all have a problem that you might like to face as well. And my second point
is in terms of the planning issue in many ways couldn't agree more problem
with planning is it's very slow and reactive,
as everyone knows.
You can't actually stop people doing this, that,
and the other, simply because the planning department
doesn't want it if it's not illegal.
I mean, you can stop some things,
and you can recommend against, and so on and so forth.
But at some levels, and this is certainly the level,
you can't enforce everything that some of us
would like to do.
The third bit, which is, I think, really interesting, I hadn't thought about, but I'm the only person
old enough, sorry about that, but I'm the only person old enough to remember that, though
I know Councillor Osborne knows a lot about it, we went through a climate crisis like
this before.
We have actually done it.
And in the 50s and 60s, there were horrific smogs.
and the Clean Air Act, and I was on the council when the Clean Air Act was being resolved.
And people ought to look back at it a little bit.
You'll find committees where it says every house in the borough, by the way,
had a coal fire and hearth often in every room in their house.
So smoke was coming out of everywhere and you can find public health committee reports,
as I recall them, where it says we are now going to tackle let's say Shaftesbury, I
remember that one particularly, there are 10 ,000 hearths in private houses,
there are 2 ,000 in shops, 1 ,000 in this, that and the other, and we've got a
we've got a plan to get rid of them all in the next 18 months and it just we
went through the whole borough like that.
There was obviously legislative backing for that in a way
that there isn't now.
But if the crisis is as bad as we
thought it was in the 50s and 60s about smog,
then we might have to face doing that and saying,
retrofitting is not an option.
You will do it.
And I'm not kidding about this.
It could be that level of seriousness.
Just make a comment.
obviously doesn't need a reply but just a comment.
Was that more direct to the officers to comment?
Not really, but they might find it interesting looking up the mitts of the committees that
was actually tackling ward by ward, committee cycle by committee cycle, next month we're
going to tackle this ward and that ward and we're going to get, and it was enormous scale
Do you think you have 8 ,000 halves in Shaftesbury,
they will now all be pulled out and replaced?
So I would just say as a history graduate,
Council Belt, and I'll dig out those minutes
because I think we can always learn from history,
so that's a really interesting piece
of behavior change and action that I think we could look at.
Yeah, okay.
All right, so we've had a pretty good bash
at discussing these three papers.
Were there any more final comments or, okay, good.
So in that case, we can then get to take in the free papers together.
As in like we've discussed the free papers together, but we'll be voting on them separately.
So first we'll be starting with the paper number three, which is the ones with climate
action plans.
So this is for decision and I ask the committee whether they agree to support the recommendations
in paragraph three of the report.
That's agreed.
Then next we have the ones for a retrofit strategy.
So again, does the committee support recommendations in paragraph three of the report?
Agreed.
And finally, number five, the climate adoption and resilience strategy, does the committee
agree to support those.
Agreed.
So, that concludes the papers.
Thank you to the Climate Change team for their work and for taking all the questions tonight.
So, thank you.

6 Consultation on Draft Open Spaces Events Policy (Paper No. 25-53)

Would everyone like to have a quick break
since that was an hour and a half
of pretty continuous questioning or?
Yeah, if everyone's okay?
You okay, Armstrong?
I'll take you somewhere.
Okay, fine.
Okay.
All right, so I guess we'll have a five -minute break.
Five minutes.
Yeah.
Five minutes.
Thank you.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
All right.
Yeah, welcome back everyone
Now once you've got for climate extravaganza
Will be moving on to
We'll be moving on to paper number six
So that is the consultation on draft open spaces event policy paper number 25 to 50 fee
I think mr.. Edie wants to give this a quick introduction
Thank you chair
So the council's policy for events in parks, commons and open spaces was first adopted
in 2014.
It's important that policies of the council are up to date and reflect residents' changing
needs.
Best practice in events management has also developed since then with Parks for London,
for example, providing template events policy performers and evidence based on how to manage
events well in cross parks and open spaces.
In our year of London Borough of Culture, we will see some exciting events bringing
the health, social and cohesion benefits of culture and creativity to all parts of the
borough.
When we developed the bid, we asked residents what kind of events they would like to see
and heard that local people would like to see more family -friendly events taking place
in the borough's parks.
Reviewing the adopted policy also helps us to secure a lasting legacy beyond the year
of Culture.
Officers have reviewed the policy in line with best practice guidance, as I suggested
Parks for London was the key guidance we reviewed against this.
We are a listening council and so the document in front of you is a draft for consultation.
We want to hear from as many people as possible and we launch in a public consultation subject
to approval, the draft by executive.
A final decision of the updated policy will be made in the summer when a further report
will return.
In the interest of transparency, Appendix 1 clearly sets out the adopted policy data
from 2014 alongside draft changes.
The draft policy retains the event size and categories and limits on frequency as agreed
in 2014.
It improves the event impact mitigation, reflecting good practice such as noise management or
ensuring that no event can take over an entire park, common or open space.
Places new requirements on event organisers to deliver more sustainable events that protect
the environment, wildlife, biodiversity, provide social value, widen participation through
the Council's Access for All programme.
The draft policy also proposes some changes to facilitate events in parks that have limited
tarmac areas.
This includes areas, grassed areas over the autumn and the winter and that events proposals
will be assessed based on a case by case basis to make sure they are suitable for the location.
Subject to approval and the consultation commencing, we listened to everyone's views on these
proposals before making a decision that balances protecting our parks and open spaces and commons
with our ambition to widen access
to culture and creativity for all.
Thank you, Mr. Eadie.
We haven't got any deputations today
from any of our interested groups,
such as Friends of our various parks and commons.
Having a couple of bits of email correspondence,
which I just wanted to relay for the minutes.
So one of them was from Friends of Toots and Commons,
Just saying that they will be coming soon after this meeting with their feedback for us to note.
And ahead of a further meeting, I also got a very detailed email from Friends of Brunswick Common,
which I will briefly summarize here and then ask the cabinet member for response.
So in summary, the letter from the Friends of Brunswick Common highlights their strength of feeling about the idea of large and
frequent events on Wandsworth Common.
Also highlighting how the recent
enable events application did not have any grounds
for objection that included damage
to flora, fauna, or biodiversity.
The French group urged that the consultation
for the strategy be a meaningful and robust consultation
over an adequate time frame.
The group shares the laudable objective
of enabling improved and wider access to events
in open spaces across the borough,
especially during the year in which
we are the borough of culture.
But the friends group do not think that these objectives
require big events, especially categories C and B
over prolonged periods.
They also believe that MAC and friends groups
should be consulted on category A events
as well as B and C.
And finally, they have specific comments
on the amount of event days,
the policing of structures such as gazebos,
and a further suggestion to prohibit use
of non -biodegradable party items such as balloons.
All of the details in the email have been taken forward and I'm sure will be discussed in future meetings.
But Councilor Gasser, did you want to come back on that?
Yeah, absolutely.
Just to say thank you for the friends of Wandsworth Common for everything they do and for sharing your concerns.
And I just want to say we hear you.
And we have a date in the diary, as you know, to meet with you and all the other friends and community groups.
And we will be absolutely listening to your views.
And I've said many times, biodiversity and nature and the benefits they bring are absolutely top of my agenda.
I can promise you we're not planning on putting big events like Clapham Common on Wandsworth Common.
No way, that's not what's in mind.
But we do need to have a framework which encourages all our residents to come to us with ideas for fun and inclusive community events.
So this sets that out, and we're going to be consulting and listening.
and we're not actually asking for any more events
or any more days than in the current policy,
but we are recommending much tighter controls
to protect the grass and the biodiversity
and the residents' wellbeing.
So I hope we can work together very positively on this
and come up with a framework
that will encourage lovely events.
I know I've spoken to the friends about
how do we get a more diverse crowd onto Wandsworth Common?
So let's have a think together about some lovely events
that we could put on to get a different bunch of people
to enjoy Wandsworth Common.
I know we all want to do that.
So there should be a positive consultation. I thank you and I look forward to listening to you all about it
So I think council Osborne you wanted to
Weigh in on this
Yeah, I'd like to say something about this letter from the Friends of Wandsworth common
Which I think we've all had a copy of
Is that not the case email I think I think it was emailed to all members of the committee but
A couple of days ago.
A few days ago.
I think.
OK, forgive me.
But you know, you're.
Forgive me.
I thought it had gone to everybody.
But let me say something about the letter from the Friends of Wandsworth Common, which
has been summarized actually accurately by the chair.
It is a, I have to say, the letter is a thoughtful and gracious contribution to the consultation
process, which is no surprise.
If I've ever had anything to do with the leadership individuals of the Friends of Wands of Common,
their contact with me has always been thoughtful and gracious at every level on everything
that they've been concerned about.
But if I talk about the substance of their letter, it raises a number of issues with
us, some of which I agree with quite strongly, some of which I'm intrigued by.
I can't say I agree with every single element of the letter.
But most of it, in particular, there's, I think,
interesting bits in it about biodiversity, which I think
we should pay attention to.
But most of it, I would say, it ought
to be fed into the consultation process.
And that's what I would urge the friends of Wandsworth Common
to do with the content of their letter, with an exception.
There is one element of the letter,
which I think is very important.
And what I would suggest is that it should be focused on,
in particular, because it talks about part of the draft
in the consultation document that we've got.
And hones in on a bit where it talks
about the existing policy wording
and the revised draft policy wording.
and a difference between the two.
One key difference being that in the existing policy,
the MAX, the Management Advisory Committees, and the FRIENDS are consulted on event proposals.
Exactly. And then in the proposed revised policy,
It talks about the Max and the friends being notified about events.
And I think that is a very useful focus which they've drawn to our attention and flagged
up for us to consider.
I would say that is so important that we should take a look at that tonight.
And what I would suggest is this.
I would say that the proposed new draft should be abandoned
and we should stick with the original draft, the original text,
which was in the existing policy where you're talking
about consulting rather than notifying.
I think that was a valuable formulation and should be kept.
And I would say that it's so important.
I'm sure that having had dealings with the leadership of the Friends of Wandsworth Common,
I'm sure they understand that means that it's about engagement and discussion.
It's simply about the timing.
It's not about giving them a veto over what happens or approval or disapproval or anything
like that.
It's about the value and the importance of their engagement with the plans for events
anywhere, but in particular on Wandsworth Common.
And I think because it's important and I think we should revert to the and stick with the
existing policy wording, there should be, for that part, there should be a clear minute
this evening that we're opting for consult and not notify.
And that that should go forward as the consensus of this committee into the consultation process
in the coming weeks and months.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Osborne.
I believe we can just minute that, that we want the emphasis or…
Yeah, I think if it's, if you're proposing an amendment to the draft document, then when
we get to the end of the discussions perhaps moving it, seconding it and then that can
be referenced straight to the executive at their meeting in a couple of weeks time.
Okay.
Okay.
Councillor Brooks, do you want to come in next?
Thank you very much.
Appreciate the background and thank you, Councillor Osborne, for preempting something that we
were also going to raise about the needs to consult the MAC.
We can see the list of objectives that the council are trying to achieve with these changes.
But I'm afraid the revisions to the policy and in removing so many different protections that were there for a reason amounts to quite a dangerous change
to the open spaces events policy
that ultimately threatens people's enjoyment of the parks.
For the benefit of people watching,
I'll just list what I had down
as the important changes that were being made.
Allowing grass areas to be used for events
between the 30th of September and the 1st of April,
risking great damage to the grass in the park.
removing the requirement to ensure that sports pitches
remain operational,
to sort of case by case try our best,
lifting the 10 p .m. event cutoff time,
allowing consecutive weekend events
on the same piece of grounds,
having event days not include setup and removal periods,
so parts of the park can be cordoned off to the public
longer than just the event days themselves.
Removal of the 75 decibel noise limits
with no alternative limit proposed.
And then finally I had down eliminating
the public consultation on variations
to the events policy in future.
I don't see how the committee can let a draft policy
go through to the consultation without the guardrails
that used to be there in the policy kept in there.
I think it's quite dangerous and given how important the Parks and Commons are to residents
across the borough, I don't think we should let the policy go through as it is and for
that reason we've prepared an amendment to the draft which we'll put forward this evening.
I'm perfectly happy to hear either Councillor Gasser or an officer try and justify the removal
of the changes, but I'm afraid in my opinion the draft policy doesn't achieve the objectives
listed in paragraph 9.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Perks.
Mr. Eadie, would you like to come back on any of those specific points?
I might need to be reminded of them as we go through, but...
quickly. Listen again.
That was the allowing of brass areas to be used for events between the 30th
September and the 1st of April, removing the requirement to ensure sports
bitches remain operational, lifting the 10 p .m. Event cuts off time, allowing
consent consecutive weekend events on the same piece of grounds having event
days not include set up and removal periods for stages and things like that
removal of the 75 decibel noise limits
with no alternative limit proposed,
and eliminating the need for public consultation
on variations to the event policy in the future.
I'll try and go through those.
I might have to flick through the document as I go.
But, so, it's quite typical, at any event,
the organizer will have to demonstrate
how they mitigate the impact,
including any damage to the grassed areas and things like that.
That is quite typical now.
If we only rely on events being able to be delivered on hard standing areas,
that will rule out practically all our parks and open spaces across the borough.
If you only do them in the summer, then that's the busiest part
when people are most likely to use the parks.
So what we're trying to do is create flexibility in line with most of other neighboring boroughs
and other boroughs across the council.
This framework buys the protections to be able to make sure that if there was any risk
that we felt that it was going to have a serious impact to the quality of the grassed areas
or the sports pitches, it wouldn't be permitted.
So it's providing additional flexibility,
it's allowing events to happen more across the year,
so there's less disruption.
You don't want all your events to happen in the summer
because that will disrupt the park.
You're trying to spread it out more equally,
or the common or the open space.
In terms of the consecutive weekends,
this is again quite typical in the events management
because you need to make it a viable proposition.
So if you need to bring infrastructure
to be able for you to be able to deliver events,
you know, to keep the cost down
rather than doing a weekend, set it down,
and then come back in three or four weeks time,
it doesn't become a viable proposition.
We want affordable events and free events where possible,
and the market will be able to tell us that.
But also, these things won't happen very frequently anyway.
But what we're trying to do is attract people
to want to deliver events in the borough,
and if we put lots of barriers up
and really tight restrictions,
then it won't be an attractive place
for people to want to come and do events.
I'm gonna go back to the point
that the framework of this policy,
they will have to demonstrate for an events plan
how they mitigate any impacts on noise, nuisance,
damage to any pitches,
impacts on biodiversity on natural habitats,
traffic impacts, all of these have to have plans
to be able, which they will be presented, you know, and over my period of my career,
we have rejected plenty of events that haven't been able to demonstrate how they can satisfy
to meet the conditions and protections within any borough's policy.
What was the setup time as well?
So if you grant a, let's say, five days event for a medium size and you include the setup,
the setup could take two or three days.
The set down could take two days.
So straight away you have no event.
So by saying all the event days have to be used
including the setup and set down,
again, no one will want to do events here.
And the infrastructure that you need
to make sure you run a successful and safe event
is really important around the toilet provision
about how you, means of escape, security,
safe ingress and egress and things like that.
all these things, the control of noise,
all the infrastructure has to be put in place.
So if you include those days within the limited days
that we want to do events, again,
just people won't want to do events in the borough
because it'd be too limiting.
If I can come back, thank you very much for that, Mr. Eady.
I think we've managed to get very quickly
to the tension at the heart of this disagreement.
I think you're describing the need
to create a new policy with greater flexibility
to enable these events, but all I'm seeing
as I'm listening to you describe what you're trying to do
and what the administration's trying to do, sorry,
is greater flexibility to put the parks at risk,
to close them off to residents,
and to disrupt the lives of people that live near the parks.
That's why we're looking to add it back in to the policy,
the guardrails and the protections that were there in the first place.
Perhaps we're quite content with the parks as they are, protected as they are,
so they can continue to be a valuable resource for people to enjoy,
play sports, walk their dogs, have their children play.
That's the primary use of the parks that people enjoy so much,
and that's what we're trying to stop being damaged
by the reintroduction of these protections
back into the policy.
Did you wanna come back on that, Mr. Eadie?
I mean, I'm always welcome to hear feedback.
This is meant to be a consultation,
but none of the event days
in any of these spaces are being increased.
They are exactly the same as what the current policy is,
so for there to be said that we're trying to increase it,
that's not the case.
We're trying to work within the framework
that already exists.
And I can assure you there is plenty of protections
within this policy and more oneness
on the licensing process of events
to make sure that noise is protected
and consultation is done,
which there's a legal framework
for that to be able to happen.
If I may, just one final point.
You say that there's this continuing protection,
but this draft policy removes the need for public consultation on changes to this policy
in the future.
So this will be the very last consultation this borough ever sees on its Open Spaces
events policy.
So that's a huge protection that's being taken away, the fact that we could ever weigh in
on future changes at all.
So I don't see how these protections are protected.
if any future administration could revise the policy without going through
the very process that we're going through now.
It'd be helpful if you can point me in the direction of that because I've got it in front of me.
Any variations to the event restrictions, any material changes to this
policy are only possible if they're approved by the council's executive.
Non -material changes are delegated to offices in consultation and relevant lead member.
It says the Executive, it doesn't describe a public consultation process or going through
the OSC committee.
Well the process, we are doing that process now aren't we?
We're going to go out to consult now.
That's the bedrock of how councils operate, you know.
So I think Councillor Adolpho as you were next.
Thanks.
And agree with councilor Osborne around the amendment to the wording and keeping it into the consult
I think that seems like a fair and and and fair point that we can discuss it yet
And so could you outline it in a bit more detail?
How exactly residents are gonna be consulted on this to kind of reassure people that it is it is very much draft policy
We're going to take into account the views of the friends and the various different groups and the whole kind of range of residents
It's a kind of reassure people how we're going to do that
So the consultation framework is being designed now.
We have a meeting with all the friends and Max
in a week or so's time, which is already arranged
to get their first initial views,
although some have already shared some of those views,
but we will have a session with them.
The consultation will be using our normal consultation
framework for the council, but we will also be
trying to get views from focus groups
and things like that to make sure we get a broad view
of the communities.
As I've said, our arts and culture strategy
and the preparation for our bid for London
Borough of Culture residents were telling us
that they would like to see events
in our parks and open spaces.
So what we're trying to do is create a framework
that protects those really important green assets
that's in our borough, but allows controlled events
within this framework for them to be able to enjoy.
And the consultation will work really hard
to make sure we get to seek all those views
across the broad parts of the council and our residents.
Just a quick follow up.
Can you describe how this will take into account
the different events that will be appropriate
for different commons?
Because obviously not all commons have the same
kind of level of infrastructure
and they have different levels of biodiversity,
and I think that would be helpful
to kind of have some reassurance
that that's being taken into account.
So in terms of, I would expect us,
if there is an appetite for events on these green spaces
and commons and parks, we would restrict areas
of those parks and open spaces,
because they are, in our view, very important assets
for biodiversity or habitat development,
and the policy will protect those.
In terms of, sorry, what was the first part of the question?
I guess what I mean is, how are you taking into account
the kind of the different events that will be suited
to the different commons, because they're obviously
not all suitable for the same kind of events.
Yeah, so part of the, like I say, it's being developed,
but we will ask the kind of events and the scale
and the genre and the themes of the kind of events
that the community and the residents would like to see
on their commons.
We would give them some guidance around what
those commons can potentially do, you know,
because it's easier to come from a list
rather than just an open question.
But absolutely, we want to understand
what our residents would like to see.
If they would like to see events
in all our parks and open spaces,
we might have a very clear message
that for our parks and open spaces,
are completely off the table.
That's what the purpose of this is.
And that will really help us and the market
and community groups and residents
to be able to make a decision
where they want to host an event
because the people, our residents
would have told us the kind of events they want.
So they'd already know there's a demand there.
So the market would be able to see very clearly
if it's Shakespeare in the park,
You know for example and things like that if people really want to see that
That might come out in a consultation, and if it's a goer then they'll be able to contact relevant
organizations that could put on events such as that so it's it's
Consultation exercise will be really really helpful to inform our approach going forward
Counselor Caddy then councillor Osborne
Thank you very much chair
I think probably the first thing I'd say is obviously the consultation document is what we're putting out
what the council is putting out is kind of the recommendations so it's something that we we should all agree with and
As councillor Brooks has said there are many areas in here that I certainly don't agree with and I think will be really detrimental
To the future of our Commons
I don't understand why we be why we would be proposing some of these sort of dilutions to the controls that currently exist
Just two areas that I'll just very quickly highlight the sports pitches
The revised draft policy wording is that eventual minimize impact on the maintenance and operation of sports pitches.
I mean that means nothing.
Minimize could mean still a huge amount of damage.
And my kids play sport on those pitches and they are regularly closed because of too much mud or too much water or the weather.
So they're already losing those pitches for quite a significant number of events during the year.
And if they lost them for even more, it would be really, really challenging, I think, to run some of those sports clubs.
And then secondly, on the decibel level, I can understand wanting to change it to mean
that smaller events have to be quieter or more considerate.
But why remove the decibel level?
Why not keep that in as a kind of upper level?
And the final point I want to make is that a couple of times it's been mentioned what
other boroughs do.
And I don't think necessarily we should be copying and following what other boroughs
do because if I think about one of our neighboring boroughs in particular, with Clapham Common,
they let all sorts of ridiculous events go on there that residents hate, that are
really noisy and I've spent a lot of time working with residents on
petitions to try and get some of those terrible events reduced because of the
damage that they do. So I don't think we should necessarily be taking lessons
from other boroughs and what they do is irrelevant anyway. And then the final
final point, you know I really love our Commons and our open spaces and I really
don't think they should be used as a cash cow. And the thing that sort of hints to me that that's
the aim behind some of these policies is the use of the word market, demand. You know we're looking
essentially and I can see the irony of course I can Councillor Belton but I really do. I really
value our open spaces and I would urge if this committee is happy to do so just dial back on
some of the dilutions that have been talked about
because I really, really do think
that they will be damaging our commons, I really do.
Mr. Eder, do you wanna come back on those points?
Yeah, no, thank you, and thank you for your comments.
I am a very keen sports person as well,
and, you know, sports pitches,
we would not want to lose them,
but if we had an event that came in
that was of such high interest to our residents,
and that is the space that would not compromise
any nature or biodiversity,
then that might be the best option
because it's flat and it's easy accessible.
I don't know, but ruling out all the options
for events to be held makes it difficult,
but you've got to trust the process
that it's not in the interest of the council
to create an environment where pitches are damaged.
And any income that comes will help to restore those pitches and take them to a better level.
If I just come back on the other one, sorry.
Then leave the wording as it is.
Event shall not be permitted to compromise the maintenance and operation of sports pitches.
That's fine.
Okay, so on the decibel element, what the policy is saying is leave that to the licensing
because that has more powers.
You can be prosecuted if you don't comply with it.
So it says events that involve significant noise generating sources must provide sufficient
and suitable noise management plans and address the licensing objectives of the Licenses Act
2003 and follow the best practice for the event noise management included but not limited
to the Noise Council co -practice of 1995.
Noise limits for events including liceable activities will be set through licensing process
including the relevant stakeholder consultation.
but will not exceed 75 decibels when attending offices.
And then just add it in, have a double,
have a double, you know, double break,
a double guardrail, just add it in, I totally agree.
I think a lot of the revised drug loading is good,
but add in the additional guardrails
that we're using, how is that happening?
And on your last point, this isn't the attention
of the council to create cash cow.
We're looking at local events.
Most events don't break even for years,
you know, and have to be subsidized,
and we are very passionate about making sure
that events are inclusive and accessible,
which will mean that we will expect access
for all principals, where there's free
or highly discounted access,
which will make it a challenge for anyone
to deliver an event that isn't subsidized.
So that is very clear that is not the intention
of this policy.
Thank you Mr. Eadie.
Council Osborne.
Yeah, look, I'm trying very hard here
to be consensual in our approach
to this consultation, draft consultation document.
We could have a row.
I could drag up stories from the past
about E -Formula 1 and charging kids to go into,
But it's, exactly, it's irrelevant.
And I don't want the party political division.
That's the point I'm trying to make.
Exactly.
I'm trying to come up with a formula which is we've got a consultation document, we've
got a draft, there are bits in it which we're concerned about, and your concerns are just
as valid as the ones that I drew attention to earlier on.
And my formula was, let's not try and fix everything with an amendment, because I think
it all merits discussion, including yours, merits discussion over the coming weeks and
months.
You have valid points and they merit discussion.
I'm saying, let's get those points made clear, like my points about consultation versus
notification and get them minuted after this meeting.
So they are very clearly highlighted as part of the discussion and part of the consensus
here tonight.
And they go forward with a special status into the consultation process in the coming
weeks and months.
Because frankly, we – I don't think we're in a position to have this kind of back and
forth negotiating here tonight in a committee meeting about the kind of detail which you've
drawn to our attention that you're concerned about.
I don't think it's practical.
I'm not saying it's invalid.
I think you're making a very reasonable set of points.
And I want them to be discussed.
But I think the way to do it is to say, let's have a highlighted minute from this discussion tonight.
And that's what goes forward into the consultation process.
I might add, by the way, it's a technique which we've started to use in a number of OSCs.
that we've done it a couple of times, I think, in general purposes.
We've done it in some of the other OSCs.
We're moving into a different style of OSC, I think, as we go forward,
which overview and scrutiny committee for those listening in,
which respects the point of view of the opposition.
I have said a couple of times in discussions with the opposition,
I don't want to see a committee that simply lists decisions in its minutes
when an argument has been made by the minority party,
perfectly reasonable argument but which the majority party disagreed with.
I want posterity to know what the minority party was saying.
I want it minuted.
I want it to go into the record.
And so the minutes are becoming much more important in the way that we handle as our
overview and scrutiny committees evolve.
I would urge you to do as I have done and say what I've said should be clearly minuted,
have a special status because it's minuted and lifted out of the discussion that we're
having on this draft.
I would say, why don't you do the same with your points and let's, almost as an experiment,
see if we can use it as a way of moving forward and getting a proper discussion, a proper
discussion over the detail of what you're saying.
Because I honestly don't think that you or us are in a position to go into the kind of
detail and come up with a valid decision tonight on those sort of items.
What do you say?
Thank you very much, Councillor Osborne, and I appreciate what you're saying, but I think
for two reasons I wouldn't agree with that and I think we should definitely amend it.
One is I think this is such an important and kind of permanent change that we should be
looking to make an amendment so that the document that we give to people is our recommendation.
Because everybody, you know, if you receive a document from the council asking for consultation,
The contents of it are essentially what the council is recommending.
So we shouldn't be recommending things that we fundamentally don't agree with.
And I think it's better to get the consultation document that we send out for people to discuss right than rush it through.
And I don't think there's any particular urgency. This isn't a particularly urgent issue.
I think we've got time to put the amendment through, make those changes to the consultation document,
and actually consult properly and say what we really think when we're putting out the
consultation document.
It's, you know, with the best will in the world, a minute is a minute, an amendment
will actually go through.
Councillor Bailton.
Councillor Osborne's been bending over.
I'm amazed.
This is a learning experience for me this evening.
I'm amazed at Councillor Osbourne's total reasonableness
on this issue.
I can barely, barely resist having fun about
the marketization of public goods
coming from the minority party.
Gosh, it nearly slipped up there.
But I haven't read it so closely, I must admit.
Does it say, can I ask, does it say somewhere in the proposal referred back or something
like that to the Council's Executive?
I mean I don't mind if this paper says the Executive because we know whether that is.
But if it's public, that is the actual policy we're trying to get through, then I don't
it should refer to the executive.
Needs a change of government,
a change of local government legislation,
and there won't be an executive.
It'll be a cabinet, it'll be something else.
It's just the council's normal decision procedures.
We don't have to get stuck on whether it's the executive,
the cabinet, the leader, all that sort of stuff.
Does that actually say it, though, in what,
well, in that case, I don't think it should.
I think it should say refer back to the council,
or whatever the phrase is.
and the council will change it as necessary.
Mr. Edith, did you want to comment on that?
That's fine.
We want to make sure that if a material changes,
it goes through an open and transparent process.
So if the wording needs to change to reflect that
or whatever successor governance process it will be,
we can make that amendment.
Okay.
Wait, Councillor White, you also had your hand up.
Was this related or was this like an extra point before we started talking about amendments?
Yeah, I mean, there's one thing.
I'd like to speak positively about what's being said, but also I think a lot of the
amendments are actually offering us a lot more flexibility, and I don't think that,
yeah, I agree, people like the Commons, but that doesn't mean that they can't be liked
in different ways, and there are other groups that the
the demographics of Wandsworth are changing,
and I think that our documents must be flexible to reflect that.
So I support what Mr. Eady has been saying.
There's one area though I think that the language does need to be tightened up,
and I hope this one thing I would agree with you, and that's on the sports pitches.
I don't think our sports pitches are in a fantastic condition anyway.
I mean, you know, with climate change, I mean, this weather, this winter has been absolutely awful.
And to start the season, if you like, already in a bad condition is not going to be conducive to good sports playing.
I presume that a lot of the matches have been called,
I probably haven't played for five or six weeks.
So I think that adding to the burden in that way
is not helpful.
So I liked the language.
We can change the language, it's fine.
But I think it needs to be tightened up
and protections for the sports pitches,
I think needs to be a big requirement here.
Mr. Eady, you wanted to comment on that?
I'm happy to take that away.
but sports pitches, we shouldn't just think about football.
It could be a cricket pitch.
Well, it could be a cricket pitch.
They're not used in the winter, and it's a space.
It's normally flat.
We've got a soft, you know, we've
got other sports pitches that aren't used in the winter.
So I don't think we should dismiss it completely
if there's an opportunity for an event
that we ask the event organizer to make sure they protect
that mitigate any damage concede the point that we don't want to lose sports pitches
in terms of football and rugby during the season.
So we can modify that to be more specific.
Are there any other further comments?
Okay, so general points on amendments.
I know based on full counsel that last minute amendments are over the wage, but I would
say that it is, I'd probably say in general, more likely to get a more detailed hearing
if we're able to see the detail and the text a bit in advance of the meeting, because otherwise
there's always the risk and the issues with trust.
So that's just a comment that in future
with a serious amendment it would be nice
to get them further advanced.
But you do have an amendment
and do you still want to go forward with it?
Would you like me to read it?
from the
you, sorry, okay.
So it's an amendment.
Right, so it's an amendment to recommendation A
on page 188.
So it now reads, and I'll pass this
to the clerk in a moment,
to approve the revised drafts event policy
for the borough's parks, commons, and open spaces,
brackets excluding Battersea Park, close brackets,
with the below protections from the 2014 policy included
for public consultation.
Grass areas shall not be used for events
over the winter months between 30th of September
and the 1st of April, brackets with exception
of that of Barnelm Sports Center,
or events directly linked with winter sports
or the annual boat race.
Events shall not be permitted to compromise
the maintenance and operation of sports pitches.
A time limit of 10 p .m. shall be imposed on all events as per the 2014 policy wording.
There will be no Cat C or Cat B events at any site on the same park, common or open
space on consecutive weekends.
Event days are defined as the day of the actual live event and event site builds and removal
days.
Maintain the existing noise limit wording in the current policy.
Public consultation must be carried out
and approval of the environment OSC
and executive achieve before variations
are made to the open spaces event policy in the future.
And finally, the category A, B, and C events
retain the consultation with the relevant
MACs and friends groups.
I propose the amendment.
Second.
Or did you still want it to be amended?
It's going to have to be an amendment, I guess.
So I propose...
Oh, Councillor Whitehall?
That's a lot of amendments, that's a lot of points,
and you're asking us to make a decision to amend.
Why didn't you give it to us at the 24 -hour notice?
I mean, why have you presented it now?
I'm not obliged to do that. We don't have to.
I know you're not obliged to do it, but it would be really helpful in the spirit of what
Councillor Osborne said.
We could work on it.
We could have had 24 hours to work on it back and forward and come up with an agreement.
We used to, and you remember when you were a housing cabinet member, we used to bring
amendments day before to give everyone an opportunity to have a look.
You always rejected them.
I mean, you know, you never accepted them.
If I had a chance to read through all of the papers in so much detail earlier, then fine.
But as I said, I only got the papers on Monday and I had to schedule reading them.
But can you see what's happened?
We've gone from a very positive position of thinking, my God, how are we going to look at all of this in 10 seconds?
I think these are really uncontroversial.
Well, you probably do, but the thing is that we haven't had a chance to have a look at them, Kim.
But you've read the papers, haven't you?
I know, but it's a bit of...
I don't think we agree.
It's okay. I was about to come up with a wording for an amendment which says
where the draft consultation paper replaces consultation with notification.
Replace notify with consult?
The draft replaces consultation with notification.
That should be reversed and we should revert to consultation as in the original documentation.
I'll second that.
So I think then Councillors, if we take the substantive amendment that Councillor Brooks'
proposal has been seconded and we take a vote on that as one block and then following on
from that we will then if necessary then take the vote on the second amendment is that agreed
yes okay so we're taking the amendment on all of the yeah this this list and then if
needed yeah we'll move on to the next one okay so so person that so can we have votes
for the amendment.
Sorry, Councillor Brooks's amendment.
So can we have the votes for the amendment?
It's four?
Yep, and vote.
Five, sorry.
No, it is four, who was four?
Two now.
Yeah.
And votes against.
Six.
That motion calls.
So that motion is forward.
And then, sorry, Mr. Eady would like to make a comment.
Sorry, if we are going to do this procedurally correctly, then we can open again at the whole
debate because something else has been put.
We can't jump in just because an officer feels they want to jump in.
We have to take the vote now we started it.
Well, was your comment as a result of the vote or was it, did you want to say something
before the vote and then it's now due?
I was going to say maybe I'm out of order, but there might be some potential merit in
refining some of the amendments and because, you know, the sports pitches for one, you
know, I could concede that, but not all sports pitches, you know, so it gives us the fact
flexibility, encourages people to want to do events.
Can we move to a vote on the second amendment?
Rick?
Councillor Borenson?
May I just say that I think the list of the amendment was far too prescriptive, but the
cabinet member, if she's who I know to be very concerned about getting all these things
right, will ensure that she goes through with the officers each one of those individual
comments that have been made and checks and sees whether any of them actually are worth
taking on board in terms of the discussion next time round.
And so we're not necessarily rejecting it, we're just rejecting that as a whole plate
put as too prescriptive in one go.
Yeah, I absolutely agree and I think that's very much in the spirit of what Councillor
was saying we can have these individual ones potentially minutesto and then we
as in these were these are the points raised in in the opposite in the
opposition amendment so that can be put in the minutes and we can also take that
forward so councilor Osburn did you still want to proceed with your
amendment
Can I propose the amendment which I outlined earlier on, please?
So again to and that was for more of the change in the words from notifier to consult.
Sticking with the old wording, basically.
So can I have votes for the amendment?
It's agreeing.
That's unanimous.
So that then becomes the substantive recommendation.
Okay, so now we have the substantive recommendation
in
paragraph two of the report with council response amendment, so
It's that agreed
Okay, so what let's take vote so can we have votes for the substantive
That's six and votes against that's four so
So the, yeah, it's carried, supported.
So moving on, we now have item number seven,
which is the Leisure Infrastructure Plan.
So I think,
do we have a voice on recommendations?

7 Leisure Infrastructure Plan (Paper No. 25-54)

I said that the recommendations in paragraph two of the report.
So paragraph C is unanimous.
whereas rest was supported by six votes to four.
Okay, so, leisure infrastructure plan,
item number seven, paper number 25 -54.
I believe, did it come to the gases?
You wanted to comment on that?
Yeah, just come in quickly,
and hopefully this isn't quite so controversial.
So, you know we've got a very ambitious program,
OneSmith Moves Together, to get all our residents moving
in whatever way they would like to get moving.
And one of those ways is in our leisure centres and in our parks.
And these assets actually need some investment.
They've not been invested in for a while.
So first of all, we need to protect these assets.
And we're seeking a budget from Finance Committee, not from this committee.
But this outlines what our plans are.
We need to protect our assets so that our residents can enjoy them, so they're fit for
purpose.
And actually, we need to enhance them.
We need to be offering a lot more, because we need to be competing against the professional
the private gyms and all that sort of thing.
So we're also seeking budget from finance committee, not from this committee, to enhance our leisure centers.
But that is what we call investor save, that funding,
because actually through the tender process which officers will outline,
we're expecting a new contractor to come in and generate some really nice revenue.
As a result of the investment we're going to make.
So I'll let the officers talk all about it
But this is the next step in getting all our residents moving and fit and healthy and happier
Thank You councilor gasser, so with officers like to highlight the paper
Thank you. Thank you chair. My name is Rebecca towers, and I am interim head of projects for culture and leisure
I'm a colleague here
Good evening counselors. My name is Mark Fisher. I'm the interim head of leisure contracts
So I'm going to introduce the paper. So we're really pleased to be bringing this leisure infrastructure plan to committee this evening
So thank you for having us
So the plan is a really important part of ones who have moved together our leisure strategy as councilor gasps are just explained
And the strategy is about inclusive accessible affordable sustainable facilities
And this plan will help to deliver against that
The outcome of having those types of facilities,
good quality facilities that all our residents can enjoy
will mean higher physical activity levels
and better mentor and physical wellbeing.
So this plan we think is crucial for achieving the goals
that we set out in the leisure strategy.
And Councilor Gasser already talked about the need
to protect and enhance leisure facilities,
leisure infrastructure, which includes
indoor built facilities, so leisure centers
and halls, playing pitches, parks and open spaces, playgrounds and opportunities for
active travel with sustainability being a cross -cutting theme really.
This plan sets out an approach for the next five years and pulls out some of the priorities
for years one and two that are in addition to the schemes that we've already started.
And we've had some real successes this year, so we know we've got a capital program already
and we've opened paddle courts at King George's Park.
We've had improved tennis courts,
or they're nearly finished.
Wandall Recreation Center's had some work done
that means that the carbon emissions have been cut,
so really important work there.
We've started those grass playing pitch improvements
to make sure that they're not waterlogged
and out of action during the winter months.
So we've got a schedule of improvements planned
for many pitches across the borough,
So that's really good.
And this additional investment will
unlock a whole load of other opportunities and more outcomes
for local people.
And our planned approach will help
to deliver more efficiency, avoid loss of income,
avoid disruption for users, and like I say,
deliver those outcomes for local people.
So this additional funding that we're asking for in the paper
will link to the plan, will deliver investments
across leisure centres, for example, Latchmere Leisure Centre needs swimming pool roof repairs,
and we have a variety of other plans or proposals that will be linked to the Leisure Operator
Procurement Exercise, which has already been mentioned, that will bring a significant return
on that investment. So that's very much linked to that process, so we haven't got anything
and firmed up at the moment.
We also need to improve and protect pitches
such as Battersea Park or Weather Pitch,
which is coming to the end of its life cycle.
If we don't replace it, it will be out of use.
Again, lots of residents enjoy using that,
so we want to avoid that kind of scenario happening.
And then finally, looking at schemes in parks,
for example, the replacement of aging infrastructure
such as cricket nets in parks.
again free at point of access and available to residents and residents
really value that kind of facility. So I'm just going to stop now and ask you
to review the recommendations that are set out in the report and we're really
happy to take any questions that you might have.
Thank you very much. So we can now open the floor to questions. So Councillor
Caddy I think you had your hand up. Thanks very much chair. Yeah I mean I think it's great that
we're that we're investing in in these facilities. I've got I guess a big picture question and then
something more specific. So on the big picture obviously 30 million is is the number but there
isn't much sort of detail behind that and obviously we do have the action plan at the
back and it would just be really good to have some numbers around things because I think speaking to
officers, 30 million probably won't cover everything that we want to do and it would
be really good to understand what we're prioritizing and why.
Again, where we're going to get the most bang for our buck.
So it would be really good to understand how that 30 million is being spent and prioritized.
And I appreciate that some of it will be necessary repairs like the Latch Mill Edge Center roof,
but it would be good to understand of the action plan, what is actually going to be
paid for by that 30 million.
And then the second question was very specifically, obviously with the demise of the Winstan
New York Road plans, the leisure center there and the new facilities there are not going
to be built anytime soon.
What plans are there to put in place something very specifically in that area to try and
improve the delivery in that area because I'm very, very conscious that people there
have been waiting a long time for an all -singing, all -dancing leisure center that will not now
be appearing? I'll have a go at answering those first of all if that's okay. So of the
30 million, about 10 million of it is investment we're expecting through a leisure contractor.
So we are waiting, we will borrow the money but they will cover the financing costs and
the return on the investment. So we are in the middle of the last stage of the procurement
process so we've given them feedback at the first stage of what they think they
based on data and feasibility what they think we should invest in so at the
moment it's really difficult for us like I suggested it today to give you that
until we've got that back because some of the works that they propose might
pick up some of the protect stuff which means we might be able to do more stuff
which means that we can re or deprioritize other things that we're
planning to do.
Most of the 20 million is being picked up
through end or nearing end of life cycle assets.
So tennis courts, or weather pitches, roofs, windows,
boilers, all those kind of things.
But once we have a much clearer understanding
what the leisure contractors are gonna come forward with,
we can relook at it with our FM team
and our design services team and go,
right, if we phase these things
and pull these things together, the money will go further, disruption to our customers
will be less.
So it's really difficult to answer that question, but it will become much more clear when we
come back to committee in June for a contract award report and include what the investment
will be as part of that.
So it will be a contractual requirement of the bidder to be actually deliver it so they
will be contracted to do it, including the return to the council.
So apologies if I'm being vague, but it's a really difficult one to answer.
No, that's really helpful and presumably in June we can get the breakdown of what we're
going to be spending, whatever the balance of the 20 million is that we've got left on
and what the priorities are, just to sort of understand how much we can do with this
action plan.
And what I should have said as well, there's a safeguard, is the money that is going to
be asked for approval at Finance Committee is going into a development pot for us to
make business cases against, so it's not what we've got the money.
Yeah, it's not automatic, so we will have to go through, we in turn have an investment
and funding board, and depending on that we might need further approvals after that.
So you know, we appreciate it's a lot of money, but we want to make sure we get the
best back for our buck out of this and exploit all the opportunities of economies.
But also, you know, there might be an opportunity for external funding that might come across
in the next three or four months, we can go,
well, we don't have to spend half a million on that.
We can spend 200 ,000 because we'll be partner agreements.
So in one way, it's good that we're not putting
all our eggs in one basket now and making commitments
that we might need to change in the future.
Thank you.
COVID's on your way.
What?
Wait, sorry, did you want to comment on that second point
or was that?
Do you have a question?
Yeah.
It's not.
Carry on.
So get back to that second question before we move on to
council.
So we are Stanley York Road.
As part of our Wandsworth moves together strategy, a key focus
is working in our estates.
So we are piloting lots of things in
Alton and Roehampton at the moment.
And trying to work with other key
anchor and partner institutions
to open up access to facilities.
So we're working with Ipstock School in Alton
to try and get access to the swimming pool,
we are getting access to the swimming pool
in half term, next week, you know, for people.
So we'll be exploring all those opportunities.
We want to do more at Battersea Sports Center,
which is just literally across the road.
And coming forward, we have the new
Nine Elms Community Health and Wellbeing Facility
coming forward which will have dance studios,
community kitchen, sports hall, 3G pitch.
So there is things in the pipeline,
but we haven't stopped not being optimistic
about Winstanley and York Road as well.
So I will fight to get those facilities
in the borough as well.
Thank you Mr. Eadie.
Councillor White.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's sort of vaguely related to that really.
I hope that there's enough money to extend our offer.
I think one thing that this borough has always lacked is outdoor gyms, for instance.
And I think the impacts of those can be traveling into Merton,
if it's marsh, it's constantly in use.
So especially on council estates, I mean going on from what we were saying there as well.
So, you know, being close to areas where there might be low activity would be, I think, a really good move.
Well, joint show.
So, yes, absolutely agree with that.
And I think one of the things we'd like to do in year one is to do a bit of an audit and find out where we've got multiuse games areas.
I think outdoor gyms and activities on housing estates and beyond because I don't think we have that level of detail
And we can look at where the gaps are and where it would be useful to have more provision
And so we'll start with the order and then I think you know that it's one of the areas that we would like to look
At for sure so that would perhaps come forward in a later point once we've done that review
Thank You Councillor Allen
Ms. Mati, please, I would like to know what plans do you have for withstanding estates?
Because you know, the regeneration has been put on building of the leisure center, and
there is nothing in particular for sports for women and girls, or even for even men
over there.
I am the only one at the moment running activities for children and also for women, like doing
and table tennis and Saturday activities,
like football and all those things for the children.
But what do you have?
I'm a private, let me say, small charity,
which I'm trying to involve and engage with
the people in the community, just wanting to keep that.
But as a council, what are your plans?
Because I will come after you.
I look forward to it.
So I suppose it's fair to say that those plans are emerging
because we agreed as part of when we agreed the strategy
that Alton, Roehampton would be the pilot.
Let's learn the lessons and we've started,
we're in the implementation phase,
so we're doing learning.
But we will come to other key areas of the borough,
including Winstanley, York Road.
And no asset is safe from me to get people
active, moving, we are responsible for the libraries.
There is a hole there, why can't we do more,
why can't GLL do more stuff in the library?
How can we get schools to stay open
and allow their assets to be used?
So these are all key things.
So we're only six months into our new strategy.
But I appreciate some of these things
been waiting a long time.
But do give, just be a little bit more patient.
I'm happy to talk to you.
And we're really pleased with the work
that you're supporting us with on women and girls.
We're ready to create a plan on how
we can support more women and girls to be active as well.
And the next stage for me is how do we
make all our assets and our activities and services much
more inclusive and accessible.
So once we've done the task of finishing
group with women and girls, let's
look at how do we get more people with disabilities
or additional needs be more active as well.
And that includes the assets as much as the activities.
So yeah, be assured we're all very ambitious
to support people to be active,
and keep pushing, keep poking me with a stick
to get it to happen.
Thank you, Mr. Edie, and yeah,
I also noticed in the paper, in the equality statement,
how a higher percentage of women than men
use our leisure centers, and so there must potentially
be some lessons to learn there about why is that,
is that other leisure centers seen as a more trustworthy,
safe environment for women because whenever I go to a private gym that's always very
merit dominated so I found that particularly interesting.
Councillor Belton?
I'm particularly interested in what Councillor Anand has just said.
I've been involved, Winstanley was in my ward or rather the boundaries changed and so I'm
no longer, but I was involved in that for a long, long time and I still am because I
still get involved in the Winstanley discussions.
The plan was of course for a massive sports center, swimming pool, costing zillions, and it may still happen,
but it's such a long, I can tell you from discussions I've had from a housing point of view, it's such a long way off.
I just wonder whether perhaps we should lower our sites in the interim and just have some outdoor facilities that will be relatively cheap,
and you could put in one part of the York Gardens
which is extremely unlikely to be affected
by any of the potential developments,
none of which have been resolved,
but there are some areas that clearly will stay
as a grassland and you could put a bit of an outdoor gym
there at a much lower cost than the big target.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Did you want to comment on that and see?
only to assure the committee that I'm personally working
with Paul Moore, the director of place,
to make sure that we continuously exploring opportunities
for meanwhile uses and opportunities while we wait for
whatever regeneration is coming in the pipeline.
So it's really important to us and we're not resting
on our laurels, just waiting for the big ticket to come.
We appreciate that, so there's a need now
and we want to meet it.
Thank you.
Any other comments?
Councillor White.
It's just a very, very quick one.
I want to add something that Mr. Healy said about using schools in the evening.
I remember going back years campaigning to get the Floriot School open of an evening.
It's right next to the Brockle Banks, in between the Brockle Bank and Henry Prince Estate.
There are precious few youth facilities for those two estates.
And it's in perfect position. It was brand new great facilities, and it was just locked up every night
And then we had complaints on the estate about kids hanging around on the estate. Well where else were they gonna go?
If that did us just want to come back on that
Yeah, I just want to say I mean the old work is really going it started and it's going really well
and I'm hearing other places that we can go next.
We haven't decided what we do once we have the prototype
and the model that we take to other places.
I think we could explore a couple of the things
that have been mentioned today,
and they sound really interesting,
and they do need that kind of focused attention
to find out what the opportunities, the assets,
what the people really want,
and who are the providers in that local area
that can make things happen,
which is what we're doing on the Alton.
So it feels like there's some good next steps
for our state's work, so thank you for that.
Thank you.
Okay, are there any other questions?
I'm very aware that we're meant to be finished
in 14 minutes and we still have two papers left after this.
So are there any other final comments
or should we go to a vote?
Okay, yeah, so does the committee agree
to support the recommendations in paragraph 1 .2
of the report?
That's agreed, unanimous.

8 Procurement of Arboriculture Services (Paper No. 25-55)

Moving on, item number 8 on the agenda, procurement of the Boral Culture Services, paper number
25 -55.
Mr. Eady, I think you're leading on this.
Did you want to say anything about it or should we go straight to questions?
I can do a short introduction.
Apologies, I would normally have this all in my head, but I'm covering a colleague who
unfortunately sick today so
So once we have council is responsible for the care and maintenance for approximately
60 ,000 trees across parks open spaces cemetery housing land schools and highways
Makes maintenance for trees is really important if we want to protect their benefits for the future
So these contracts are for maintenance including tree pruning tree felling stump grinding
in basal growth removal, climbing tree inspections,
emergency works, and specialist woodland operations.
The current contract expires in March 2026.
Today's report asks for the committee to approve
that officers can go to the market to procure new suppliers
through a joint tendering process
through the better service partnership
of Richmond and Wandsworth.
Priorities for the new contract are improving
the quality of service for residents,
exploring options for efficiencies,
becoming more financially stable, sustainable,
and securing the council's response
to climate change and nature recovery.
The proposal is the new contract runs for four years
with an option to extend for a further four years.
Paragraph 14 sets out the timetable for the procurement.
Paragraphs 15 to 18 sets out the alternative
procurement routes that could be, were considered.
And a second report will come back to committee
in the autumn to make the formal decision to appoint to award the
contract. Just to reassure you because we've had quite a few representations
about trees in previous committees, we're not waiting for a new contract to
continue to improve. Alongside getting ready for that new contract, officers are
working with members of ENABLE who will be transferring across to the council
from the 1st of April around service improvements including redesigning the
a business process across trees and highway teams
to make sure it's better integrated
because it is not at the moment.
So I just want to assure you, and also how we consult
and communicate with our residents as well.
All those will be new processes
for early in the new financial year.
Happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Healy, and I'm glad to hear about
more emphasis on communication with residents
since we had that deputation recently about it is very important that we see an improvement in that.
So open the floor to questions.
Any questions, Mr. Beattie?
Councilor Boughton.
I just wanted to comment on the communications.
I'm not sure how much, I'm sure the officers are aware of it, but just to make the point.
I had two very nice little trees on the road outside me.
I enjoyed them every year.
They gained a life in the spring
and the nice autumn leaves, et cetera, et cetera.
Both cut down very young, removed and replaced.
I would have liked to have been told
without having to ring out,
the trees outside your house are gonna be chopped down
because they're not indigenous.
At least I might have, I had nagged more than that.
But at least it's understandable.
Just have them disappear without even being told.
I'm sure lots of residents are irritated
when trees just disappear without being told.
Yeah, and I definitely second that point.
I think it's important that we in future move to a system
where the residents are given some advance notice
before a tree is focused.
Some people do keep, scare really deeply about it,
and it's good that they, if they in future
get that advance notice.
Did you want to comment on that quickly?
I mean, it's disappointing to hear because, you know, our contractors should be letting you know,
and I hope that has not happened in the recent past because we've been very clear.
Five years?
Okay, well, I thought he was going to say four or five days.
I was going to say thank God.
No, no, no, no.
Four or five years.
We've been very clear with our, with ENABLE and our contractors that it's not acceptable practice anymore.
So if that is happening, please let my teams know,
and we will make sure that they're told.
Categorically, that's not an acceptable position.
Thank you.
Councillor Jeffries.
Thank you, Chair.
Hard to forgive me.
Mr. Eadie, you may not be able to answer this question,
but I was just interested to see the approximate figure
for the stock of trees across the borough.
We've got the thousand trees per year target,
which is a great stat for a leaflet,
and whether that's when the Labour Party's in power or us.
If we're also cutting down 500 trees every year,
the stock of trees is only going up by 500,
so I just wondered whether it would be possible
and a more meaningful target to aim for 70 ,000 trees
over four or five years?
Well, as you say, the net gain is probably around 500,
so in five years to do 10 ,000,
it's probably not that feasible,
but what we're trying to do, and what will happen
when we have more control over the service,
is try and work with the communities
to see if we can support the growth of trees
so they don't fail,
and friends of trees groups and things like that,
so they're regularly watered.
But we've heard today about how the climate
is changing everything.
And while we want to plant trees, we've got more storms,
we've got more flooding, lots of things
that in the last couple of years
have affected too many trees.
So we will learn from those.
I know my colleagues went to a national event at CUE
about how everywhere across the country
can support tree growth and protect
our really important green assets.
Thank you, any more questions?
Okay, so in that case, we can go to the recommendation,
which is to support paragraph two with the report.
Is that agreed?
Agreed.
Final paper, paper number nine.
That is the revenue budget monitoring
for quarter three of 2024 slash 25.

9 Revenue Budget Monitoring: Quarter 3 of 2024/25 and Revenue Budget 2024-2028 (Paper No. 25-56)

So Mr. Moreland, I believe you want to quickly say
a few words on this and then we'll get through
as many questions as we can.
I will be very brief.
So this sets out the, as you said, the quarter three.
Good evening, my name is Alex Moreland,
and Assistant Director for Finance and Performance.
This sets out the quarter three forecast
for the current financial year.
It will be becoming more familiar.
The key difference for this report
is that we've also included the appendices for the draft
and budget that went to finance committee earlier in the year.
The forecast is for an effectively on budget position,
which I'll be very surprised if it stays exactly as it is.
But 2 ,000 variance is very, very positive,
so we're quite pleased with that.
In the interest of time, I will leave it there
and see if there are any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Morelle.
And I agree with a budget of $45 million
only being $2 ,000 off is pretty bang on.
So congratulate the team on that.
Councilor Brooks.
Thank you very much, Chair.
We did discuss this briefly in the briefing
you very kindly joined on Monday evening.
But in the paper in the autumn of 2023
that outlines the beginnings of the food waste recycling program. It was outlined
that the council was looking to accrue £725 ,000 a year in by diverting food
waste from the general waste into the new waste stream. Given that the tonnage
of diverted food waste has been low even with the 72 ,000 low -rise properties
which is I think represents the lowest hanging fruit in terms of the people who
are most likely to take up the scheme with gusto and that tonnage remains low
At what point in the budget reporting process would we see a variation of that 725 ,000 targets
not being reached?
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor.
So yes, so that 725 ,000 pounds, as you referenced, was for an estimate at the time for the full
years worth of savings that would accrue as a result of diverting residual to food waste.
We've not had a full year's worth of food waste service. It takes a while for this to be rolled out.
It takes a while for it to be embedded.
So on that basis for the current year, we will not hit the
725 ,000 that was referred, but as we previously mentioned that is a fully as target. That's not what we would have expected to hit this year.
We have also, at the same time, rolled out an additional recycling round.
And we've been able to leverage the communications that have gone on at the same time as the food waste to encourage people to recycle.
And we have been able to generate significant savings from the transfer into recycling over and
above the shortfall in the year for the food waste.
So actually for our disposal targets,
we are under our budget for this year.
Any other questions for Mr. Mornan?
Mr. Chadwick, you want to come on?
Might I just add to what Mr. Mornan said.
So it's in two parts.
We haven't rolled, we haven't had a full year,
and we haven't rolled the food waste out completely.
But what I do have in front of me,
the figures that we show,
that our food waste tonnages per month are increasing month on month.
In January we had our most successful month at about 300 tonnes, which in my terms is
about 60 African elephants.
It's our biggest ever month.
We see that pattern going up.
Thank you for that.
That would be very interesting information to be shared in a paper at some point.
might we see that in the future?
Would that be also in the KPI paper?
That's not actually KPI.
I'm sure we can find a way of introducing those figures into the commentary against
the KPI, so yes, indeed.
Any questions?
Councillor Broughton.
What does that tonnage equate to in terms of money?
I think we've calculated that for this month as being 50 ,000.
So if you rolled out across the year, that's about six hundred thousand pounds. But as mr. Chadwick mentioned the tonnage rate is
Increasing and we would hope it to do
Any other questions cancer caddy
It's not really a question it's probably
Just more of a comment and I guess is in the context of seeing that leisure
Infrastructure plan and all the kind of fantastic things that we could be doing and that we want to be doing
It's just having a look at the numbers for some of the savings
efficiency savings, we've got a massive budget
of 45 million and we again talked about this in the pre -meet.
Seeing efficiency savings of kind of less than 2 %
across the board on those kind of numbers,
it would be good to maybe be seeing more
and I guess the challenge would be
is there more we can do on efficiency
so that we can use the money to sort of spend on things
that we really need to do.
Okay, so Mr. Morelle and Dewey want to come in on that.
Thank you.
So I think you're right, it's a good challenge.
The number does seem small in the context of our overall budget.
And I think that number reflects a kind of almost day -to -day saving that in my role,
we're trying to make sure that the services are delivering.
Today, bang for our buck a few times.
I think it's worth highlighting that a lot of services within the Environment Committee
are typically characterized by the kind of the large and long -term contracts.
So we don't often see kind of an immediate efficiency saving.
We often see big savings led by the kind of changing contract.
So the agricultural contract that was mentioned, that has the opportunity to deliver greater
efficiencies, and we would expect to as part of the specification process.
And we also have services that are driven largely by our ability to cover the cost.
So we want to generate revenue to be able to cover a cost, enhance the services, support
people.
So it is a mixture of income generation, which again won't be part of that line, but we would
expect to see that increase in the future as part of key contract terms that come forward.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Morgan.
As the committee has now been in for three hours, I now need to dispose of the remaining
in business on the agenda.
Proceedable 16, we can continue to debate
item number nine for a further 10 minutes.
I'm hoping it will be a little bit less than that,
but we can keep going with that for now.
So does anyone else have any more questions
for Mr. Moreland before we wrap up?
Nope, so that was a completely unnecessary statement then.
So, all right, so does the committee
agree to note the report?
That concludes the business of tonight's meeting.