Agenda and minutes

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 16 January 2018.

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 January 2018 were approved as a correct record.

To receive any disclosures of interest from councillors in accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct for members.

There were none.

No Cabinet decisions have been called in.

No Cabinet decisions had been called-in.

To receive a verbal update on progress with implementing the Homeless Reduction Act.

The Housing Options Manager gave a verbal update on progress with implementation of the Homeless Reduction Act. He advised that additional staff had been recruited and the IT system had been updated. Training had been arranged for the new staff with Shelter before the Act goes live on 3 April 2018. He informed the Committee that the Council had spent £9k on IT and committed £3k on training costs.

Resolved to note the update on implementation of the Homeless Reduction Act.

To note an update on Heathrow 3rd runway, Flight Path design consultations and the Compton Route. A representative from Heathrow Airspace Team will be in attendance at the meeting.

The Senior Environmental Health Manager outlined the process for the three aspects related to the expansion of Heathrow: the Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) the Development Consent Order (DCO) and airspace design. She explained that an officer working group had been established to consider and respond to the content of the various consultations by Heathrow Airport Limited. She also provided information on the Compton Route, including the flight paths taken.

In response to questions about the Compton Route, Rachel Thomas and Dan Foster of Heathrow’s Airspace Team provided the following information:

·         Heathrow Airport is responsible for Compton route up to 6000 ft. NATS is responsible over 6000 ft. There was no requirement for NATS to inform anyone, including Heathrow, of procedural changes they made for operational safety reasons to departures on the Compton Route.

·         Heathrow now has a better relationship with NATS to talk about anything that can be perceived as a change. NATS and Heathrow are more aware of the impact of changes to flights on communities, even at higher levels. The Department for Transport are putting together a policy for dealing with such changes.

·         The Compton route was designed at a time when the air space was less busy and no longer works with the interaction between departures and arrivals.

·         There has been a long term trial solution in place since 2009, which means the controllers actively pass heading instructions to the pilots resulting in more variance on the route taken by flights than on any other route.

·         Controllers now prioritise talking to Compton route pilots earlier, with the aim of getting them as high as possible as quickly as possible so they do not interact with the any of the arrivals. If departures went further south than the Compton route they would interact with arrivals but in any case it is not possible because they would be flying outside controlled airspace.

·         Heathrow undertook an independent study in 2016, examining changes in flight patterns along the easterly Compton route between 2007 and 2015, in response to community feeling about airspace trials which were ongoing in 2014.

·         Flights on the Compton departure do not often start within the noise preferential route (NPR). As the NPR is wrapped around the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) which doesn’t particularly work on this route, the NPR is not relevant to a certain degree for these flights. Heathrow do not fine the aircraft, even if they wanted to, because they are not giving them the opportunity to start within the NPR.

·         Other routes out of Heathrow are better and ‘track keeping’ (the ability to keep aircraft within NPRs) statistics are very good.

·         Aircraft are taken off NPRs, legally, for safety reasons i.e. other aircraft in close proximity or thunderstorms. NPRs are important but not hard and fast.

·         A league table of 50 top airlines operating out of Heathrow is published quarterly in the National Press. The airlines are marked on a number of things so they tend to actively engage with Heathrow to improve  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63/18

To note a report on the use of lay-bys by large goods (LGVs) and other vehicles and the responsibilities of different agencies in regard to lay-bys in Spelthorne Borough.

The Group Head for Neighbourhood Services reported that lay-bys were intended as a short stopping location for LGV drivers and other motorists to either comply with TACO regulations or take a short break to relieve tiredness. They are managed by various agencies to different standards and frequencies of cleansing and general maintenance.

Issues reported to Spelthorne by SBC staff, residents and visitors were either dealt with by Neighbourhood Services, if it fell within their area of responsibility, or reported through to customer services at either Surrey County Council or Highways England/Connect Plus.

She advised that she would be meeting with Highways England/Connect Plus next month to investigate opportunities to improve the standards of cleanliness in lay-bys.

Mr Richard O’Keefe attended the meeting on behalf of Connect Plus and explained the cleaning regime in relation to litter on verges, litter bins, fly tipping on grass verges and footways, grass cutting, hedges and general maintenance.

He said that Connect Plus was keen to address the state of disrepair of the verges on the A30 but permission was required from Highways England before this could be addressed. He suggested the best course of action for addressing complaints about the state of the lay-bys was to close them, but not only was this a long process which required a decision by Highways England following consultation with Local Authorities, it was likely to simply push the problem elsewhere.

Members asked for further clarification on the comment from Surrey Police in relation to vehicles, including unattached trailers, parked between sunset and sunrise in lay-bys on roads where the speed limit is over 30mph being required to have front and rear lamps as they had not seen evidence of this.

Mr O’Keefe agreed to supply details of Connect Plus’ cleaning frequencies and contractor obligations in regards to maintenance of the A30, to the Committee.

Resolved to:

1.    Note the report on use of lay-bys by LGVs; and

2.    Request further clarification from Surrey Police on the use of lamps by vehicles parked in lay-bys between sunset and sunrise.

To note a report on Planning enforcement in Spelthorne and the financial and resource implications of an increased enforcement workload.

The Planning Development Manager gave an overview of the work and performance of the Planning Enforcement service.  She explained what Planning enforcement is, the time limits for taking enforcement action and the options available to the local planning authority to deal with possible breaches of planning control. She also provided information on the workload of the Team and detailed current cases and recent successes.

The Portfolio Holder for Planning, Councillor C. Barnard congratulated the Planning Development Manager and her team for the results achieved during a difficult year.

The Chairman, Councillor S. Mooney, on behalf of the Committee, added her thanks and commended the Planning Enforcement Team for the work they had done and the good results achieved.

The Planning Development Manager responded to members’ questions and offered to provide more information on the Council’s website about HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation).

Resolved to:

1.    note the report on Planning Enforcement and the financial and resource implications of an increased enforcement workload and

2.    thank the Planning Enforcement Team for the work they had done.

To consider the review of the Code of Corporate Governance and recommend approval of the updated Code to Cabinet and note the required amendments to the Annual Governance Statement.

The Head of Corporate Governance explained that the Council’s Code of Corporate Governance is a standard of good governance which details the systems, processes and policies in place at Spelthorne. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) had updated the Delivering Good Governance in Local Government framework which defines the principles that should underpin the Council’s governance structure. As a result of substantial changes to the key principles the Council was required to review its existing arrangements and develop an updated local code of corporate governance to reflect the new principles.

The updated Code would support the production of the Annual Governance Statement (AGS), reported to the November Audit Committee, which helps to demonstrate how the Council’s values, constitution and policies align to the new principles of governance.

The Head of Corporate Governance reported that as it had been found in the past that changes to the Code were not sufficient to warrant an annual review it was proposed instead to report to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee as necessary to keep the document under review.

Resolvedto:

1.    recommend approval of the updated Code of Corporate Governance to Cabinet; and

2.    note the required amendments to the Annual Governance Statement.

To note the net capital spend figures to the end of December 2017.

The Committee considered a report on capital expenditure covering the period April to December 2017.

Resolved to note the current level of capital spend.

To note the net revenue spend figures to the end of December 2017.

The Committee considered a report on revenue expenditure covering the period April to December 2017.

Resolved to note the current level of revenue spend.

To note an update on the progress of the Council’s key projects

The Group Head for Commissioning and Transformation gave an update on the progress of the Council’s key projects and responded to questions from members.

She advised that progress updates were reported to the Corporate Management Team, Cabinet and Overview and Scrutiny Committee every quarter. The corporate project team regularly meets and discusses individual projects in more detail, particularly those with a red or amber status.

The Committee agreed it would be useful to have an update on the People Safe project when it was fully rolled out.

Resolved to note the update report on Project Management.

Cllr Patel

The Committee noted the update report on the Leader’s task group for Economic Development.

A copy of the latest Forward Plan is attached.

If any members of the Committee have any issues they want to raise in relation to the Cabinet Forward Plan, please inform Terry Collier, Deputy Chief Executive, 24 hours in advance of the meeting with reasons for the request.

The Committee noted the Cabinet Forward Plan.