Agenda

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The Chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual, or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

 i)Appointment of Honorary Recorder of Haringey

ii)Change to Political composition and Appointments to Committees 2021/22 – To follow

1)Verbal  update

2)Report of the Leader on Decisions taken under urgency

a)    Standards Committee

1.         Cllr Cawley-Harrison to Cllr Ahmet

Will the new administration be looking at cancelling the Civic Centre vanity project, saving taxpayers’ millions of pounds, and come back with a plan that is fit for a post-covid remote working world?

2.         Cllr Peacock to Cllr Chandwani

Can the Cabinet member explain how the Council is supporting residents that are experiencing financial hardship as a result of Covid-19?

3.         Cllr Connor to Cllr Hakata

Last year, Liberal Democrats opposed the council's unfair plans to introduce charges for using public tennis courts. Thankfully, the Labour group later came round to our point of view and decided not to introduce charging. Why was that?

4.         Cllr Mitchell to Cllr Bevan

Can the Cabinet member tell us what the Council is doing to help prevent people from becoming homeless following the pandemic?

5.         Cllr Barnes to Cllr Gordon

In March you authored an excellent scrutiny report with 20 recommendations for cabinet on the situation in Noel Park regarding the pod replacement and other repair works, which was voted through unanimously, including by the new Leader of the Council. Yet, at the recent Cabinet meeting, three of those recommendations were rejected. Why the change of heart?

6.         Cllr Culverwell to Cllr Hakata

Can the Cabinet member outline how he plans to work with local people to tackle the climate emergency?

Motion A

Cladding Scandal

Proposer: Councillor Dawn Barnes

Seconder: Councillor Julia Ogiehor

Council notes that:

• The tragedy of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which led to the loss of 72 lives, was caused by Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding;
• The government banned the use of all combustible materials on the walls of new high rises in November 2018, extending the problem beyond ACM cladding to buildings clad with other flammable materials;
• The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the UK Council of Mortgage Lenders agreed to the industry External Wall System fire review and certification process resulting in what is known as an EWS1 form;
• There is no legal requirement for owners to produce EWS1 forms or take remedial action, but many lenders are now refusing to provide mortgages without such a form;
• Snagging is largely left as a responsibility of residents to take up with developers post-purchase, and even when covered by new build insurance schemes, leaseholders often suffer poor response and cycles of poor quality repair;
• Remediation costs for cladding are sometimes spiralling to over £100,000 per flat, with many owners forcing these charges back onto leaseholders;
• December 2020 saw the first case of a leaseholder being bankrupted by costs associated with the crisis;
• Government plans for leaseholders to sue developers with no financial support will not help many due to: high legal costs, the issue of dangerous cladding being legal at the time buildings were built, and the possibility of developers having since become insolvent;
• Waking watches, when a person patrols all floors and external areas of a building to give warning in the event of a fire, are being used in buildings at high risk of fire due to cladding, and are costing Londoners an average of over £20,000 per month;
• Residents and leaseholders, through no fault of their own, are being left in potentially ruinous limbo, unable to mortgage or remortgage and therefore unable to buy and sell.

Council believes that:

• The combination of this cladding, EWS1 and snagging scandal is having a devastating impact on many residents;
• The current industry EWS1 process and public funding of remediation works is not fit for purpose and needs rapid attention;
• The funding given by central government towards remediation works is completely insufficient, and costs are still falling on the shoulders of individual leaseholders;
• An independent public inquiry should be set up to look at the government’s response to concerns about fire and building safety;
• The council has a responsibility and arguably a duty of care to residents who have innocently purchased properties granted planning permission by the council;
• The council should not stand by and leave action to the government and should now step in and take action where legally allowed to.

Council resolves to:

• Sign up to the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign;
• Immediately perform an audit and consultation with resident associations of all habitable buildings in Haringey (regardless of tenure) to establish the potential scope of the cladding, EWS1 and snagging issues, with a  ...  view the full agenda text for item 15a

Motion B

Proposer: Cllr John Bevan

Seconder: Cllr Elin Weston

Protecting local involvement in planning decisions

This Council notes that central government's proposed planning reforms will allow developers to receive automatic planning permission in designated "growth zones", completely bypassing public objections from local residents.

This Council notes that the Housing, Communities, and Local Government Select Committee has concluded that the government's plans will not produce a quicker, cheaper, and more democratic planning system.

This Council believes that this is a "developers' charter" that side-lines local communities, depriving the public of the power to shape our future.

This Council believes that placemaking, the collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm and reinvent public spaces as the heart of our communities, is essential to the future of our Borough. With community participation at its centre, placemaking cannot be successful without the active participation of our residents in decision making, including the right to object to planning applications that do not create or allow for quality public spaces that contribute to residents’ health, happiness, and wellbeing.

This Council believes that there is a pressing need to build more good quality and affordable homes. More than 1.1m homes that received planning permission in England over the last decade are yet to be built, therefore the barrier towards meeting this need is not posed by the current planning system.

This Council believes planning works best when developers and the local community work together to shape local areas and deliver necessary new homes. This Council calls on the government to protect the right of communities to object to any and all individual planning applications.