Agenda and minutes

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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.

The meeting was not filmed or recorded.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Basu.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business. Late items will be dealt with under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with at item 9 below.

None.

None.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 15 October 2019.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 15 October 2019 be approved.

The Council’s income policy requires an annual review of the level of the fees and charges levied upon service users. The aim of the review is to ensure that income generated ensures full cost recovery.

A small number of items (relating to certain approvals, consents, permits and licenses) cannot be made by the Executive and are, therefore, reserved for consideration and decision by the Council’s Regulatory Committee. The committee is being asked to approve the fees and charges for 2020/21. 

Daliah Barrett, Licensing Officer, introduced the report as set out.  A benchmarking exercise had been carried out on the fees and charges for licensable activities.  The recommendation for the Committee was to agree that the fees should not be increased for 2020/21, and to add an additional fee for massage and special treatment licences.  The Council didn’t currently charge if businesses were members of affiliated bodies, however the benchmarking exercise showed that other boroughs still charged fees despite this. 

Ms Barrett responded to questions from the Committee:

-           Chairs and tables on pavements outside premises – the Council were good at enforcing payment for the use of pavements for tables and chairs.  Where businesses had not applied for permission to use the pavement, enforcement officers would visit a number of times to engage the businesses to pay before an issue notice would be issued.

Whilst the Council did not promote the use of tables and chairs on pavements (because there needed to be a balance of retail use and public use of the highway), if there was sufficient space outside of the premises then an application would be granted.

-           Premises with licences were responsible for paying their own renewal fees.  If a premises had not paid any fees, officers would visit the premises to ascertain whether licensable activities were taking place, and issue an invoice on that basis.  If there was no payment after 28 days, then enforcement action would begin.  In relation to a recent Licensing Sub Committee hearing, Ms Barrett advised that the premises had not been carrying out licensable activities, so it had been marked as ‘closed’ on the system.

-           Massage & Special Treatment Licences – the proposal was to charge for individual therapists, plus the premises licence.

-           Licensing fees could only cover the cost of administering the licensing service, the service could not make a profit.

RESOLVED that

i.          The fees for 2020/21 shall remain as they were for 2019/20; and

ii.         An application fee for exempt premises for massage and special treatment be imposed.

A report on the work of the Planning Service in October - December 2019 as well as figures for the application performance in the last financial year

Dean Hermitage, Head of Development Management, outlined the update for development management.  Performance remained high, and the Planning Service were in the top three London Boroughs for performance.  There had been a reduction in both major and minor planning applications, but the target for making decisions had been exceeded.  Mr Hermitage referred to the threshold for overturned decisions and advised that it would only take three further overturned decisions to take Haringey over the threshold.  There were currently three at appeal stage.  The Council had been successful in defending major appeals in 2019.

Members congratulated the team on their excellent performance.

Mr Hermitage responded to questions from the Committee:

-           In regard to the appeal threshold, the difficulty was that the number of major applications was low, so the margin for losing appeals was very small.  Not all appealed decisions related to Committee decisions, some were made by officers.

-           Income from Planning Performance Agreements (PPA) was guided by the market – if the market slowed down, then there would be fewer developers using PPA’s.  Fees for the service had increased, but use of the service was market dependent.

Rob Krzyszowski, Head of Planning Policy, Transport and Infrastructure, provided the update for planning policy.  The Wood Green Area Action Plan was dependent on the Council’s wider strategy for Council Owned Sites, which would be decided on later in the year.  An evidence base needed to be prepared for the Local Plan, and extra resources would be recruited to carry this out.  A report would be provided on Neighbourhood CIL at the next Regulatory Committee.

Emma Williamson, Assistant Director for Planning, Building Standards and Sustainability, provided the update for building control.  There had been an increase in fee earned applications, due to the transfer of work from Homes for Haringey.  Although there was currently a large amount of work, this would reduce over the coming years following a reduction in the amount of applications.  A big focus for Building Control was to respond to the Hackett Review recommendations.

Ms Williamson responded to questions from the Committee:

-           Spurs were yet to receive full Building Control sign off, however the stadium was temporarily signed off before every game so there was no compromise to safety.

-           The dangerous structure detailed at paragraph 5.46 was a house in Stapleton Hall Road – an explosion and fire had occurred at the property, and work had now been carried out to ensure the building was safe.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

The Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) is used to assess the effectiveness of Haringey’s planning policies and to inform any future revisions to policies or their implementation.

This AMR covers the monitoring period 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019. This is the first AMR prepared since the Borough Plan 2019 - 2023 was published. Therefore, in addition to covering planning policy performance, the AMR also details the priority outcomes that are in the Borough Plan, where relevant. This will help to set a framework for future reporting, where further opportunities for alignments with the Borough Plan monitoring process can be explored.This AMR was published in early January 2019.

Rob Krzyszowski, Head of Planning Policy, Transport and Infrastructure, introduced the report as set out.  The covering report provided a summary of the Annual Monitoring Report document.

Officers responded to questions from the Committee:

-           The standard methodology across the country for counting vacant properties was to use Council Tax records.

-           The indicators for carbon dioxide reductions were based on the existing 2016 local plan.  These would be brought up to date, and more challenging targets set.  The Council had made a commitment to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2050.  A report would be provided to Cabinet in March on the Climate Action Plan.

-           The Cycle Future Route 2 was a big project that the Council were working on in conjunction with TfL.  Consultation would be carried out in the summer.

-           DriveNow were ceasing operations due to organisation issues.  There was a model in place which could apply to other operators if requests came forward in the future.

It was noted that many of the questions raised by Members were in relation to Highways.  Officers informed the Committee that the AMR covered a range of service areas across the Council.  Members requested that a Highways Officer be present at the next meeting that the AMR is reported up to.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

To consider any new items of urgent business admitted under agenda item 3 above.

None.

12 March 2020

The Chair advised that the date of the next meeting had moved to Monday 2 March 2020.