Agenda item

Verbal Update.

The Panel undertook a Q&A session with the Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport and the Climate Emergency and Deputy Leader of the Council on his portfolio. The following arose during the discussion of this agenda item:

1. The Panel sought assurances around what was being done to engage with young people around wildlife, trees and open spaces. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that the redesign of the Parks staffing structure included an engagement officer and a key part of that role was around outreach work. This outreach work would include engagement with schools and young people. The Cabinet Member set out that a high priority for the Parks service was to engage with groups that were not already well engaged with.  Officers added that there was also a full time volunteering officer that had been added to the service and that as part of the parks and Gren Spaces Strategy, engagement would be a key output for the service. One element of the strategy was having an annual celebration of community involvement event and that this would include a specific focus on celebrating involvement in the east of the borough.
2. The Panel commented that in comparison to other boroughs, it was felt that Haringey’s Electric Vehicle charging points were too slow and too expensive to use. The Panel enquired what could be done to improve this. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that the current charging arrangements were predominantly located in parking spaces, these arrangements allowed the Council to significantly increase capacity and the Council was in the process of adding another 80 new chargers in the coming weeks. The Cabinet Member acknowledged that the existing chargers were not the fastest on the market. The Council was also looking at introducing a pilot scheme for faster lamp post chargers and it was anticipated that, the two combined, would give the borough a good mix of EV charging infrastructure.
3. In light of the Leader’s recent comments suggesting that the NLWA should pause the procurement exercise for a new waste incinerator at the site in Edmonton, the Panel sought clarification from the Cabinet Member whether that would impact his vote on the issue at the upcoming NLWA meeting. The Cabinet Member recognised that the Leader had a responsibility to speak up on behalf of concerned residents, but he advised that, as a Board Member of the NLWA, he was required by statute to vote in the interests of the NLWA and that he could not be moved to vote in any particular way.
4. The Panel suggested that a campaign should be launched around restoring civic pride with the aim of tackling fly-tipping. The Panel also suggested that more should be done to educate residents about what materials could and could not be recycled. The Panel further set out that they would like to see the return of the reuse and recycle centre at Ashley Road. The Panel suggested that these were areas that the Cabinet Member could work jointly with Cllr Chandwani.  The Cabinet Member advised that he shared the concerns around civic pride and advised the panel members that the NLWA did a lot of work around reduce, reuse and recycling programmes. One example was that the NLWA recently launched a mattress recycling programme and that 1300 mattresses had been recycled to date.
5. The Panel questioned what could be done in relation to possible insourcing of the leisure contract to level up the disparity in leisure facilities in the east versus the west of the borough. In response, the Cabinet Member commented that the Council was in the process of examining all of its existing external contracts, to see if a better deal could be achieved through insourcing. The Council had recently brought the New River sports centre back in-house, and this centre was under good management and was working well. 
6. The Panel sought clarification on the timetable and consultation proposals for the potential implementation of an LTN scheme around the Ladders, Endymion Road and Wightman Road. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that officers had been collecting a significant amount of traffic data and air quality monitoring data in the area. From this data, preliminary designs would be drawn up and these would be consulted upon with residents and local businesses over the course of January and February. The intention was that this would then be turned in to a piece of genuine co-produced design work that would be ready for early summer. In addition to this, a separate piece of work was being undertaken on Green Lanes to assess the feasibility of accelerating walking, cycling and public transport schemes in this area.
7. Cllr Chandwani updated the Panel on some of the recent changes to waste legislation and agreed to come back to the next Panel meeting to undertake a Q&A. (Clerk to note).

RESOLVED

Noted.