Agenda item

Members’ question time will last up to 30 minutes, with questions being taken in the order of receipt and in rotation from each political group on the Council. The deadline for submission of questions is Friday 15 October 2021 at 12 noon.

 

Questions should be submitted to democratic.services@adur-worthing.gov.uk

 

Questions can be asked of the following:

a)     The Mayor

b)     A Member of the Executive

c)     The Chairman of any Committee

d)     The Council’s representative on any outside body

 

Questions cannot be asked in relation to the following:

a)     A specific planning or licensing application

b)     A specific staffing appointment, appeal or Standards determination

The Mayor announced that the Proper Officer had received 12 questions from Members in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 12. He advised that one supplementary question could be asked which must arise out of the original question, or, the reply. 

 

Questions would be asked in rotation of the Groups represented in the Chamber and there were 30 minutes allowed for questions with 5 rotations of speakers possible. At the end of 30 minutes the Mayor explained that he would extend the time to conclude the current rotation of questions.

 

The Mayor announced that the following Councillors had submitted questions:

 

Councillors Sally Smith, Louise Murphy, Dawn Smith, Rosey Whorlow, Dan Coxhill, Henna Chowdhury, Russ Cochran, Charles James and Noel Atkins.

 

First rotation:

 

Question 1 from Councillor Sally Smith to the Executive Member for Resources

 

Current Public health data show that our young population In Worthing has a lower level of obesity than the national average. However, this trend does not continue into the adult population, where levels of obesity are higher than the national average, with the attendant health risks? How can the Health and Wellbeing team address this discrepancy?

 

The Executive Member responded that the Wellbeing programme worked with people around healthy lifestyles through 121 support.  The Council knew from the data that obesity rates were correlated within areas of deprivation. The Wellbeing programme was targeted in areas of deprivation and provided tailored support for adults who were contemplating and / or ready to make changes to their lifestyle, including weight management.  The team worked  with people with a BMI 25 -30 and would work with those classed as obese - BMI 30 - 40 as long so long as there was no co morbidities.

 

Through motivational interviewing (focusing on the person and their strengths and motivations) the Advisors helped people to make respective changes to their lifestyle and where appropriate connected them up to other services / community led provision.  Whilst the majority of those the Council worked with (through self referral and GPs) were women, the Council was also focused on working within workplaces to help reach more men.

 

Question 2 from Councillor Louise Murphy to the Executive Member for Customer Services

 

Could the Executive Member please inform the council how much government funding has been received to assist with our homelessness prevention work this year and how that has been used?

 

The Executive Member advised that Worthing Borough Council had received £361,732 in homelessness prevention grants and £620,212 specifically to reduce and prevent rough sleeping.

 

Since the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in the number of households presenting at risk of homelessness especially single vulnerable people with complex needs. Furthermore, the number of working people moving into the area had made renting privately more difficult as they were able to pay rent making it more difficult to prevent and relieve homelessness as landlords were reluctant to accept social welfare benefits.

 

The Council had been working with small scale developers to increase the number of private rented accommodation available to those at risk of homeless. The scheme currently had 66 properties and the Council had reached an agreement with a landlord to provide 21 new refurbished properties to the scheme. To increase the number of move-on accommodation available to single vulnerable people, the Council had pioneered an arrangement with private sector landlords to lease empty HMO properties to the Council for a short period of time. At the end of the short lease, the residents were ‘floated off’ with the landlord on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

 

The Council had recruited 2 additional staff to assist with homelessnes prevention and relief.

 

The Council does a lot of joint work with WSCC Early help and DWP, and the Council has now extended that to Mental health hospital, Probation and Prisons, Worthing and Brighton Hospitals and social services to improve the number of people it prevents from being discharged into homelessness. The Council was part of a multi-agency young persons panel that collaborated on preventing young people from becoming homeless.

 

Since the ‘Everyone In’ Scheme ended the Council had created specialist temporary accommodation (TA) for single people with complex needs. This accommodation provided Out-Of-Hours security for single vulnerable people placed in TA on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and at adhoc times during the week. This had reduced the amount of antisocial behaviour in these accommodation and also improved the prospect of these single people being rehoused as they could demonstrate that they could sustain accommodation independently.

 

The Council also provided visiting support for all households in temporary accommodation.

 

The Council funded an Employment and Skills worker to connect those who were either at risk of homelessness or who had experienced homelessness into employment opportunities.

 

The Council had established referral pathways with registered social landlords so that they could refer their tenants at risk of eviction to the Council for joint prevention work.

 

The Council provided support including funds to prevent those at risk of homelessness from losing their homes and the Council contributed to funding floating support with WSCC to support households of any tenure or age to sustain their accommodation.

 

Second rotation

 

Question 3 from Councillor Dawn Smith to the Executive Member for Regeneration

 

Does the Executive Member for Regeneration have any plans to enhance the street scene of Broadwater Bridge as the gateway to our town centre?

 

I ask this as the Cabinet Member for Highways at West Sussex County Council has suggested there may be an ‘appetite’ by the Borough Council to invest in the bridge. This was relayed to myself and Cllr Turley, after we asked about the state of the Bridge on behalf of many local residents in Broadwater and Gaisford who consider it to be an eyesore as it currently presents.

 

The Executive Member responded that now that the Council had acquired the Teville Gate site, there was indeed a great opportunity to improve this important gateway to the Town. 

 

In the immediate term, the Council would be replacing hoardings at the southern end of the bridge and tidying up the site. The Council was also advertising to bring forward leisure based meantime uses to bring activity and interest at Teville Gate and to create a safer environment.

 

The bridge itself is part of a key route for our Local Cycling and Walking Investment Plan (LCWIP) and presented a significant opportunity to work with the County Council to improve the walking and cycling connections with the town centre.  

 

Partnership work with the County Council was already underway to improve Railway Approach and this would form a natural extension of the programme to upgrade and improve the public realm. 

 

Funding to deliver public realm and cycling and walking improvements would benefit from development of the wider Teville Gate site and the investment it brings.

 

Question 4 from Councillor Louise Murphy to the Executive Member for Digital & Environmental Services

 

With recycling rates having risen to such impressive levels in recent years, does the Executive Member have any plans to enable household collections of other items that can’t currently be collected for recycling?

 

The Executive Member replied that the Council was continuously looking for opportunities to minimise waste and to increase reuse and recycling in line with the waste hierarchy in its drive to become more sustainable.  The Executive Member was pleased to say that the Council’s recycling rate had continued to rise from 41.7% for the period April - September 2020 to 47.2%, for the same period this year, an increase of 13%.

 

The Council currently offered a comprehensive recycling service, collecting a wide range of materials including paper, card, cans, glass, foil and cartons as well as an optional garden waste collection.  In addition, in the next few months, the Council would be launching a collection service for waste electronic equipment.  Electronic items contain materials which have high value if recycled, but which also have an adverse impact if disposed of with residual waste. 

 

As part of the new service residents would be able to place small domestic appliances such as kettles, toasters, hair dryers and remote controls alongside their refuse or recycling bin and these items would be collected separately. 

 

Through a communication campaign the Council would encourage residents to donate higher value items which can be reused or repaired (such as phones, laptops and larger appliances) to local charities and repair cafes to give them a new lease of life. 

 

The Council would be sharing further details in the next few weeks regarding the launch of this service.

 

 

Third rotation

 

Question 5 from Councillor Rosey Whorlow to the Executive Member for Health and Wellbeing

 

Health?officials have expressed concerns about the capacity of the NHS to cope this winter, given the possibility of both covid and flu circulating freely. Additionally, many hospitals nationally are experiencing severe staff shortages.

 

Can the Executive member for health update us about the position in Worthing?

 

The Executive Member responded that the Council had asked the NHS for this information and was awaiting a response.

 

 

Question 6 from Councillor Dan Coxhill to the Executive Member for Regeneration 

 

Member please update the council on the plans to purchase and redevelop Teville Gate?

 

The Executive Member was delighted to confirm that the Council had now purchased the site for a sum (£7m) - well within the budget set out in a report to the Joint Strategic Committee and Council earlier in the year.

 

 

Fourth Rotation

 

Question 7 from Councillor Rosey Whorlow to the Executive Member for Health & Wellbeing

 

There had been a significant increase in the use of?e-scooters?across the town, but particularly in the town centre and on the promenade. 

 

Nationally,?e-scooter sales have risen 232%, they are sold as reaching up to 50mph.but are not fitted with any safety features such as audible warnings.

 

However public awareness of the law around e-scooters is low. Most are unaware that it is against the law to ride an?e-scooter on a public road or pavement, with up to £300.00 fines and driving licence penalty points for those who break this law.

 

A YouGov survey recently discovered that 92% people who have encountered e-scooters have done so on the pavements. Half of those surveyed said that the e-scooters  were being driven unsafely. 

 

When used in public spaces shared by pedestrians, accidents involving e-scooters are 10X that of cyclists.

 

E-scooters are fast and silent, and people with disabilities such as vision impairment have little or no warning that they are approaching.

 

The charity ‘Guide Dogs’, state that guide dogs and other service dogs are particularly at risk of near misses and other incidents, with research demonstrating that 68% of the visually impaired felt far less confident to leave home due to their perceived risk of an e-scooters related incident.

 

Taken together; the lack of safety features, noise, weight, speed and frequency of which they are used on pedestrianised public spaces such as the town centre, e-scooters pose a significant risk to pedestrians, but to people with sight loss in particular.

 

How much success has there been in the regulation of illegal?e-scooter use to protect?pedestrians?in the town centre and on the promenade?

 

The Exec Member for Health & Wellbeing replied that he had been chairing a Task & Finish Group for West Sussex County Council.

 

He advised that the Council was working with West Sussex County Council, as the highways authority, to determine a proactive approach to manage e-scooters across Worthing. It was noted that e-scooters were completely illegal for use on the road, the public highway. They should only be used legally on private land. The responsibility for enforcing the legislation laid with the police, however, this was not happening across Sussex.

 

The Exec Member acknowledged that the e-scooters were a nuisance but at the same time, a fabulous alternative form of transport.   

 

E-scooters were being considered in the context of the Council’s commitment to delivering Bike Share, as national conversations were emerging around e-scooters as another form of sustainable travel. The Council would continue to work with county colleagues, the police, and other services to assess and deliver an appropriate approach.

 

Question 8 from Councillor Dan Coxhill to the Executive Member for Digital & Environmental Services

 

Can the Executive Member provide an update on the work to improve Brooklands Park, in particular with regard to the new playground equipment and cafe that have been promised?

 

The Executive Member advised that the tender for all landscape works to include the play area, paths, cafe, bins benches, new planting and new cafe was currently ‘live’ with final bids due in two weeks’ time. 

 

Once the bids were in, the Council would then be undertaking an evaluation process to ensure value for money and quality to find the best contractor to build the scheme with a view to getting on site as quickly as possible to deliver this major project for Worthing. 

 

The Executive Member was very pleased to confirm that the new playground had been designed with an emphasis on accessibility for all and that the cafe would incorporate a changing places facility.

 

 

Fifth Rotation

 

Question 9 from Councillor Henna Chowdhury to the Executive Member for Digital & Environmental Services

 

Does the Executive Member agree with me, that in order to encourage and improve recycling, we need to make available and accessible more than the existing SMALL NUMBER of recycling bins in public spaces such as Parks, Town Centres and General walkways.

 

The Executive Member was pleased to say that the Council’s recycling performance continued to improve in Worthing.  In the first six months of this year the Council’s recycling rate increased to 47.2%, up from 41.7 % for the same period last year, an increase of 13%. This fantastic achievement was down to the efforts and commitment of all its residents and its waste and recycling teams providing the service.

 

Recycling bins on the Council’s sea front and in public spaces could contribute further to its performance.  However the Council’s own experience and much of the experience across the rest of the country was that it was notoriously difficult to prevent contamination in these bins.   Sadly a minority of people will throw non-recyclable waste into the recycling bins.   When this happens it risks the whole load on a collection vehicle being rejected and having to be disposed of. 

 

Despite these concerns the Executive Member was pleased to say that the Council’s recent trial with six recycling bins on the seafront had been very positive so far, with very low levels of contamination.  Since the bins were installed in mid-August the Council had collected just over a tonne of recyclable materials in them.   The Council would continue to monitor the performance of these bins and use the lessons learnt to inform roll out to other areas.

 

Cllr Chowdhury asked when the Council would collect food waste as a supplementary question.

 

The Executive Member for Digital & Environmental Services advised that the Council was collecting commercial food waste and was working with West Sussex County Council (disposal authority) as a key partner. There was a need to provide residents with options, such as composters or caddies.  

 

Question 10 from Councillor Russ Cochran to the Executive Member for Regeneration

 

With planning permission having been granted, when can we expect more news on the construction of the 152 new homes at Fulbeck Avenue?

 

The Executive Member was delighted to say that the Boklok team had moved onto the Fulbeck Avenue site and were completing some of the initial site set up works and the installation of a sales office. 

 

1.     The site security and Sales cabin would be delivered in the next two weeks;

2.     In early November site works commence with infrastructure works;

3.     Foundations would be installed early in the new year;

4.     1st Modular homes start to arrive in March 2022;

5.     The Affordable apartments and Phase 1 of the open market sales will complete in 2022;

6.     Phase 2 will complete in Spring 2023.

 

A supplementary question was asked in relation to the status of the planned park adjacent to the site.

 

The Executive Member replied that it did link into the wider West Durrington Estate. The phase 1 development of the site included provisions for a full size football pitch, changing facilities and a community centre at the north of the site.