Agenda item

To receive any questions from members of the public addressed to Members of the Cabinet in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11.  There is up to 5 minutes for each question, one supplementary question may be asked arising from the original question.

 

Questions must relate to any matter the Council has power or which affects the Borough, except no questions may be asked in relation to

 

a)     A specific planning or licensing application

b)     A specific staffing appointment or appeal, or Standards determination

 

Public question time will last up to 30 minutes; questions will be taken in the order of receipt. 

The deadline for submission of questions is 12th October 2023 at 12 noon. Questions to be submitted to democratic.services@adur-worthing.gov.uk

1.      Question submitted by Lionel Harman, a Worthing Resident, to the Leader 

 

You have stated that you want to remove every barrier to ensure maximum participation of residents in our democratic processes, and that you believe that 21st-century democracy must evolve and re-establish its mandate as a true reflection of how people feel and think about our society. To achieve this, you said you would make it possible to pass power and control over what happens within communities, to our communities.

 

However, you are ignoring a large part of the Community in Worthing.  According to the National Census 3.2%, or in numbers, just short of 4000 residents Serve or have served in our armed forces.

 

This must make them the largest minority group in the Borough. Unlike some other more vocal groups in the Town, we do not make too much of a fuss about political concerns. All we ask is that the Borough Councillors show the respect owed to anyone who was willing to put their own lives on the line in defence of our country, and respectfully remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy today.

 

Remembrance Day holds significant importance in our town, centred around the military, veterans, and those residents remembering their loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. The attire of veterans, serving soldiers, and cadets and other youth organisations on this day reflects their commitment, respect, and the traditions that have shaped our society.

 

Your decision to scrap the Councillor and Mayoral Robes did not take into consideration the views of the people, in fact they were not even consulted on this issue. Considering the outrage of the public, which by the way is continuing to grow, as demonstrated by, and published in the local press, towards your decision on this matter, will you listen to the people and reconsider your motion to scrap the robes and ensure those Councillors who wish to wear them at the Remembrance Service are allowed to do so both this year and in the future?

 

The Leader thanked Mr Harman for the question and all those who had attended the meeting in relation to this matter. 

 

There was no question that the Council did not understand and respect the importance of our veterans and those who gave service and thanked them for it. Councillors fully intended to be in attendance on remembrance Sunday, alongside veterans, remembering the sacrifices made by veterans and those they fought with. The decision regarding robes was in no way meant or intended to be disrespectful.

 

Stopping wearing the robes was about extending the Council into the Community. The Leader fully appreciated that those in attendance at the meeting were engaged, able to attend Council meetings to ask questions and understood how the Council operated. 

 

However, there were a lot of people in the community who didn’t have this experience and understanding, or the confidence to come into the Council Chamber. Those people felt excluded from the Council.    

 

As a listening Council for the Community, Councillors have heard this time and time again. It was in no way disrespectful or a lack of understanding of the service veterans had given for the country and the great debt owed to them for doing so. 

 

This decision was about opening the Council’s doors to communities, it was about saying, Councillors would not wear the robes in order to allow more people to come in. The Council didn’t want to exclude anybody.       

 

The Leader understood that change was incredibly difficult and she did not expect everybody to agree with the decision to stop wearing the robes. However, the Leader pledged to keep conversations going with the veteran groups and asked veterans to share their wisdom, understanding and all of their experience to help others in the community understand how the Council wished to work for them and with them.  

 

A supplementary question was asked in relation to the storing / preservation of the robes for future use, should another administration wish to reintroduce their use. 

 

The Leader confirmed that the robes would be kept in storage.   

 

 

2.            Question submitted by Margaret Brewster, a Worthing Resident, to the Leader

 

At its meeting in July the Council passed two motions dispensing with the wearing of Ceremonial Robes and the cessation of the tradition of conferring the title of Alderman or Alderwoman on past Mayors of Worthing. This came as a great shock to many residents who, like me, reacted with anger when news of these decisions were subsequently reported in the media. 

 

As a Council for the community, naturally you will have consulted on these prospective changes before they were implemented. When did the Council consult the residents of Worthing before these specific changes were implemented, how many of the 87,900 residents older than 20 years old responded to the consultation, what percentage of respondents were aged 50+ (43% of Worthing residents), and how many respondents supported the proposed changes?

 

It was noted that Margaret Brewster had been unable to attend the meeting, so the Leader agreed to provide a written response to the question. 

  

3.         Question submitted by Sean McDonald, a Worthing Resident, to the Leader

 

It is clear that Worthing is drifting into becoming a lawless town with a rise in serious crimes such as the stabbings we have seen recently and the most recent only two weeks ago. Almost daily there are unregistered motorbikes in the Durrington area, many of which I have personally witnessed riding through my local park and on highways.

 

Anti social behaviour is at an all time high throughout the town.

 

And this article appeared in a national newspaper describing an area of what they call South Durrington as "Englands worst shoplifting hotspot". The area they refer to is actually in Castle ward but close to where I live in South Durrington.

 

The manager and staff of local shops are terrified as they have been threatened with swords and they do not feel supported.

 

(I have the newspaper cutting)

 

Can you tell me what is being done by this Council to work with partner agencies to support the local community in dealing with this serious problem?

 

The Leader advised that the question fell under the Community Wellbeing portfolio but she was happy to respond and challenged the assertion that Worthing was becoming a lawless town. 

 

The Leader advised that Sussex Police were the lead organisation for tackling criminal behaviour and had been working in partnership with the Councils, Neighbourhood Watch, Police Crime Commissioner and local businesses to address the issues that affect them. Tackling shoplifting had been a priority for some months, hence the increase in reported cases as police and the Safer Communities Partnership supported local businesses to report incidents, regardless of a prospect of a sanction or resolution.

 

The recent implementation of the PCC’s “One Touch” reporting system, being trialled in Co-op stores, had led to a disproportionate number of reports due to current and retrospective incidents being logged, hence the peak in figures.

 

The council was a key partner in tackling ASB and youth disorder and current measures included leading community based intelligence building, supporting businesses to report, commissioning projects through Safer Streets 4 funding and bespoke data analysis to better understand the drivers of crime. The issues Worthing was experiencing followed national trends but Worthing had recently seen a 4% decrease in violent crime, contrary to the national picture.

 

The Council was committed to working in partnership to identify opportunities for prevention and early intervention in such matters, despite a challenging landscape.

   

 

4.         Question submitted by Paula Mitton, a Worthing Resident, to the Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency

 

The National Planning Policy Framework has sustainability at its core.  Paragraph 152 of Chapter 14 says that 'the Planning system should support the transition to a low carbon future...'  The Council has declared a Climate Emergency and the Worthing Local Plan also seeks to 'support the move to zero carbon', with Strategic Objective 19 claiming to 'ensure development helps the borough to adapt and increase its resilience to the effects of climate change...' 

 

The Council has approved at least six 5G installations in Worthing (and the Planning Inspectorate has approved several more, on Appeal).  These use enormous amounts of energy.  It has been calculated that a single 5G base station uses as much power as 73 average homes, which is a threefold increase over 4G (the source of this is a publication by the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers). 

 

Does the Council agree that there is a conflict of interest between the huge power requirements of 5G base stations and the Council's priority of aiming for net zero by 2030 and that the Telecoms companies should be required to give details of the energy use of each mast when they submit their application?

 

The Cabinet Member replied that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) mentioned sustainability in different ways. The paragraph quoted was one part of the Framework, but it was important to note that the Council had specific requirements in terms of how it dealt with telecommunications applications. 

 

One part of the framework, paragraph 114, stated that planning policies and decisions should support the expansion of electronic communications networks, including 5G. 

 

In paragraph 118 of the NPPF, it also said that planning authorities must determine planning applications on planning grounds only. This meant that the Council were therefore unable to require telecoms companies to submit their energy usage details.

 

The challenge here was that most of these applications, where they require permission at all, were only for the council to consider where to site and the appearance of these masts. 

 

If there was an energy usage with them then that was a broader issue. Additionally, given the government guidance, and the way it was written - the other benefits of mobile technology, including increased accessibility around the borough and district would also have to be taken into account. 

 

Since 2019, the Council had refused five applications for mast installations in Worthing. Four of those refusals were subsequently allowed on appeal. In each case, the Inspector restricted their considerations to the siting and appearance of the proposed structures in accordance with national planning policy.

 

The Council was extremely committed to its net zero targets but on these planning matters it was an area where we were guided by national government policies and had to take this into account.

 

 

5.            Question submitted by Adrian Price, a Worthing Resident, to the Cabinet Member for Regeneration

 

A letter from Public Health England's solicitors DLA Piper to Leigh Day Solicitors dated 8 August 2019 [PDF attached] clarified how their Guidance, the central element of which is to follow ICNIRP guidelines, should be used.  It states that referring to their Guidance 'is entirely a matter for the discretion of the relevant body and it must determine what weight to place on the Guidance given the clear indication as to the sources from which the advice and recommendations in the Guidance are derived.  Equally, that body must determine what other evidence from your clients or other members of the public or interested parties to consider in making any decision.'

 

The Council has been furnished with many objections to the installation of 5G masts and letters citing evidence of potential harm to human health and wildlife.  If the Council has been given evidence of harm from research studies, do you not think it unwise to be ignoring it?

 

The Cabinet Member replied that in each of the appeal decisions referred to in the previous answer, the Inspector had not given any weight to health concerns following the submission of the ICNIRP certificate by the respective applicants. 

 

Paragraph 118 of the National Planning Policy Framework states:

 

Local planning authorities must determine applications on planning grounds only. They should not seek to prevent competition between different operators, question the need for an electronic communications system, or set health safeguards different from the International Commission guidelines for public exposure.

 

Therefore there was little justification to resist applications on such grounds and lobbying the government was the best way forward. 

 

 

** The Mayor used his discretion to extend the time allowed for public questions to receive the final pre-submitted question. 

 

 

6.            Question submitted by Barbara Lowe, a Worthing Resident, to the Cabinet Member for Regeneration

 

According to the Worthing Borough Council (WBC) website: "All telecommunication development must be built in accordance with the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (known as ICNIRP Guidelines)"

 

According to ICNIRP: "Mobile telecommunication technologies (e.g. mobile phones and masts) transmit and receive radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (known as RF EMFs) in ways that allow communication to occur."

 

The ICNIRP Guidelines are accepted by Ofcom on the advice of the UK Health Security Agency (formerly PHE) as the standard for public exposure to RF EMFs in the UK.

 

Each telecom mast in Worthing requires a signed ICNIRP Declaration of Compliance ‘self-certification’ (known as the ‘ICNIRP Declaration or Certificate’) to be submitted to WBC Planning by the telecom mast operator certifying that the mast:

 

"shall be operated to be in full compliance with the requirements of the radio frequency (RF) public exposure limit of ICNIRP and UK legislation". (See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048957/Code_of_Practice_for_Wireless_Network_Development_-_annex_B_and_C.pdf)

 

However, the ICNIRP Certificate, based on the ICNIRP guidelines, categorically DOES NOT apply to, or protect, anyone with metal in their bodies!

 

Here is the relevant statement from the 2020 ICNIRP Guidelines (see 2nd Page under Purpose and Scope):

 

"The main objective of this publication is to establish guidelines for limiting exposure to EMFs that will provide a high level of protection for all people against substantiated adverse health effects from exposures to both short- and long-term, continuous and discontinuous radiofrequency EMFs.  

 

However, some exposure scenarios are defined as outside the scope of these guidelines... metallic implants may alter or perturb EMFs in the body, which in turn can affect the body both directly (via direct interaction between field and tissue) and indirectly (via an intermediate conducting object)".

 

This means people with *metallic implants, dental work, pacemakers, metal pins, plates, rods, discs, screws, joint replacements etc. - the list goes on - have no assurance of safety.

 

As there is no disability impact assessment regarding this technology, it could be argued that provisions of the Equality Act 2010 and the council's obligations under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 have been breached.

 

In light of the above, how does Worthing council propose to help those people with 'metallic implants' in their bodies who are NOT protected by the ICNIRP Guidelines, being especially vulnerable to RF EMFs from mobile masts, and in need of extra protection under the council's obligations within the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the Equality Act 2010?

 

Shared for information (by the resident) *metallic implants: There are many scenarios in which metal is used in the human body for medical reasons:

Surgical – metal pins, plates, rods, discs, screws e.g. scoliosis surgery and joint replacement of knees and hips. Urinary, gynaecological and intestinal repairs – e.g. mesh repairs and copper contraceptive coils. Cardiovascular – implantable heart loop recorders, stents and pacemakers.

 

The Cabinet Member advised that as per the answer to the previous question, the relevant paragraph of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) stated Local planning authorities…should not…set health Safeguards that were different from the International Commission guidelines for public exposure.

 

As Inspectors were fully reflecting this approach in their appeal decisions, it was a

matter for the central government if there was any deficiency in the guidelines

referred to in the NPPF.

 

In the circumstances and given current Government advice and supporting legislation, the Council was unable to consider the wider health impacts of those residents with ‘metallic implants’.  The Council did not hold information on residents' health records and therefore could not be seen to be failing in its obligations under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the Equality Act 2010.  This was a matter that needed to be taken up with Central Government and relevant health authorities.