Transcript

I'd like to inform everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live to the Internet and will be capable of repeated viewing. The images and sound recordings may be used for training purposes within the Council. I, the Chair, have the discretion to terminate or suspend filming if it is my opinion that continuing to do so will prejudice the proceedings of this meeting. If you are sitting in the Public Gallery, it is likely that recording cameras will capture your image and this will result in the possibility that your image will become part of the broadcast. Any views expressed by the Speaker in this meeting are the Speaker's own and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Staffordshire Mall and District Council. Please can members be aware that the webcast will continue to stream live 20 seconds after the close of the meeting. This is due to a time delay in transmitting live. Thank you very much. So, apologies please. Thank you, Chair. We have apologies from Councillor Bentley, Councillor Brady, Councillor O'Shea, Councillor Swindelhurst and Councillor Wilkinson and Councillor Gladhill. And substitutions? Yes, we have three. We have Councillor Johnson for Councillor O'Shea, we have Councillor Parkes for Councillor Swindelhurst and Councillor Jeb for Councillor Wilkinson. Thank you. Can somebody approve the minutes of the last meeting? Councillor Hoptrough and Councillor Besserich. Thank you. Declarations of interest, pecuniary interests, any? No? Other interests? If there are, as we go along, just mention them. Urgent items of business, any? No. Then we have now got a presentation by Alliance North and I am going to ask Mark to introduce the speakers, please. Thank you, Chair. Just for members that aren't familiar with the DFG process, disabled facility grants are provided by the Council to those residents who are in need of adaptations to their home to enable them to remain in their home safely or to return home when they have been, for instance, in receipt of hospital care. And where the Council makes an assessment of need for a disabled facilities grant, then it is a mandatory requirement under the legislation that we provide those adaptations. We not only provide mandatory disabled facilities grant, we also provide discretionary grants where, for instance, we might support community groups to allow access to those residents who have mobility issues to ensure that they are able to take advantage of the full range of community facilities in the district. The Council receives a grant via the Government annually through the County Council, through the Better Care Fund that is passported directly to the Council. And due to the way in which the grant is calculated, the Council receives a significant sum each year and this year it is in excess of £1.9 million, largely because the Council in historic years had contributed significantly out of its own capital funds to support disabled facilities grants when the process involved a contribution from the Council. It doesn't currently, but we get the benefit of having made those contributions over many years in the past. So we have a significant grant funding each year. We are currently holding a significant reserve because we have had difficulty in spending all of the grant funding that has been allocated to us over previous years. So that is a little bit of background about what disabled facility grants are. Richard Cole, who is going to speak to you with his colleague Adam, Richard is the head of ENABLE, which is a trading arm of our partner in Alliance North, North Commercial Services Limited, that deals specifically with disabled facilities grants and adaptations. So we are very fortunate that we had the option when we joined with North to create Alliance North that we had a potential to extend the contract for the company, which of course is also partly owned by the Council, that is a Council control company, to carry out disabled facilities grants on behalf of the Council as well, which was particularly important because the previous arrangement whereby the Council had been part of a consortium with four other local authorities in Staffordshire and we have procured through the County Council a contract for delivery of disabled facilities grants came to an end on 1 April last year and we had 12 months notice that that was going to happen during that 12 months period. We had a project which I chaired to look at the different options available to us for delivery of DFG grants in the future and unsurprisingly delivery of the DFG grant adaptations through Alliance North was the preferred option for both this Council and for our strategic alliance partner in High Peak. So Richard is coming along to talk to us tonight about how the process has been working since Alliance North took over the DFGs for us last April and he will give a little bit of a flavour about some of the issues that he has faced taking over the previous contract that the Council was engaged with through the Staffordshire partnership and he will also give an idea of how successful the company has been in spending our grant funding and some proposals for how they are going to continue to spend that money over the coming years. Thank you Mark for the introduction. Over the last year we have moved the Alliance DFG into ENABLE and the Alliance part. Our main aims were to give greater cost efficiency driven by higher productivity, increased purchasing power using the whole of North to bring into that, improve service delivery, ensuring that what we say we are going to do we do and working closely with the clients, closer working relationship with the Staffordshire County Council and the OTs and the in house services that you have available. We also found this was going to be greater control over the budget, how it was spent and everything that we do goes through the North Commission Board. Over the next few years we are certainly looking to reduce the dependency on subcontractors and bring more work in house. As we go through the slides you will be able to see that bringing work in house does come with cost savings as well, so we will look to do that as soon as we can but it has to be at the benefit for the client as well. From myself I have done this for 25 years, Norfolk and across East Anglia is a passion of mine and that is what we bring to this experience. Adam has also been with me for several years, so we know what we are doing, we know what we want to do and above all we do have our client at heart. Just a brief overview of who we are, there is two sides of the business, obviously Alliance North is run by Oliver as the operations director, we have an in house team of occupational therapists and case workers, we believe that brings more control. For myself I have myself as head of service and then we have the account manager Claire, James and Isaac and they are all in house staff that we have sourced locally and put the team together and we find that they are very good at delivering to the clients. Going back to the early days, March 2023 the data unfortunately from Millbrook, although some were sent it was very corrupt, we couldn't get through the data so as we go through the presentation you will see that our start in Staffordshire moorlands was unfortunately very slow but you will see that suddenly grows once we have got to grips. What we did manage to get out of the system is 82 backlog cases to bring in, so we started with names and addresses and then we worked hard to retrieve the data, meet the clients, get approval, to speak to the guys, rehab jigsaw had already done the assessments just to speed up the process and again you will see in further slides that we have actually got rid of the backlog of cases now. KPIs at the bottom we are managing to hit our targets, maybe in the first few months with Staffordshire moorlands that was impossible to do because we didn't actually know who was out there, what clients were out there but as from now everything is green on the KPI targets that have been set during our joint meeting. Just to go after, illustrate how many backlog cases we had from Millbrook and that is the date that we managed to find. We have managed to complete 287 cases over the last 12 months, 74 cases still are in progress, 28 have been completed in April 2024 already. That was literally April, I haven't done my figures as yet. Senior DFG and the occupational therapist carrying out post inspections, so we have a broad base of ensuring that the customer satisfaction is there. We had a first audit in February 2024 and again a few things were brought to our attention that we have now addressed and changed and overall we passed the audit. Client compliments are 32, overall client comments that we have had letters or emails in from clients to clients family to say how good the service is doing. As you can see from the financial figures, things started off very slowly. April 23 we did have a couple of urgent cases that we dealt with. May was us trying to find a data, reaching out to clients and getting data protection so we could actually contact certain people and as you can see from there we have slowly moved up the graph to March being the highest spend. June is probably going to be even better than that at the moment with how much work we have currently got out with contractors. Q1, Q2 and Q3, Q4 spend all speak for themselves, it's just improved. Having the OT come on board 8 August early September certainly helped progress that. Mark very kindly gave me this slide, it just shows the difference between how much we have been able to deliver this year, just over 2 million pounds worth of delivery so we did do a little bit of a backlog to be able to achieve that but it just shows that we have given everything possible over the last 12 months to make this work. For me this says a lot, this is our average cost of stairlifts and wash-dry toilets that we could get from Millbrook and the data that was transferred. As you can see the average cost was just under £4,000. We have run the same comparison this year and it's £3,500 and to put that in real terms that means we have been able to deliver 19 more stairlifts this year without any additional costs so keeping that in house has really proven beneficial to us all. As I said previously we are looking to only subcontract where absolutely necessary and as the years go by we will try and bring more work in house but we have to make sure it's the right way of bringing it in house and the right work to bring it in house so we'll stay away from that. Better value has been achieved with the partnership, we have obviously been able to lower our margins, the overhead charges, we have dropped those and full transparency all the way across from the Alliance Board to Staffordshire and Moreland so everything that we do is open and clear, open book policy. Enable support of network of engineers means that we have the 24/7 breakdown delivery so we don't expect an outside company to do all our warranty claims for stairlifts, free floor lifts, that's all provided in house. Everything that we install comes with a five year service warranty based in there as well so if one of your clients comes to us at Christmas day we will send out our own engineers to fix the problem so they know they've got that call at any time. As we grow and bring work in house obviously we will look to recruit. Just a couple of slides, I didn't come out too well on the screen, I did try and improve the brightness. It's just the before and after of some of the wet rooms that we've done, I think the top one is probably the most striking, bringing that from there, splitting the two rooms into one and that is one of the compliments that we've had so I wanted to show you that one and the one below just a different use of space within the house rather than the bath, people not being able to use the bath. The future for us, we want to continue this good work, we want to, Staffordshire Mourners is certainly the focus of the occupational therapists and the caseworker team at the moment hoping to exceed a three and a half million pound delivery over the next 12 months and again a reduction in subcontractors, unable to employ locally. We've got the demonstration area at Buxton at Harper Hill, we'd like to try and increase the visitors coming through there. At the moment we are holding 100,000 pounds worth of stock just so we can react to an average stair lift time. There's around about five to ten days for delivery if it was a straight, curved, maybe a bit longer because we do have to bite that in but the straight stair lifts, if it was an urgent case we could even do it tomorrow. Marketing, we didn't need to market last year because we had so many cases but this year will be a strong push on going out to pharmacies, encouraging people to take up the DFG service and ensure the throughput keeps coming through to us. Again, working closer with the OTs from Staffordshire Mourners and again, if I can, further expansion of services within the Staffordshire Mourners area and in the local areas because what that brings is cost savings to yourself as well wherever we increase. Sorry, that was probably rattled through but any questions anyone? Thank you very much for that presentation. Councillor Parkes. Thank you, Chair. This is a statement and a question really. Firstly, a statement and it's a good news story actually. I do want to congratulate you. At the beginning of March I sent an email from a desperate resident of mine, a long-term sufferer of MS, who had her and her husband had literally pumped £21,000, every penny they had, begged, borrowed and stolen literally to achieve what they needed to do, which was an internal lift and then I obviously supported them and directed them to DFG. Mike Towers was absolutely superb. I sent an email, within 24 hours there was an email in, within 3 days the OT had visited and not only did you agree to take on the £21,000, you're even putting tracking in there for them as well as an additional. So that's a fantastic thing. The only negative of that, you know what I'm going to say here is, they didn't even know you existed. And that's the key thing, the marketing. I've subsequently now put it out there on all my socials and people have been coming in so I'm to blame if you're being inundated but it was great and they are so happy and so pleased and the service you've given them has been brilliant but they didn't know it existed. Yeah and that's good to hear and that's what we said, we had to structure our response this year to the backlog cases that had been sitting there for 18 months so we had to structure that response to them. This year is definitely a push for marketing and getting out there and just getting in the community and so it's here, come and get it. You're quite right Councillor Parks, nobody does know. It's a hidden gem isn't it? It is. Yeah. It's superb. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. Councillor Flunder. Thank you Chair. Yeah, fantastic. I can't agree more with what's happened. I'm glad that we've managed to get over that infrastructure thing internally within ourselves and we managed to release you to do what you wanted to do and I'm glad to see that it's been a great success story. The only thing I wanted to know a little bit more about was that you've reduced the dependence on sub-contractors so I assume you are doing some sort of internal training for people to be able to expand your own workforce to be able to do the skills that are needed in-house. So if you can just tell me a little bit more about that was my first question. Yeah, I mean we do this in Norfolk and across East Anglia so what we've done is realised that actually steerlifts, toilets, the crab rails, handrails and the sort of major works are easy wins. We have a fully trained engineering staff, all of the team that we've just taken on are fully engineered, fully trained engineers now on steerlifts and wash/dry toilets. We've gone specifically out to the job market to find multi-trade operatives and then they have the specialist train them because if you Google or you go to an agency and say I want a steerlift engineer, they are few and far between and there's not many, there's no MPQs anymore to be able to get people on it so it is all about in-house training. What we pride ourselves is we put the staff in, we train them to their full and then we look after them. I don't like losing staff because I've invested so much money into their training so we will do everything to keep them within house but this training is key to making this a success and having a responsive team that absolutely know their stuff inside and out so if we're going to do repair a steerlift, I want my engineers in and out of there, half an hour maximum, less time, less disruption to the climb, we want to be there within two hours and have this one back working. It's all about training. Thank you. Great to see that. Sorry about the qualifications, sorry to hear about that. I'm surprised there isn't something that we could maybe do with lee college. I used to write BTECs myself so I know it can be done. It was a thing in the past and a lot of the older trades, the older gentlemen that we've got working for us have all got the MPQs but there's no way. It's all in-house training. It's all in-house and they have their own academy. Handicare, we carry it off. No, I'm just saying just for the future so that people can then transfer their skills and that's what it's all about, isn't it? So that will be fantastic. In terms of crew going forward, I assume you're going to be training more people to get up to the 3.5 million aim that you're doing for next year and is that going to be an ongoing objective around that sort of level and for how long? Obviously with the funding, we know there's a backlog of funding available. We want to go through that but we want to go through it again, not just spend them willy-nilly. We want that to be cost-effective as well so we will look to bring as much in-house as we can and that should make the backlog money last that little bit longer. The aim is 2.5 million. If we can do a little bit more, I'm happy to but it'll have to be in a structured manner. Glad it's going to be with us for some time again. Last question, Chair. The idea of promoting it and everything else, I do think there's something that we as members could do a bit more. I know some people have done that so whether or not once you've, I know you take a breath, get into what we're going to now be doing from August onwards, I notice that perhaps the leaked show might be something you could attend along with another stand from the SMDC, just the services that we provide would be good. But a leaflet or something that we could distribute through parish councils and other people that we know would be good around August time. I think we're hoping to do little pop-ups in maybe little shopping centres or to try and get people to come and see us and talk to us. We look forward to helping you in the future. Thank you very much. On that note, you're more than welcome to come to our show in our village. So you are more than welcome. Council Haynes will go get onto serious stuff and put these all away. Thank you for the presentation. I've just got a few questions. I noted on the KPIs for the targets as well, you've got a set KPI per stages. What I didn't see on there was if you've got the calculation or not, whether you work it out, but the average total time from referral to completion. So I could see the stages but not... It's such a hard one to do because it's very client dependent. Sorry, it's a very hard thing to do. I have got that KPI, but you've got clients who, we've had some clients over the winter periods who just didn't want us in the house for three months. So if you populate that into the KPI, it throws the KPIs out. But I'm more than happy to share the information I've got and I'll just email it. I think it'd be useful to see that track over time to see if we can make an improvement. I think for us it's so client dependent because you will have people just didn't want extensions starting in January, as you can understand. But because the case work had already started, the clock is already ticking. So we're very wary. And then if you bring the stairlifts into it and we're responding... But you could exclude no access. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So I can provide all that data, so I'll pass it on. The next question was, I noticed the thing you've got one OT. So how do you cover holiday and sickness and what happens to the service? With the OT, we have rehab jigsaw as a backup support. We are now in the process of looking with caseworkers as part of Oliver's remit, is to look for an occupational therapy assistant to take over that role. But because of the nature of the business and how long it takes, the holidays haven't affected us this year because there's been so much casework. The caseworkers can still operate alone. And the occupational therapy, so the caseworker carries on, but the occupational therapist will have a slight lag on assessments. But if it ever became a problem, we have rehab jigsaw as a backup. I've only got a couple more chairs, I promise. So in terms of the average cost per, you've got that breakdown on there, I didn't see on there the included through floor lifts, which is easy to say, any hoists or any step lifts? No, that was a snapshot. I have all those. Because they are the more expensive things obviously, so it would skew the figures quite a bit, wouldn't it? Right, it would. It was a snapshot of what we do. The through floor lifts, I think we can go back to the case in question. I think we managed to get it down by £7,000 difference from what the client was going to be charged by the company to what we could actually deliver it for. So that was a £7,000 savings. So my background is procurement. I've been a member of the charge industry approach and supply for 10 years. It's what I live for. It's getting the right amount of balance between a really good product and the right price. I can't always say it's going to be the cheapest, but it's balancing off what we get. Going to be on to my next question. So really, what supplies and how are they procured? Are you using other frameworks? Yes, it's through frameworks and it goes through Norse procurement. So all procurement has gone through there. It's obviously heavily legislated. So we're all on national rates. Obviously we're using local contractors. Norse will do all their due diligence and then we benchmark all the properties. So if we go out with a set, this is a wet room, we will look at all properties and if we suspect there's any, the process will stop and then we'll put a second person in or we'll benchmark against another supplier. Just finally, I think it's really good to see that you've got your own maintenance team. What about Lola and the Lola applicable lift? They're doing Lola and the maintenance. But they have to be separated. So we have to have a specific timeline. So if you go in and do the Lola and you find a fault, they then have to time, photograph it and then have a separate lag between. We do have James, who's our senior engineer, who will go out and inspect work. It doesn't stop because the engineer said yes, he will pick at least half a dozen a month and go out and inspect. But we do follow the Lola regs where we have to have that timeline break and then effect the repair and then re-load. Except for the engineer doing the Lola to do the maintenance work, so you're not marking your own homework. No, you can't mark your own homework at all. I think all those were very thorough answers and very, very comprehensive, so thank you for that. Going to the next speakers, Councillor Hoptrough. Yeah, thank you, Chair. I did have a few questions, but they've already been asked and answered sufficiently. Thanks for the positive report. That overall paints a good picture, so thanks for everybody involved in achieving it. Thank you for the opportunity as well. Councillor Besswick. Thank you, Chair, and it's good to hear about what seems to be a very well-run operation, really. I suppose I just had a query more than anything about something that Mr Trewell mentioned when he was introducing it about the discretionary DFG grants. I just wondered what the process is for applying it for them and where perhaps community organisations that might be interested could find the information about the process, and also about how are they actually allocated, what's the process they go through to see if they meet the criteria. Thank you. Okay, I can't talk about communities, unfortunately, but that's the bit I don't know. That used to go through Mike Towers. For that, the discretionary fund that we're talking about, you get £45,000 as a standard, and there's a £20,000 top-up available, but that has to be applied to, via the council, so the £45,000 is mandatory. The £20,000 is on top of that, and then we go searching for funding, but unfortunately I can't answer the other bit about the communities. Thank you anyway. Sorry, I could just pick that up. It is part of our private sector housing policy and the policy that we have in relation to DFG grants. We've extended the range of grants that we can make beyond the mandatory grants, which are residents and the sort of things that we've been talking about, and those are extremely important, and as Councillor Parkes has said, it's important that we make sure that we identify those cases, because those are the most significant cases, aren't they, because that's ensuring people can live safely and their homes will return to them, and also because we've got such a significant amount of funding that we received in the council, a particularly significant amount of reserves. I have a feeling when we come back next year we won't have so much, because I think we seem to be getting through it really quickly. We don't want to get it through too quickly, but anyway. So we've extended our policy so that community groups can make applications to the council, so that's through us. That would be either to myself or to Alicia Patterson as head of environmental services, and as Richard said, if they're properly assessed to be community grants that would aid mobility and access issues for residents, then we would look at supporting them, and it's things like rants, toilets, all sorts of things that we'll put into community facilities. Thank you for that. I'm going to go on now to Councillor Cox. Yes, thank you for the presentation. That was really interesting. I just wanted to know, are the means tested in any way? Yes, the grants are means tested. Quite uniquely in South Timorlands, up to £5,000 is not means tested. Above that will be means tested. So your stairlifts and your wash/dry toilets are not means tested at present. Thank you. Councillor Johnson. Thanks. Actually, my question was kind of covered by Councillor Besip's question and your answer, but just to follow on from that, with community groups, those of us who are trying to, as it were, push community groups towards this, what's the status for, as it were, religious institutions or buildings associated with religious institutions? I'm thinking, for example, church halls, because there's a couple that we try to, or in fact have come to us in some cases. What are the exact criteria that allow this kind of building to qualify for that grant? Do you want to answer that or do you want Mark to answer it? I think you want me to answer it. Broadly we wouldn't support religious activity in religious groups. Ecumenical matters would not be covered by grants. However, a lot of church halls and church facilities are made available for community use. It's a question of fact and degree in each case, but if there is evidence that there is wider community use and it's not just for use as a church to support the activity of the church, then they may fall within the criteria. Can I just ask, are those criteria publicly available or is it discretionary? We have agreed criteria within the private sector housing strategy and that sits as an appendix within the DFG grant criteria, an appendix to that. So I can actually find that. Great, thanks. I'm assuming the Church of England gets through anyway, that's hardly religious anyway. Thank you. With the discretionary grants, if a community building was to have a stair lift fitted, would there be a provision to provide the servicing of that or is that something that would have to be taken on by the group applying for the grant? For us, everything that we supply and install does come with a five-year service maintenance package and warranty for parts and labour, so yes, they would all be covered. Any more questions from the panel? No? Then we'll go over to Councillor Proudlove. Thank you, Chair. Thanks very much for that report, so positive, given I recall looking over something to do with DFGs around February last year, just after I'd become a Councillor for the first time, and it looked a bit grim. It's far from grim now and that's kudos to yourself and the team there. Just a question, really. I've just picked up quite a complicated case in my ward, which is very sensitive and trying to work my way through it. It involves issues beyond just a DFG and a range of issues with the property need to be dealt with prior to a DFG happening, so is there flexibility around the scheme to deal with other property-related matters that would impact on a DFG being able to be executed? Yes, we could. There seems to be lots of grants available. I've been working with Mike quite a lot, and obviously you've got Safe at Home and there's various grants available to go to dovetail into the DFG process as well. If you'd like to email me afterwards, we can have a chat and go through the case in probably a little bit more detail and then we can work out what the best way forward is. Just in terms of promotion and whatnot, Biddulph Town Council has a project called Biddulph Works Together, a range of community groups and organisations that rally around the cost of living crisis and social isolation matters like that. I think it would be ideal if at some point you guys could tap into that process with the town council, because I think a lot of the people that go to Biddulph Works Together would probably find themselves in need of facilities and services like this. I'd be more than happy if you want to extend the invitation, I'll come out any time, that's not a problem at all. Thank you. Thank you for that. And on the back of that, Sarah's going to send your contact details to every councillor and then hopefully they'll do what Councillor Parkes said and get everybody to understand that these grants are available. So if that's okay with you? Absolutely, my mobile number is always there. Your laptop will explode. It's fine. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Yates. Yes, thank you, Chair. And thank you, Richard, very refreshing presentation, good to hear after years of angst. Just picking up really on what Councillor Prowell said, a safe, warm, dry, mould-free home contributes directly to the health and wellbeing of the homeowner/occupant. So one of the things that you were talking, as part of the Climate Change Actions, Climate Change Working Group, is what interventions we can offer through DFG to make a resident's home safe and warm because that obviously has a direct impact on health. And what I'd like to see is, you know, I did understand from that that there was a number of, I won't quite call them discretionary, but there is scope for doing a number of interventions with regards to installations, raft-proofing potentially secure windows and secure doors and things, which obviously help to create that kind of environment. But what I would like to see is a measurable outcome if we're doing that kind of thing. I would like an open sort of assessment that somebody goes into a property and says, well, this property's got a problem more than you're just needing a stair lift and whatever. There's an issue with the fabric of the building. And I'd like to see it take on and do an EPC before the interventions and EPC after. And potentially, if it's not something which is delivered or could be delivered in partnership, using the signposting to apply for Eco4 grants or HUG funding. You know, we touched on that the previous evening in community. If we can actually improve the fabric of the building to make it more comfortable, I think that would hit a significant number of outputs, both within the urban and in the rural area. I was glad to see, before you answer that, I was glad to see you touched on benchmarking and value for money. I mean, if there's any peer organizations elsewhere in the country offering different services or having accounts just to check where we are and what we're doing with averages and things. And the other thing about training, I was just at an awards ceremony at Staffordshire University today. And they are developing an awful lot of apprenticeship courses, which are very specialized. And that has the benefit of obviously training people and taking people up to a degree standard without incurring massive debt and earning something. So I do think the scope for developing technical courses, yes. We do have an apprenticeship program. Excellent. And that is going to be part of it, is to bring in a younger team. Excellent, yes. To support us. Well, that's what I was just concerned it was, you know, training with. No, Norse is very committed to apprenticeships. Adam started with an apprenticeship many years ago and came through. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. So you have access to the apprenticeship levy either directly through your own organization or indirectly through the levy which is made by Staffordshire Wall Street Council. We do through Norse. We pay back to that through our P&L. Okay. Okay. If you can just give some comment on the first point about the welfare of the home. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, can you just remind me. Sorry. It was about a safe and warm home contributes to the health and wellbeing of the occupants. So it's all about putting intervention in like a stair lift. But if you're still suffering from cold, damp and unaffordable. Yeah. I mean, there is the safe and warm ground. Obviously everything that we do when we're putting in a wet room, whatever needs to be done, we'll put EnviroVent in to make sure if there's, what you tend to find is when we go into the older bathrooms, there is a lot of mold. So we'll get an EnviroVent survey as part of the service and then the bathrooms will be ventilated accordingly. Obviously they're using the latest manufacturing products and plasterboard in the walls rather than drywall. So it's very much part of the process. What we do tend to do is safeguard them as well. So if we do find anything like that, we will refer it upwards. Grant wise, I've always gone to my towers and said, this person needs these windows shut. This is the windows that seem to be the biggest problem at the moment. That's where most of the energy goes from. So I do tend to signpost the clients through just from our basic knowledge of what we're doing always brings up another part of the story. Well, thank you very much for that. And I just picking up on what councilor Yates said about damp. I know you don't cover that really, but when you put these bathrooms in, if you put them in in some of the houses in the country that are made of stone and they're this thick, how do you manage to? It is all to do with environment. It's about getting the airflow through the systems. It's about having the right amount of drainage, the correct amount of fans. And we put that with our specialists. And we did have one case where mould was there and we put environmental in and MCG also came out and done some testing and we've completely cured the issues. Even under the old buildings. There's some bits we can't do, but obviously we'll do everything feasibly possible. A lot of mould is air circulation from what I'm learning about at present. It's all about air circulation. So the better the ventilation, the better the services and the better the drainage seems to be the most bit. So when you put a wet room in, it's actually a lot better than just having a bath because of the steam. That's great. Thank you. Thank you for all those. Anybody got any other questions before I bring Councillor Price in who's standing in as leader tonight? No, Councillor Price. No, this is very important. I think as a matter of course, for every DFG, we should be making sure there's a valid EPC. And then we should be making sure that if there are interventions which are possible to do, no matter what the route is, we should be trying to ensure that those interventions are done because this is an opportunity. And a lot of cases, a one-off opportunity to get into a resident stroke occupiers house to actually make an improvement which changes their life for the better. And we should leave no stone unturned to do that. I think you'll cover that with your portfolio, won't you, Councillor Yates? I'm sure you will. Councillor Price. As if Councillor Yates only covers things in his portfolio. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Along with you, Chair, and Councillor Geb and Councillor Emery over there, I've sat in this chamber longer than anybody here, I think. So I've sat through many meetings when we discussed your predecessors and their lack of delivery. And they were quite heated meetings because it was extremely poor delivery and their responses at Scrutiny were not good. This has been a real change, a real positive change. And to see those numbers, that graph is striking in terms of the way that we're getting the money out there to the people that need it. And I just want to echo what everybody else has said and say how great that is. I also echo the points made by Councillor Flunder and Councillor Yates about training. Bringing stuff in house was something that we got elected on last year. It's something that we believe very strongly in. We believe that the private sector has a role in some things, but quite often that role is to cream off public money and not deliver. And it's happened in a couple of our Council's functions, and this was the most marked one where it was happening. We're also bringing other things in house too. Finally, it's sort of looking to the future in a way, because this is working really well. I think we've all seen a good presentation. I think it's working well. And you've got room to expand and you're looking to expand in what you offer by bringing more things in house and away from contractors. There's a very direct movement at the moment in local authorities to provide services for other local authorities. And what are your views on the potential of this model and the model we've got here being offered potentially in the future to other local authorities and managing their disabled facilities grants? We buy in some services from other authorities, and to a certain extent some of - this is coming from different authorities. So this is a network, and I think we can have authorities that specialise in certain things. So what are your views on that? I truly believe this is an expandable service, and I didn't major or not too much in the present, but that's where I want to go. I want to bring this into the community. I want everyone to see what we can do with the right processes in place. My passion is DFGs. I don't know how I've got here or what's been mechanic, but I absolutely love it. And it's taken up 25 years of my life, and I'll be here from number 15 hopefully, and I'll deliver the best service. I always promised when we did this, we'll do it to the best of our abilities. We'll learn on our way, and yes, it's totally expandable across the whole of - yeah, wherever, really. Well, thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing how that takes shape and to how this growth continues. But as Mark says, we can't grow too quickly because we did have a large pot of money, but because of the delivery, it's shrinking. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. No, and thank you as well from everybody. It was really refreshing. Very pleased that you've come. I hope you come back again to update us next time. Yes, certainly, whenever asked. So thank you, Richard, and thank you also, Adam, for coming along. Thank you all for being here. I think Mr Trelo wants to make one more comment. Just one more comment. Members have made a couple of comments about our policy, and just to say that we are intending to review the private sector housing policy. It will include the DFG grants this year, so there'll be opportunity to look at some of the issues that we've talked about. I mean, we have to ensure that they fall within the rules, some of the things that we want to do, because we have to be able to lawfully reclaim the funding against the grant that we're offered. But, you know, as long as that's the case, then we can adjust our policy accordingly. I've just pulled up the definition of around discretionary grants, and it's a very broad definition, actually. The Council will pursue the extension of adaptation funding to a much wider section of the disabled community, including community-run premises that work to assist and support those living with disability. So that's a very broad definition that's within our policy. It might be something that we look at when we come to review it. I think everybody really needs to have a look at that policy and get the message out there. So thank you again, and we'll have two minute break while Tristan and Adam move their things. Okay. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Go get your cup of tea. And that's to Councillor Price from Councillor Besswick. Do you want to read your question? Or do you want to take it as read? Are you happy with that, Councillor Price? It's a very long answer from Ben Mayward. I'm very happy not to have to read it out. Have you got a supplementary question? Yes, I've got two supplementaries. Thank you for your response. Reading that, I'd be forgiven for thinking that all the planning enforcement services are all going swimmingly, but I'm afraid my experience in my ward hasn't quite been consistent with that. I won't obviously mention any specifics for this being in a public meeting, but I've had one case where a Paris Council back in February reported that building materials were seen going to a site and that there was evidence of foundations being laid for a house. Now, I would expect, having read that, that that would have been prioritised as a Priority 2, which says building works that have commenced. However, looking at the reports to the planning committee and that, it seems it's been put as a Priority 4, and I can say that despite it being reported in February, an officer has still never been to that site. So that was sort of the primary reason for my putting this question in, to try and understand whether there's something that we can do as accounts to improve that, to ensure that nothing's slipping through the cracks, because it seems here, like it is, and I've heard reports from other Councillors that similar issues are happening across the area. So, yeah, that was the main reason. So I wonder if you can just offer perhaps a bit of insight on whether there's something we can do to improve that prioritisation. Maybe there's some checks we can make sure that each complaint that comes in is being prioritised correctly. Yeah, I mean, I can give a bit of background on that. I mean, I can't speak obviously about individual cases, as I'm sure you'll understand, and I'm sure you clearly do. There have been some things that are always going to be things that slip through and things that don't always go in the same way, and interpretations. One thing I am sure about, and I'm very convinced of this because I know other planning authorities in a professional capacity, and that is that all too often enforcement is viewed as a sort of a Cinderella service in a planning service. It doesn't have senior officers attached to it. In this authority, I was surprised to find out, and pleased to find out, that we have qualified planners running enforcement. We have a principal planning officer with responsibility for enforcement, and we've got assistant planning officers dealing with much casework as well. So it is given a priority. Now, of course, things do slip through the net, and there are issues where, you know, outcomes might be different to what Councillors want, but I would suggest, and I've discussed this this morning with the head of planning in advance of this question, that anybody who has any, you know, just to come forward, to come forward and raise that concern directly with the enforcement officer, copy in the head of planning. If you get no joy with the enforcement officer, copy in the head of planning and then copy me in, and I'll take it up, because, you know, it is something that we do need to do. It is often things are going on that people don't see going on. Now, I can think of another case, which I can't mention, which has been mentioned in this Chamber on many occasions over a number of years, and it's currently with lawyers. The simple fact is that Council has gone through its procedures, it's gone through what it's legally able to do, and you can tell people to do things as often as you like, and then they don't do it, so it has to go to a point where these things reach legal proceedings, and that's going on in that case. So quite often I get Councillors in that case, one particular Councillor coming to me saying, nothing's happened, nothing's happened well, things have happened, you haven't seen it happen yet, because we haven't got the legal right to go and do what they want doing, you know, but things are quite often going on, quite often like a swan, they're going on under the water, you know, as things seem to be going smoothly. I'm sorry if I can't be more specific, but the door is open and, you know, you can raise complaints or issues and chase things up. I appreciate your response, and I will say in this case I have chased the Enforcement Officer multiple times, and I still haven't had much joy, so I'll probably be sure to forward it on to you then in this case. I think you need to have a conversation with Councillor Price. Yes, I will be, yeah. Have you got a second question? Yes, I have. This is a more general question which has been raised by other Councillors I spoke to, so what processes and systems are in place for when a planning appeal has been refused and yet a planning issue still exists? Is there an enforcement procedure in place to ensure that, again, it doesn't slip through the cracks and the Enforcement Service goes back after an appeal has been dismissed and ensures that it's all been put back right? I'm not quite sure that I follow. We do have a detailed procedure for planning enforcement which is available. Have you seen that? We do have that. I can supply you with that, Councillor Beswick. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what you mean in terms of appeals. Lots of things can happen at appeal. So are you saying that if something has been, an appeal has been dismissed? Yes, there's a retrospective application. Okay, you didn't mention retrospective. Okay, I mean, I think that's really one on a case-by-case basis. I don't know the case in concern. Maybe Mr Trillo can help. Can I just bring Mr Trillo in? I don't know the case concern but if it's a retrospective planning application, which would happen in some cases is appropriate to invite an application to regularise the position, but of course if there is a breach of planning control and the retrospective application falls, then of course you go back to the enforcement stage. Particularly if it's been invited as an alternative to enforcement action at that point, clearly at the point at which the application falls, then you consider your range of enforcement options as we would, as has been outlined in the answer. I would just say if there are specific cases, as Councillor Brice has said, that you're concerned around, you can raise them with myself and Mr Haywood and we would always review them. Can I just go back and say, I'm sorry I misunderstood your question. That is exactly what I should have said. I mean, it will fall back. I'll go back to the position without planning. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We now move on to item 8, which is mowing regimes and wider biodiversity. Mr Napa and Mr Wilkes are going to present this item. Thank you. Good evening, members. Second time today for me with some of you, so hello again. Yes, so the report in front of you this evening is asking for the panel to consider the approach to propose changes to mowing regimes at Council sites. As many of you all know, the Council has traditionally looked after our formal parks and open spaces with a fortnightly cutting of the grass to ensure that amenity value is there for recreational usage of the area. What we're trying to do is review that regime across the sites and look for a more blended and sustainable approach that can be implemented with regard to these mown regimes. It's a good plan to review this. The opportunity is there. We've got the plan for nature and also the recently adopted green spaces strategy, which commits the Council to enhancing nature and biodiversity and it's identified that changes to mowing regimes are required, but that strategic approach is taken. Obviously, we're all aware that there is a climate emergency and also biodiversity is suffering. By changing mown regimes, that's one of the tools that we have within our ability to improve the opportunities for biodiversity across our sites, across our green spaces. Many of the pollinators like bees and butterflies will improve because of that opportunity and improve the biodiversity and the ecological connectivity and give us resilience to climate change impacts. The intention is to have conversations now with AES. AES are responsible for maintaining much of our green spaces and to change our approach will also require the contract and the specification within that contract to be reviewed and an understanding of impact to that specification and delivery of that work, both in terms of staff knowledge, staff ability and also machinery that might be required and changes to that machinery and therefore financial impact on the service. We also understand that changes to local green spaces can be at times quite emotive. As mentioned earlier this evening, the position of the council is to try and find a position of balance quite often than not and therefore we need to balance the approach of those who see the grass a bit longer with wildflowers and the ability for that to attract wildlife against those who want well-kempt areas for recreational and access. So we need to be aware of that and especially when those spaces are localised to that local community, we need to make sure that we've connected with that community and that we've done a planned approach with lots of information and interpretation and understanding about why we're doing it and a clear understanding that it's not done through lack of upkeep of the site and it's not a way of obviously the council saving money. It is a planned change to maintenance for good reason and within that obviously the change to enable pathways and access areas to be kept mown and free from any sort of tripping hazards or overgrown areas will be part of that process. The approach that we're proposing is that over the next few months we'll carry out this review. The implementation of that will be hopefully starting for the next cutting season in April 25. The intention then is to monitor and review those sites that go through the initial changes and to learn from them, make improvements going forward and as capacity can build we'll take on more and more sites and more and more of the areas will be adopted into the different cutting regimes. It's important to just clarify and make sure that the cutting changes to the mowing regimes isn't the same as creation of different habitat types. Those will be done where appropriate and as part and parcel of the green spaces strategy and the management plans that come through we'll be looking at improving our sites for wildlife through interventions and creation of wildflower meadows and tree planting and various other interventions to try and improve those sites. This is mainly focusing around the changes to the cutting regimes, the mowing of the grass. The report mentions a number of sites, so the six sites initially which are the same six sites which will get the management plans that were adopted through the green spaces strategy. There is opportunity for other sites to be included in this, especially smaller incidental green space. It's just a case of us needing to be able to deal with the capacity and the change. Each of the sites will need to be assessed for access issues and for machinery and the impact on that site but it's not an exclusive list and we are willing to sort of include smaller sites as well. A more detailed plan will be developed and then we'll bring this back to the panel for sign off later in the year. There will be a communications plan developed as well to really sort of improve that knowledge locally about what the council is trying to do and why we're trying to do it and try and obviously win hearts and minds in the sense of adopting these changes. Nigel would you like to say a few points? Yes, absolutely and thank you for that introduction. You've got a small presentation. Yes, we have. We've obviously written and presented and had approved a plan for nature. That supported the green spaces policy. We've completed and approved a declaration of a nature emergency and all those words are absolutely fine but what we need to do is put that into action. What I've got is a very short presentation, literally seconds just to show you what that potentially means in action. So what I've done there is effectively joined up the plan for nature with the fact that 30% of our land area is to be managed for nature by 2030 which means that effectively a lot of our land area has got buildings and car parks on it so we need to do something with the space we've got left which hasn't got buildings and car parks on it. So for example, this is a small area. You can see slightly unkempt at this moment in time because climate change has caused a very wet winter which means it hasn't been mowed in its fortnight and it looks a little bit scruffy and unkempt. The plan is if we follow this type of new mowing regime policy on these small areas we would effectively mow a threshold and the threshold is identified on the right hand side. What is very important if we do that, because mowing the threshold isn't mowing all of it, is we have a communications plan. So little A5, car export, we've seen them at different councils. A little adverb showing what we're doing. Our logo is supported by the Staffordge Wildlife Trust, hammered into the place, people know where they are. So that's an obvious one, threshold strip by the pavement. So moving on, here slightly differently, there's a few statement trees, a few iconic trees. So the depth of mowing before you get to the rewilding zone, the unmown zone so to speak, incorporates the trees as well. So those statement trees stand out and it looks and keeps its quality and amenity value. Again moving on here, we've got another bit where in this case Biddle and Bloom have recently planted some trees. Those trees are over time going to become statement trees, they're going to become quite iconic within the area. So in this case the threshold strip would incorporate those trees so it would be quite broad. But it does maintain and keep quite a lot of biodiversity opportunity and change behind those trees. Again somewhere slightly different, there's a footpath to green areas, threshold strip, mown inside so you've got a nice, clean, communicated, identified area. Moving on to here, because this would be seen as a major change, my view is, is that if you've got a line of sight housing and you'll see houses at the top, they've been used to that being mown every two weeks for as long as those houses have been there. So my particular plan and thought would be is that that is maintained as mown so the aspect, the view from the front of the house remains exactly the same but you maximise the space outside of that line of sight view. The little kink going over to the left is the turning footpath so you're then maintaining the threshold on that turning footpath. So again it's part of the process to win hearts and minds, a little bit of signage, a little bit of communication, you're getting the balance right between the amenity value, the kemptiness of the, I presume kempt as a word, the kemptiness of the area, of the residential area, but also the maximisation of the biodiversity net gain. Again, simple idea, fold the threshold round. This is slightly different because it doesn't go a formal footpath, but there's an informal footpath. So mow along the informal footpath so you're guiding people where to walk, where to walk safely. And again, you can actually see a shadow line where two informal footpaths, one joins in this case the Biddle Valley way, one goes through a small stile and a fence to connect two greenways. Mow that, channel people around, it looks planned, it looks managed, therefore by default it looks maintained. This is ultimately the kind of thing we're trying to achieve. Nice mown threshold, lovely wildflower meadow. This is something which is done in Rotherham. Looks superb, everybody absolutely loves it. Another example, these are examples which is actually happening in Halls Road Plainfield at the moment by Glendale. Mowing the threshold strip either side of the footpath leading the meadow. Nobody can say that is unmanaged. It's very, very positively and cleanly managed. And again, another example where a little bit of a wild grass meadow in this case has been allowed to develop and a reasonable threshold strip has been mown. And then you'll see in the far side of the footpath, the left of the footpath, that is actually football pitches. So that is amenity space, so that is completely mown. But you've got the balance there between planned for nature, 30 by 30 and the managed amenity space and the tidiness and the neatness for residents. What's missing is a little A5 corex sign with a couple of logos on it demonstrating and telling people what to do. Slightly different, adaptation of amenity land. We've highlighted six reference sites. First reference site, Halls Road. What we've got here is a schematic plan. In the light blue would become the wildflower meadows. You notice how there's a threshold strip against the pavements as we've just demonstrated. The orange is, this is a very sandy soil. It's a glacial sand deposit, an old sand quarry. So that will become a sandy heathland area concentrating with gorse and bilberry and heather and related plants. And then the darker blue is actually where the sandy soil drains down. So it's very, very, very wet and we have drainage problems onto the roads. So that will be concentrated as a wetland planting area with rushes and willows and things like that. And again, another example, very quickly, two slides left. This is Biddle Valley Park. Again, developing with the 30 by 30 approach. You can see Biddle Town Council in purple have recently done some tree planting there. That is going to be augmented with some, in a line of statement trees there within the amenity land which will be mown. And then we're developing some rough grassland areas within that. And the bottom end of the park, very similar to what I've just said, the only difference is on orange, there's two banks, a west facing and a north facing, which would make a lovely shrubbery. And shrubbery produces a nice habitat for the finches and like which actually do that. So there you go. That's the kind of ideas which we're looking to do. Thank you very much Councillor Yates. Thank you. I think it's a very, very good and well written report. And I'm hoping everybody in the council really takes it up. I know we have in our parish. We've already done a lot of this and that's with a lot of help from Councillor Swindler. So our first speaker is Councillor Johnson. Well, thank you very much Gareth and thank you very much Councillor Yates for that technicolour presentation. Well, obviously as someone who's been campaigning on this issue for around five years now, I very much welcome this report. After a lot of years of talk and not too much walk, it's good to see a small, but I think significant step in these six sites. I know it's a careful step, but it is a recognition that these sites can be managed for nature as well as amenity. And I get Gareth's point. You've got to bring the community along. It's no good just imposing on them. I think the devil obviously will be in the detail with the negotiation of the renegotiation contract with AES. I'm glad to see that you've got a new officer on who under you I think will be tasked with that. And there is the evidence. Also that this actually can be done at cost. You often hear that it's going to cost a lot of money, but actually the evidence exists. And I know Councillor Yates has seen some of the evidence. I've seen some of the evidence that's out there. And there are councils that are doing this and actually saving money by doing it. But I think it's important to put it in context of this is part of a much wider offensive. I view it as an offensive. Anyway, wide scale change in mowing regimes. And I would point to this last month we announced we being Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Morelands Climate Action, Kiel University and outside. And I'm mentioning this because I think it might concern councillors in the chamber. Three quarters of a million lottery project just on specifically to help communities manage these kind of sites much better, these kind of green spaces and verges much better. So I'm rather hoping that at least one of these sites in the future will fall under that project. I'll just finish up by mentioning the other part of our offensive was of course the county. And we have a couple of county councillors in here. I view this as just part of the campaign to get better management of verges. And I'm delighted that we now, as it were, I'm seeking mowing regime change. I'm glad there's been a bit of regime change at highways in county in terms of personnel. And it's good to have some Morelands councillors here. So I'm rather hoping that when it comes to not forcing Amy, shall we say persuading Amy that nature, amenity, safety can actually be balanced in the management of verges, that the approach that is now being taken finally at SMDC can be extended down to the county. And I'm looking forward to your help. Yeah. Well, up to the county. Yeah, absolutely. So whichever way that yellow brick road goes, we'll get there. So I fully welcome this. And I'll be watching those site management plans and hopefully participating in at least one myself. So thank you. I was just going to say I hope everybody will participate in it because it will make a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to make any comments on that or not? No. Councillor Chapp. Thank you. I'm absolutely delighted to hear about this. It's just such a lovely fresh new approach. And it's in tune with what our residents are asking for, and have been asking for for a long time. Within our parish, since the millennium, really, we've been working on our own green spaces, creating habitats, trying to create biodiversity, developing wildflower meadows, encouraging our residents to do No-Mo-May and so on as well. And we've had a great deal of success. We've also been trying to negotiate with the county council for at least the last 10 years, probably 15, I think, on trying to leave areas at the back of the wide verges so that we can encourage more wildflowers to grow there. And we've had mixed success with that because we think that we've agreed an area, and we've met, and we've worked out, yes, these are the places to leave without cutting. These are where we've got our wildflower patches. And everything looks great. We've even put notices up saying, please don't mow this bit. You know, this is our wildflower patch. And then we come back and find that they've been mown by the county machinery. It's a learning process, I suppose, for them. But it can be disheartening every year when you see that your hard work is getting spoiled. It's improving. But as I said, I'm absolutely delighted to see the action that we're taking as a district council. Thank you very much. Councillor Haynes. Yeah, I'm very happy to see this report. I think it's really, really good, a really good step forward. And I think it's certainly welcoming as we go around the towns and villages, see a bit more wildlife. I think there's a few, obviously, hurdles to sort of jump, I think, with the local community. I think communication will be key. I know that one criticism with Mr Napa kind of picked up a little bit in the report will be, is this the council just saving money? I'm sure it isn't. But if there is a cost saving, which then obviously I'm just wondering if that will obviously be reflected in your future budget. If there's no cost saving, we'll have to communicate that carefully to show where, though we're doing less, how by doing that, there's an extra cost that we're balancing that out with. The local signs, the little signs, I think, is really key to sort of people understanding why it's not been mowed or why it has. The other day, we've got a grass bridge in front of our house and it's maintained by Staffordshire. County council is owned by them. And the other day they came to mow and they come every couple of weeks or supposed to, whatever, but it's been a bit wet. Anyway, they came and they mowed a lovely bit of it and then they left a bit of it. And nobody sort of knew why, but I kind of had an idea and I think it's because they're doing this. But there's no communication. I mean, it just happens. So it's good. It's good. But yeah, so I think the communication is key. I think in terms of Cheadle, I think, look, the two sites that have been mentioned, I'm going to develop one and I think it would be really key to see. I've got Glebe Road and Stanfield Crescent are completely different uses of those sites. So it'll be interesting to see how the approach differs on those two sites. I've just got a couple of questions. The first one is around consultation, how that will happen with local residents. Would it be through, would it be a consultation directly or would it be through town councils, et cetera? And the second one is to get those lovely wildflower pictures that we saw. Is there something else we need to do rather than just not know? Is there something we can elaborate on what we need to do there? Personally, I would have thought, buy a lot of wildflower seeds and plant them. That's what we've done. Loads of them, bags and bags of wildflower seeds, all different because you can get different grades, can't you, of seeds that attract different insects. And that's what we've done. Gareth? Yeah, just to respond to that, I think from a wildflower point of view, obviously, you mentioned in the report that that's a slightly different issue around the wildflowers. It's something that we are looking at at our sites where it's appropriate. The plan for nature really is about getting and doing the right thing in the right place, so the right types of trees for the right types of ground so that everything's suitable. Wildflower meadows are different than changing the grass cutting regime. You can get a grassland meadow feel from leaving the grass, but you wouldn't get wildflowers necessarily as a wildflower meadow. The picture that Nigel shared is very much a cultivated space and done on purpose to try and bring as much colour as possible, which obviously looks fantastic, but isn't necessarily the right thing in the right place. So it's just understanding and getting a balance between having something that looks really attractive but actually can be quite costly and expensive to do year on year, or do we change the regime that enables things to change slowly over time but be more natural and the right thing for that area and that place. I think one of the comments earlier as well from Councillor Jeb around areas being cut, some of that can come down to not having the right machinery and, again, if it's not planned, which is what we're trying to do, we're trying to do it in a planned way so that actually the outcomes are right, but if you leave grass too long for too long then you create a problem for yourselves because you've then not got the right machines to go in and to remove the cuttings because the cuttings are then quite substantial and it can look quite messy. So it's just getting that balance right between sort of having, and that's why we're trying to do it in a planned approach and trying to do it in a relatively small amount of sites first is to ensure that we understand the process, to understand how we do it and doing it right so that it looks fantastic and it looks really impressive rather than trying to do it all at once and then creating ourselves a bit of a problem and some negative comments and press because everywhere looks a mess or isn't achieved. And obviously if you don't cut it, it becomes a more scrubby environment and then the machines again won't go through that more woody material. So it's a balance to get everything right, it's just understanding the processes. Thank you for that. Councillor Beswick. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to Councillor Yates for the presentation. I think that's certainly allayed a few of my initial concerns on reading the report. I mean it makes clear that there does appear to be quite a bit of thought going into which bits you're setting aside and which bits you're still maintaining properly. One question I did have is obviously if you're not mowing something, there's a risk that invasive weeds will then take over that piece of ground. And so I wonder what the plan is to perhaps combat that because that may then create another risk that residents who've got neighbouring property to the one that you've set aside will then be worried that those invasive weeds that maybe could take hold of it would then spread to their property and then that might have the unfortunate side effect that you would then be forced to use artificial herbicides and the like to obviously get rid of those weeds which may have a worse effect than if you'd mown them more regularly. So I just wonder what the plan is to deal with any invasive weeds if they do come about. Thank you. Yes, Chair, if we can just come back on a couple of points on that. Sorry, can you come in at the end? It's my report. I know it's your report, but if I take the committee first and then you can come in. Go on then, I'll let you. I'm very kind, you know. Yes. Well the first thing with regard to consultation, I think what's important and it's something which Councillor Swindler has been pushing a lot on the leisure and tourism side is the empowerment of the parishes. And the reason I've put that plan back up is that's obviously a plan for within my ward and Biddulph and I've been very much driving that. I would like to see the parishes come up with plans for their own green spaces on what they want to do, fitting in with the overall strategy and policies which they've got. So it's a steer for them to actually come up because they'll know critical amenity space more than ourselves, which is slightly away. We don't know that on a Whitson Sunday a particular football match is played on that land, so it must be mowed. The other thing which I'll say about weeds and things, I mean a weed can be a cultivated plant in the wrong place to be perfectly honest. And part of it is this thing about having the appropriate equipment so that at the end of the season it can be mown and sort of disposed of. I wouldn't go as far as saying harvested but disposed of properly, whether that is anaerobic digestion, whether that is composting, whether that is disposal in lowland pit forming lands and things. That's open for discussion at the moment. But what we don't want is for these areas to deteriorate and to brush and things like that. These are maintained as meadows. But within that what we want to cultivate over time is the natural plants which used to exist in there, which support the biodiversity which is endemic for this particular part of the country. And within that there will be some unsightly plants as a consequence of that. I'm thinking Dock as an example, nobody likes Dockleys, but Dockleys do have a place in the nature recovery of things. So it's getting the thing right. But obviously what we are aware of is the woody plants and I bring Japanese knotweed into that and invasive species which the harvesting, for want of a better term, at the end of the season and the re-preparation in April ready for the new meadow season should take account of. But that's part of the learning curve and we can learn from other things. And the other aspect which is extremely important is like you say, the communications. It's got to go hand in hand with the communications and the notice boards to show what we are doing, to show that this isn't unmanaged. On the contrary, this is managed for wildlife. Thank you. Councillor Cox. Thank you. That was a really nice presentation and I think I've seen this going on up and down the country and actually in France and it works out really well. I think though sort of coming in with what Councillor Bezic said, we have got to be a little bit sort of careful about managing. I volunteer at Ladridge Country Park and we do spend a lot of time, one, getting rid of, you know, making sure ragwort doesn't grow. Blackthorn, that's another thing and making sure that monocultures of plants don't take over, you know, places where you want to rewild. So I hope that, you know, is taken into account. Another thing is that these wild areas, if it's the animal life that will perhaps decide to make a home there, such as hedgehogs and rabbits who are ground nesting, you know, has that been taken into account when you do the mowing, say in autumn, you know, particularly if they're going to start and hibernate or we have a cold autumn, what's going to be done to mitigate that these, you know, these animals aren't harmed when, you know, when you do mow the grass? Mr Knapper? Yeah, it's probably a fair point and something that might need some consideration. I would suggest that the regime change that we'll be following is practice that's done, it's best practice that will be done and therefore the sort of cutting in September, October and removing of the arising of that cut is what is suggested for us to create better wildlife habitats. If there are casualties in that process, then I'm not sure what we can do. I'm not sure that we can walk the route of the mown grass to ensure that there are no mammals in there. I would imagine that the impact would be low but we're working with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust on this whole process and we'll take guidance wherever we can for understanding and that's part and parcel of what this period of time from now until next April will give us. It gives us the time to talk to the people that we need to talk to and to understand. Like I say, we can discuss that point and see if there's anything extra that would be advised but I don't know that there's anything that would be suggested in that sense. Yeah, thanks for that. I would just say that I have seen the Hedgehog Hospital in Baddeley Green has put a comment up that they are concerned about particularly the use of streamers and so I suppose that is something that is going to have to be carefully thought at. We don't want you doing a Princess Anne, if you remember from the comedy program where she ran over a hedgehog. It used to be a joke, didn't it, years ago when hedgehogs were quite prevalent but they are sort of becoming quite endangered. So I do think that is something that needs to be, you know, sort of taken, you know, sort of thought about. Yeah, I totally agree with you, Councillor Cox. Because we had a similar issue and we had the wildlife people in and hedgehogs are endangered and we had them look over the ground before we actually started cultivating it. So it is something important that I hope Councillor Yates will take on board. It's not just hedgehogs, it's quite a few very rare species of either insects or birds or whatever. It depends where the ground is, especially if the ground is nesting. So I hope you take that on board. Councillor Flonda. So much for my plan not to talk about roads. Thanks, guys. Yeah, so obviously in the new role at the moment that I have now taken up, Councillor Haynes is right, there is some work being done now. We are trying just to do the first metre and a half along many roadsides and everything else, particularly if the verge allows us to do that. There's patches all around where I live as well that go right across everywhere. So we are adopting some elements of this at the moment. There are concerns about the hazards that may come from this in terms of having access to cut the hedges later in the year. How much growth will happen between, if you like, the hedge and where the verge is no longer being cut right up to the hedge, so there's some learning that is going to have to go on there with the farmers as that goes on. Evasive species, we've already warned on that one in some respects, make sure that we don't end up little pockets of this area, these evasive species of which I think we're at about four or five now. It seems to be increasing. Also, the other thing that we've had in terms of safety around, for example, end and well dressing, we had to get the verges cut. Thank God we did because most people parked on the verges in the end because of the weather. Also, it meant that the drivers could actually see both ways down the road when they were pulling in and out on a busy junction there. So there's other things that come into this that perhaps we wouldn't have expected in terms of running events or around certain junctions at certain times. Village fates and other things make quite a lot of difference in terms of what you want to be seen during certain events as well. In terms of how this is going to be impacted in the long term, the County Council is obviously taking some time to consider how it works and to gradually build up a way of being able to do it in a cost effective manner. I think that was mentioned by someone about potentially saving money. I personally can't see it necessarily being a money saver in the long term because I just think the complexity of what we're going to end up with is going to be quite, yes. As long as it doesn't cost us more, I think would be my concern. Just to let you know as well, we are, the County Council, instigating some environmental teams to be going out there to be working with County Councillors over the coming year. We've gone through a major restructuring of everything else and our concerns up to now has been really getting more potholes fixed quickly after the really bad winter season which in fact went on until the end of April this year. You see technically when it rains quite heavily now, it's still affecting it because the ground water is not helping us in some areas. Those environmental teams are going to be looking at drainage and things like this and that might well then help us be able to maintain those verges so they don't get too soft and all these other things. Because obviously some people if they pull off and they're in an emergency, they pull onto the road to get off the main thoroughfare. It's a bit like pulling away on motorways. If they can't pull on, they're in more risk. So there's a lot of things that really we need to consider to do this. The environmental teams will be finalised over the coming month and then some of that will be able for the members to be able to do small environmental projects as well within their divisions. So we are doing as much as we can do at the moment but most of it's to get the roads back to a safer place than they are at the moment. Some £8 million I think we've allocated for all this. There's already 35 million in the pot. There's an additional £8 million on top of that as well. They have been busy cutting the road verges today. They have been exactly doing what you're saying today and leaving that much. Making a really good job. Yes, they have been. So thanks for that. There you see. It's a bit of a positive there. It's a one off. It's the junctions you can't always see. So that's good. There's a whole issue around junctions as well. So sorry about that. Has any of the panel got any other questions? Then I'll bring Councillor Yates. Yes, I think to be honest the debate has nicely come to a close. There is a recommendation to approve consideration of the changes to the known regimes. I'm quite happy to finish the debate. I think it's being covered by everybody. Thank you very much for that. So will somebody move the recommendation? I second it. Councillor Johnson, Councillor Plunder. All in favour? Thank you very much. Councillor Hayes wants to say something. I think it was just on the next agenda item. Which is work programme. Yes, thanks chair. Members of the committee may have noticed they have been added to a trial teams channel. You may not have noticed, but if you go to the teams app and go to teams and then click on service delivery overview and scrutiny and then it will pop up with general and you will be able to see any messages that are sent there. The purpose is to trial communication outside of the committee to discuss things that they might want on the work programme for example. So I have sent a message on there. We are having programme setting meeting, the chair vice and our officers, on the 13th June. So if you could feed back via that channel or directly to Linda and myself if you've got anything you think needs to be on the work programme that isn't currently and then we can discuss that and hopefully get it on there and get things moving. If you've got any issues with finding the channel I'm sure Sarah will be able to assist. It does come up quite easily if you look. It's a little green square. It will be on your phone. You will be able to get the teams on your phone to be able to do exactly the same as on the iPad. If you have problems I'm sure Sarah will be able to show you how to get it on your phone. I think we're the trial committee, aren't we? We're the pilots so watch out for crash landings. Right, is there anything that you want to go on to the work programme? We've got quite a heavy agenda next time. Councillor Bezwick first, I'll bring you in. Yeah, I'll just mention it again. I mentioned it last time about the leisure operations model and I have mentioned it to Sarah Beach but I will just mention it to you so it's on the record. I know it's been in the forward plan and off the forward plan a few times over the last few months so I don't know when the cabinet decision is actually being made but I would just ask that it comes back before the cabinet decision is made so the committee has a chance to consider the implications before the decision. I'm just going to bring Councillor Price in in a minute because I think the leader said that things were going to come here, sorry, things were going to come here first before they go to cabinet. Can you? I'm being suggested to you by Mark Trillo. Should I comment? I mean we have a joint leisure operations management working group with High Peak and we did take the financial business case and all the other details as to the development of the trading company to the last meeting of that committee and there is a report that is scheduled, you'll see, on the agenda for cabinet in exempt session next week because it's very important that we make some decisions so that we can actually start to implement those and establish the company ready to trade in the first of October. Now I'm mindful of what Councillor Bezic's saying and I don't know if he's a member of the joint working group. What I suggest then is if you do wish it to come to scrutiny you can consider it's appropriate for that, that it would come to your next meeting, that would be subsequent to the executive decision, but I don't think there's going to be anything in there that wouldn't be agreed by the Councillors because it has been through that working group and has been agreed all the way to this stage. Would you like it to come to this committee next time? Well I mean it's been put on for November but personally I think things should always come to scrutiny before the decision's made. I think it was the urgency of the matters this time. They've had the working group but obviously the working group's considering the joint operation, working group's come up with ideas, but then I think it's important they come back to scrutiny. What I'm asking is are you happy on this occasion that it comes back to the next meeting? Yes. Thank you. It will be on cabinet so you'll be able to read it at the cabinet report and you can even go to the cabinet can't you? Absolutely. And you're allowed to make comments as well. I will read it. I wanted to make the point. You need to consider the implications for the moorings specifically in my opinion. It gives an open forum for that through scrutiny I think. You're totally right but sometimes if things are urgent they do have to go there. But you have got a chance to go and speak at cabinet so go along to cabinet and voice your concerns if you've got any or say what you think is okay. Okay thank you. All right. Sorry Councillor Flanda. I believe the working group is an extension of full council is it or from cabinet? It's from this committee. Okay so it should be brought back I agree with Callum in that case. It will be. It will be. So don't worry about that it will be. Just to clarify when we establish a working group we establish terms of reference and then we would normally report back to the scrutiny committee at the conclusion of that work. But we have fed in all the recommendations are coming forward through the executive report. They've all been through the scrutiny working group. Are you okay with that? Yeah? Great. Yeah we take it on but I know where you're coming from so yeah. Any other things that need to go on the working group, working programme sorry? No? Oh Councillor Proudlove wanted to say something? You've forgotten haven't you? Sorry sorry chair. No it actually doesn't matter now it's just something I've run it through in my mind it doesn't matter. Okay I think there is nothing in the exempt so I'll bring the meeting to a close. Thank you all very much for attending but please on these reports what Councillor Yates brought forward and what was brought forward on the disability thing please think on that and spread the word and the seeds. Exactly. That's it then.