Transcript

Good evening, I'm Councillor Tricia Clark and I'm chairing tonight's meeting. Please note that we are not expecting a firearm test this evening, so if the alarm is sounded, please follow my instructions and evacuate the building. Please remember that this meeting is being broadcast live on the Council's website. Please turn your microphone on when speaking and remember to turn it off when you're finished. Please speak clearly and directly into your microphone and I will now ask my fellow members and the officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right. Hello I'm Councillor Gary Heather, Finbury Pike Ward and I'm a substitute member on the committee this evening. I'm also the Islington Recycling Champion as well. Councillor Angelo Weeks from Margamay Ward and Chair of Licensing Committee. Good evening, I'm Flora Walker. I am leading on the Climate Action and Net Zero Carbon SPD. Good evening, Sakeba Gerda, Head of Planning Policy and Development and Biology Service. I'm Renee Champion, I'm the Executive Member for Environment, Air Quality and Transport. Well, I'd just like to say welcome to Councillor Bosham-Kwashi to the committee and we have already had Councillor Gary Heather introduce himself as a substitute. We've got apologies from Councillor Phil Graham. Any declarations of interest? Ah, Councillor Hayes, you're just in time to introduce yourself. Councillor Hayes, Clerkenwell Ward. So we move on to the minutes of the previous meeting. Can we note the minutes of the previous committee environment and regeneration scrutiny that took place on the 16th of April 2024, please? Thank you. Welcome, Councillor Jeeps. Do you want to find your seat and you can introduce yourself? Just introduce yourself, Councillor Jeeps. Introduce yourself. Claire Jeeps in Canterbury Ward. Thank you very much. So, to the Chair's report, so I'm just going to say a few things. Islington Council has again been recognised as the top inner London borough for healthy streets and the overall winner for the first time, underlining the success of efforts to create a greener, healthier borough for all. The Healthy Streets Scorecard, which ranks London boroughs on the action that they've taken to make it easier for residents to walk, cycle and wheel, recognise Islington as the top borough across the capital. It's the fourth straight year that Islington has topped the ranking in inner London, recognising the incredible work that's been done to create more environmentally friendly, welcoming streets for all. Next item I've got is Nature Neighbourhoods. They have several community conversations going on. The first one is on the 18th of September at the Hildrop Community Centre where they'll be talking about regulation and implementation and then on the 24th of October they're going to talk about food systems at the Islington Park Community Centre. And then on the 23rd of November they'll be talking about access to nature at the Hildrop Community Centre. Rosie Appley, the Project Coordinator for Nature Neighbourhoods is happy to attend and address our committee. I have attended the Islington Climate Panel. This July I attended the last two sessions of the first phase of the Islington Climate Panel, a panel of randomly selected residents who meet with officers to develop proposals about how to green the borough. I invited the strategy and engagement team of that panel to attend this committee and report back on their findings. Okay, so that's my report and we'll take public questions after each agenda item. So moving on to membership and terms of reference. Please can we note the membership and terms of reference as set out in the report? I just wondered from a practical point of view how there's that thing where you can refer an item to a committee and I'm stupidly sorry I had it up on my screen and now it has gone. Sorry, where is it? There's that thing that a committee member can refer an item and I just wondered how that works in practice. It's the committee member right to refer, so it's any member of a scrutiny committee. It's 61.1 in the constitution, but that's in the constitution document. Any member of a scrutiny committee shall be entitled to give written notice at least ten clear days before a meeting of the committee to the proper officer that they wish an item relevant to the functions of the committee to be included on the agenda for the next available meeting of the committee. On receipt of such a request, if the proper officer concludes the matter is so relevant, they should ensure it's included in the next available agenda. I just wondered what the process, is that a process that you're familiar with and how that works? Sorry, I've lost my voice. It would be a democratic service. You would just basically need to email me in the chair and then we would speak to the relevant officers. Okay, so you're saying we email you and the chair and then, okay, it just seems like that's an opportunity to get topical things that come up that maybe any of us on the committee might think that we should be having a look at. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for raising that. Councillor Hayes. Thank you very much, Chair. Sorry to be slightly late in bringing this in, but I understand that Councillor Craig is no longer on this committee and it's Councillor Gill. So it's just for the records of the meeting because the expected attendance reflects the old membership. Thank you. Unchanging the agenda slightly, I'm going to take the update on the climate action supplementary planning document and really, really welcome the officers who are going to present on that. Really appreciate that. We've been trying to, we've been asking for an update for quite a long time and it's really good to have one. So I'll hand over to you to give the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's lovely to be here today. My name is Flora Walker. I am a policy officer within the planning policy team and I have been working on the climate action slash net zero carbon SPD and retrofit handbook. So just a quick introduction and moving things on slightly from when you will have heard the last update. We've decided to introduce an additional document so we're splitting the two documents. So we've got the climate action net zero carbon SPD. And this will be a detailed guidance on how to implement sustainable design and climate adaptation policies from our local plan in an accessible and user friendly way. And then we'll also be publishing alongside the retrofit handbook, which will be a handbook of measures that homeowners might take to improve the efficiency of their homes, and it will highlight some heritage technical and practical considerations, all for the aim of supporting homeowners on their retrofit journeys. Okay. So a little bit more about the former, the climate action and net zero carbon SPD. It's going to contain some information on retrofit. So some approaches. And then it will contain a section on environment and nature. This will include biodiversity and details around how to implement biodiversity net gain. It will include policy guidance on sustainable urban drainage and flood risk, air quality, adaptation for cooling, and some considerations around climate action for the public realm. It will also retain that really important energy efficiency section, which will deal with renewable energy generation, and also support in monitoring how the efficiency measures measures about policies are performing. And then a section on circular economy and whole life cycle carbon, and then dealing with sustainable design standards. So those elements such as Bream from the building research establishment. Okay. So the other document, the retrofit handbook, this won't be a planning policy document that carries formal weight. It will be very much more guidance document that we can bring up to date as needed, because the environment in terms of retrofit technologies move so quickly, we see that to be a real benefit. And it will detail. So it will provide some detail on when permissions are needed and what will be required, and also an illustrated guide to retrofit measures. And this will include information on draft proofing, roof loft wall and floor insulation, details on windows, details on door replacement, thermostatic radio radiator valves, LED lighting, ventilation, cooling measures, solar PV, solar thermal panels, air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, and some information on transport infrastructure. And you can see we want it to be very clear, so we've included an example of some illustrations that will include just as some guidance on how to acceptably arrange your solar panels on your roofs. Okay. So what's taken place so far? As you'll be aware, this work on the SPD has been ongoing for some time with a hiatus in the middle. But from the beginning of the project, we've held public workshops for local residents, local businesses and suppliers, architects and planning agents, and housing associations. There was a formal consultation on the scoping paper last year. A member's workshop was held, and there's been ongoing engagement with other council services. We've also commissioned a technical study to explore and evaluate a range of retrofit measures on Islington housing typologies, and that information will be processed and inform aspects of the SPD. And finally, we have timescales towards adoption. So from now until the end of August, we'll be continuing drafting the SPD. I've just realised I've said SPD a lot, and I didn't say it's a supplementary planning document, so I do apologise for that. Guilty of jargon there. So from August to October, we'll be conducting internal reviews, and then late October, there'll be a six-week formal consultation held. And then we'll make amendments and conduct a further internal review, and we're targeting adoption around April 2025. So thank you, that's the end of my presentation. Thanks for listening, and please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much. Any questions from the committee? So Councillor Boston-Kawashi and Councillor Russell. Thanks, Chair, and thanks for your presentation, really insightful learning loads. I just want to ask specifically about the data gathering. Is there anywhere there's a breakdown in terms of who you've actually spoken to within the community? So just to understand where the gaps might be, because obviously this is not just one approach to fix a solution, but it would be good to understand the different demographics of Islington. Thank you. Hi, I'll have a go. We did last year when we were promoting the initial event, there was a lot of work with local communities, including some representatives that were petitioning the Council at the time. And some of the publication around that was asked by various channels, but also residents inviting people on their mailing list, because they've been campaigning on this for some time. We will also try and focus on trying to get some tenants, council tenants and housing association tenants, when we go forward with a more detailed draft. We've engaged various other people, as was mentioned previously, architects, local planning agents, some local businesses, councillors, lots of residents. But I think, if I'm honest, that particular workshop that we mentioned earlier was mainly homeowners. It was very well attended, it was a really good, interesting kind of discussion. I think there might have been a couple of tenants, social housing tenants, but not necessarily perhaps significant number, if that makes sense. Is that your concern about your representation? Sagiva, lovely name. No, I just want specifics, so demographics, so young people, like from a certain particular age, demographic in that respect, black, Africans, Caribbeans or women, or working class. I kind of want that kind of data so that I can understand it a little bit more, if that makes sense. We can provide that later. On the event, we did do the sheets, but not everybody filled out all the details, so we wouldn't necessarily have all the details. So, Chair, if I may, sorry, that's where the gap is going to be, so that's why I'm asking that question. Thank you. So, first of all, really helpful to have this thinking going on, and particularly if it's actually enabling people to make their homes more resilient, to make them more affordable to heat, and better able to stay cool in hot summers, and generally less leaky of heat in the winters. So, I suppose my question, though, is about process, and I think the question that Councillor Boston-Kwashi was asking is actually really important, because the Council owns a lot of street properties that fall into this category of homes that are very hard to retrofit. And so there are huge implications for the Council of getting this detail right. Then there's the piece about are we pushing housing associations, are we making sure that the Council itself is upgrading the homes so that the Council tenants who are living in street properties have the potential of a better insulated home. And obviously there's going to have to be a process of identifying pots of money to be able to do that work, but I do think it's really important that we're thinking about this, not just in terms of private home ownership, but actually across the whole piece of homes in Islington. But my question is about, so you've got the internal review from August to October, so is that the point at which you're hoping Councillors will engage, and then it's going out to the formal consultation in late October. So, yes, are you expecting Councillors to engage in this August to October bit, or are you expecting us to wait until we get to the formal consultation in late October? I think we can do both. The internal review, it's kind of general, the draft will go to executive as well, that's the idea, towards the end of October, but before that we can have a session for members and then internal review with various other services, including our own housing who run our own properties. So we are looking at it in the round. We have already various pilot schemes on cancelling properties in terms of retrofit, et cetera, so we are learning lessons from that and we are talking to our own colleagues. But in terms of member engagement, I think we can hopefully have a session towards the end of September, early October, it's not been arranged yet, and then it goes through the formal process to the executive, then the consultation is launched. We are also trying to see whether or not we can get some of the residents, including those who were part of that initial workshop, to have an informal discussion perhaps on the draft before it's finalised. We will try and squeeze that in, and then of course there will be the formal consultation for six weeks, during which we can also talk to residents again and have some workshops and some more detailed technical engagement, because some of this is now going to be quite detailed. Some of it is going to be quite technical and it's almost like you need some prior knowledge, so in order to have a proper discussion we might need to kind of select people to engage in the detail and/or some slightly less involved involvement for everybody. We are also looking at the climate panel, at what point we can try and engage and have a discussion on the SPD with them, possibly in November, we are looking at potentially a tailored session, but that's not been confirmed yet, so we are looking at all of these aspects. So hopefully with members late September, early October, but we will confirm so we can have a workshop for all members like we did last time and everybody can come and just have a discussion around what we actually have drafted. If I could just make a plea that you give us as much notice as possible, because I think people are going to be keen to attend and it sometimes means a bit of diary juggling. I'm going to take Council Champion, I don't know if you want to come in on this particular aspect of this? I just wanted to make a few points about the priorities in relation to social housing. There are kind of different things, one of them is we know that a lot of people who have control over their homes who want to retrofit say to us actually it's too difficult. Although probably in many cases it's not as difficult as they think it is, sometimes it is, sometimes it is, sometimes it is very off-putting and they don't get as far as making an application. We've done quite a lot to try and help including we have a free duty planner appointment and we've done some guidance particularly around windows and a few things like this. But we know from conversations with people that's kind of not enough which is what this handbook's for. So it gives specific instructions on what you can do and how you can go about it and it does include some sort of minor measures so that people who don't actually have control over their houses can also feel they have got some things they can do. In relation to the point about social housing, both tenants and housing associations, it's absolutely the case that we are working and want to encourage that as well. Because we absolutely know that a lot of tenants are in fuel poverty and so it's a real priority for the council. So we have made bids for council properties to the social housing decarbonisation fund and some retrofitting has been carried out. As you can imagine with street properties it's not easy. We've learned quite a lot of lessons and we've also supported housing associations including the Bransbury housing association, particularly Peabody to make bids to the social housing decarbonisation fund as well. And I think what we are absolutely clear is we do need grants that are fit for purpose because currently they haven't been. But the new government have said that retrofitting is a particular priority so I'm looking forward to having a grant system that works for everybody. Thank you for the presentation. I know it's early days and I know you still have to go through a number of stages but for me whilst we've got the executive member here it would be good to know what success looks like. Or if you're planning to demonstrate success to us in the year, two years time and also what measures we could expect to see. Thank you. I'll have a go. What we want to try and do is facilitate uptake of these measures and it's difficult, there are so many different layers to it, some of which is many. Particularly where there are some more significant interventions and properties, whether or not people have the funds to invest. So what we want to do is try and educate because there's a lot of misunderstanding sometimes that the council is the barrier, we will always say no to your planning application, often people haven't even tried. So there needs to be some dispelling of those myths so try and raise awareness, educate as much as possible, have a handbook that's kind of like holding people's hands, this is what you can do and increase the uptake ultimately. So that then helps with lowering people's bills, tackling carbon etc. So at this point we haven't set any monitoring indicators if you like, but that's something to think about. There are lots of other things that are beyond our control but if the path for residents is much easier than it is now and they have the right information and as technology changes we update the guidance, that would be a success. That's not a straightforward answer because a lot of stuff is outside of our control funding in particular. But from our perspective as a planning authority and as a property owner certainly with the commercial as well as residential buildings, some of it is around examples, here is what we can do, here is what you can then try and follow. But basically helping people and clarifying what is incredibly technical and difficult quite often. Just a follow up, forgive me, why did the council go down the route of a handbook? Because I'm very fond of handbooks but I know some others aren't and I know that there may be challenges with accessibility so have the council thought about maybe doing short videos or gatefold leaflets or things like that because handbooks can be a bit off putting if they are too long. Thank you. Thank you for that point. I think it's a really important point. One thing that we've considered is we're fully aware that a long document can be really, really difficult especially if it's detailing lots of different retrofit measures. So I think we'd ideally like to have this information separated so the content is the same but separated so that you can easily get to the measure that you want potentially online so that it will be as accessible as possible. And I do know that there are colleagues in the climate action team who are working on different retrofit measures, there's a retrofit officer who is working on similar aspects that you're talking about such as videos and things. So I am in communication with her and these are things that we are considering and we want it to be the most user friendly and accessible as possible so it's useful. Councillor Hayes. Thank you. I certainly have heard residents ask for a handbook but I agree, what works for one person doesn't actually work for everybody. I have a couple of questions. I know one of the issues that people have brought up in the past is the difficulty in finding suppliers who are trustworthy and might do a good job. And I appreciate that the council cannot verify necessarily people but I just wondered if any thought was going into how people, if we want to encourage uptake of measures, helping people find a reliable and good provider. And also I'm very conscious you've talked about how the technology is changing and obviously energy bills have increased dramatically for a lot of homeowners. Is there going to be guidance on the return, you know, I imagine that means as technology costs come down and energy costs go up, some things in the past might have taken you 20 years to recover the initial cost or might now be a quicker return time and you might be more attractive to people so just is there help on that. And then finally, and I really get the point that you want the guidance to be able to change quickly, that you want the handbook to be up to date and the more formalised that is, the harder that is to do. But could you just outline what the link will be between the informal advice if you like in the handbook and the formal planning requirements so that people understand what those links are. Thank you. I'll try with the first and third one and you try the second one. On the point on suppliers, I mean it's a running issue and we've been thinking about it and talking about it for a long time. The first issue is there are very few suppliers in any case. It's almost like maybe this work and other work that other councils are doing and simplifying things and increasing take-up might stimulate some more companies to enter into this particular sector and hopefully with the government perhaps promoting this more strongly, we're hoping that there will be basically more suppliers. We talk to the lawyers as well in terms of recommending, it's difficult because you can't guarantee the quality and the council as an institution, as an organisation, you don't want to have to be responsible for somebody's shoddy work. But we are talking to National Retrofit Hub and various other people about perhaps some kind of central registration system where suppliers across the board can register and whether there is a way of certifying their quality so that we can signpost to those. But I don't think we will have a local list to say here are the suppliers. What the Inclusive Economy team is also doing is generally trying to promote local businesses and encourage them to enter into this kind of arena. But I think this will remain an issue for a while but hopefully central government action as well as stimulating, generally people taking up measures hopefully will increase but this is an issue everywhere. There aren't enough suppliers as well as there aren't enough short quality suppliers and there has been some issues with the Mails grant and what happened there. On the, do you want to go with the second point? I'm happy to talk about the return time point. Yes, as you say, the landscape changes rapidly. We have considered the return time and within the consultancy piece that we commissioned, they did some proper cost modelling and they have considered this. I think a really important point to flag is the fact that we expect that gas and electricity prices will be decoupled and I think that's going to hugely change the energy market and the pricing. So it's likely that any costs that we've modelled might change quite quickly but I think it's definitely our expectation that we'll have something to give to residents who are keen to know about return times. On the third point about the link between the SPD and the handbook, so firstly there is the local plan which is now adopted and that has full legal weight, that's the most significant bit. Then the SPD goes on top of that, it provides further guidance, again it's quite formal and has weight linked to the local plan and then you elaborate and supplement with the detail as much as you need. And then the handbook, it's not informal, it's still formal, the SPD and the handbook will be read together effectively. So the reason, and we've had a very long discussion about this and there was also an event recently which was organised by one of the local activists and there was very good attendance nationally. There is this issue with being able to update things very quickly, partly because national government changes things, permitted development rights change or technology suddenly something that was very unaffordable gets improved and it's quicker or cheaper to install. So it's almost like not wanting to have this long process where you have to go through a very long preparation process to be able to update the handbook quicker. But I think it's not informal, it still has weight because its weight is linked to the SPD. So the SPD deals with a range of topics, not just retrofit but all of those other things that Flora has talked about. But the handbook is particularly around retrofit of existing properties where things do change quickly and you want to be able to update it very quickly. Sometimes it will be a very minor update, i.e. the law has changed on this and now you can install a bigger seller panel without permission and of course we have to update it because otherwise it's confusing. So the two will be wrapped together and I think they will have to work together. Thanks Kerrie. My question is about the Council's hours in stock and about where this fits in with that because there is a lot of work, cyclical work that takes place in Council hours in stock. I think retrofit is great but when are we actually going to do it? There are enormous problems that arise out of this, i.e. fuel poverty but also cold bridging in buildings and the way that can create damp and mold and stuff like that. The other thing that strikes me is that to make a real impact you've got to do it at scale so surely the Council has got to be a prime mover in that. Does this bring a discipline onto Council contracts on cyclical works where certain works like this would have to be done? I'll have a go. I think the Council as a landlord is looking at various properties as you know and we've done some works already to street properties and then various estates are being looked at. Ultimately, to be honest, a lot of this is about money. It's very, very costly. This is a guidebook about how you do things, particularly where there are sensitivities around conservation issues and buildings, etc. Just generally looking at things in the round. On the Council loan properties it's all the time taking opportunities where you are looking at cyclical works, maintenance, whether or not there are opportunities to do more to retrofit, to reduce people's bills and to improve their quality of life. But ultimately, yes, it does need to be done at scale of course but a lot of it is about money. I think we worked out, colleagues in the Climate Action Service have worked it out. It's a phenomenal amount of money. I've forgotten it now, hundreds of millions if not billions. Most of emissions come from existing stock, commercial and residential. The new stock is a small addition. It's a lot of money so we are taking those opportunities as a Council to bid for funding elsewhere, etc. I think that will continue in the future. I understand there's a lot of difficulties in all this. Moving from the world of theory into the world of practice, in my ward on the Andover Estate, you'll probably be aware, and also the Gerderson Estate, the Council committed to spending quite a bit of money on works through remedy like damp and mould that comes out of damp. Part of that on the Andover, I know, is about doing external works to stop water ingress and cold bridging on patios and stuff but also doing internal works to warm up the surfaces inside. Now, that's going to be done in the internal works phase of the cyclical works. But the point is that when these contractors come on to those estates, we spend an awful lot of money in them doing works and wouldn't that be a good opportunity to maybe factor in some other works to reduce costs. I understand you've got to get the money to do it but I'm just wondering whether that's being properly considered. All I was going to say is that we do all, in terms of Council services, work very closely together on all of these things and where there are opportunities. I can't comment on specific cases, I haven't got enough detail but I think we certainly are talking to each other all the time, Matt West's theme and everybody else about all of these things. And of course it would be a good opportunity for one contractor, if they're doing one thing, to do the same thing, more deeper interventions at the same time where possible but it may not always be possible but we certainly are looking at all of that. Councilor Jeeves? Because my questions were kind of following on and in the same vein as Councillor Heather and it's around, in my patch there's a lot of Victorian terraced housing which is pretty useless and if you've ever lived in it, in the winter it's freezing cold, the only way you can warm it up is with a gas boiler etc and nothing else is going to work. So I don't know how you might put in advice for people living in those, and it's full of, Canterbury's full of it and Islington's full of these Victorian terraced houses which are bloody useless and one day I think they're going to be pulled down really and rebuilt because if you want to not use gas that's the only answer. But the trouble with them is that it's all in a conservation area so how are you going to match this up to tell people about the conservation stuff like you can't put double glazing on your windows if any of that lightness has possibly changed because that's one thing. And then how, what advice are you going to give about insulating inside because you can't really put cladding on old buildings and then when you mention cladding then a lot of residents start going and they get rather worried and afraid about fire risk and then are you going to talk about fire risk stuff to how you insulate your homes. Some people have asked us, some residents have asked me about the little balls that have been, little polystyrene things that are put inside, what do you call that, double wall thing, cavity wall insulation and people have said is that okay or is that a fire risk because they've asked questions on that really. So I'm concerned about how you deal with the conservation thing. To me it's a massive job all this. You need a great big book to advise people. Yes, the SBD and particularly the handbook will look at historic buildings as well, the typologies of which we have a lot in the borough and recommend measures that are likely to get planning permission. We have listed buildings where controls are more rigorous, all buildings and conservation areas where controls are not as rigorous but obviously still quite significant so the idea is to resolve some of those issues internally, be working with our own colleagues, conservation design colleagues to arrive at that and then kind of proactively say instead of saying no this is going to be an acceptable in conservation terms to say yes provided that you do X, Y, Z. And the other thing that we're doing is we're looking at designating a new conservation area, a small conservation area in mild May with a view to then almost have examples of how these measures can be introduced. So the measures that the SBD is talking about, various interventions, windows, solar panels, et cetera, how that can actually work in practice in this particular new small conservation area so there will be guidance around that. So we want to proactively try and resolve those concerns so there is more certainty that some of these interventions will be acceptable including from the conservation design perspective. Definitely the ambition is to move away from gas boilers and the expectation is that air source heat pumps and solar PV will be good options for many, many buildings within conservation areas. But obviously in order to perform satisfactorily they need a certain level of thermal efficiency so yes that is the sort of ambition and as you rightly say it's not an easy task but we think it's really important and we're recognising it. Okay I can see people wanting to come in again and Council Champion wants to come in so what I'll do is I'll take a few extra points and then I'll ask a few myself so Council Champion. Just coming back on a few points I think it's estimated about £1.5 billion that we need to retrofit our own properties. They are absolutely looking at how you do as part of this cyclical works. That's what Matt West's team is doing at the moment and how you fit them together. So there are two issues as Flora said, at the moment electricity prices are linked to gas which means that if you are using electric then you have to really have insulation in your homes. Now we know that from a comfort point of view that's a good thing anyway but if electricity and gas were decoupled then that does change some of the calculations because what we don't want to do is change something that then makes it so unaffordable for residents to be able to pay their bills. At the moment that's a bit of a problem for us because unless you retrofit then it's going to be too expensive even if it was a reasonably comfortable property. If the price of electricity comes down then that's a different calculation. We haven't shown our hands up and said look it's all too difficult. We are looking at different models and we recently put a bid in to 3CI who are looking at whether you can find different models of funding retrofit and we did a bid with London Met and the Arsenal around that area. So taking into account the harvest estate as well to see whether we can find a way of financing it. It's kind of more of a concept stage really at the moment but as I say we are looking at everything we can possibly do to do that. So Bevancourt, I think I mentioned it before Council, Bevancourt is a prime example of really innovative thinking around how you retrofit. In this case it's a Grade 2 listed building I think. But it's also coming back to what Flora and Suki were talking about I think we need to not underestimate what we are actually asking them to do because this is a very difficult piece of work because when they are putting it together they have got to be absolutely clear that what we are telling people to do is not going to make the situation worse so it's very very technical. And I think because they are prepared to do this because actually the way we are looking at net zero carbon and how we take it forward seriously involves us actually thinking in different ways than perhaps we have before. But as I say this is a very technical piece of work, very grateful to Flora for taking it on because it's not easy. So I'm going to ask you to be brief and take Councillor Boswell-McQuarrie, Councillor Hayes and then I'll sum up. Thanks Chair and thank you Councillor Arena for bringing that point in because that was actually going to be my question to the team is how much work has been done with the housing team because I think that's going to be really important going forward. And I remember off your slides reading about the windows and doors and fittings like that and I'm just thinking the data is already there so we do know what kind of work. So if you look at the Barnhill Ward you have like we've got communal heating for example. I'm not saying that but obviously do your data analysis and obviously always go out to consultations. I know there's been a bit of teasing issues there but I'm just wondering how much, I think we're kind of almost there as a borough so not that I'm trying to rush you but I'm just thinking how much more can you bring back to us so that we can also be able to feed back to our residents to reassure them. Because one thing I've kind of found also in the Highbury Ward which is a different estate is that you have utility companies asking people to exchange their old say tanks whatever it has, boilers. And you have to ask the council to get the source to this particular part of the building because they can't just access through your home. And I'm not sure if people actually even know that and also I've heard through residents coming to me that actually it's cost them more so there is that kind of thing where utility bills are costing our residents a bit more in terms of when they're heating their homes. As opposed to if they were in the communal areas like what we're providing in Barnhill then there'll be, I guess, a win win if that makes sense. I just thought we need to, like you're saying, educate people more about the wins of this if that makes sense. I'm just getting confused because you just looked at me and I don't understand. Thank you. Okay, Councilor Hayes if you ask yours and then I'll ask the officers to reply. Thank you very much. Yeah, I had a question about what role you thought if any there might be for sort of local energy networks and how we might encourage maybe third sector institutions as well as residents to engage. And it did seem to me like as someone whose boiler's just packed up, I was just thinking that there is a need probably for a bit of hand holding for quite a lot of individuals. Whether or not we think there might be third sector organizations who might be able to tap into other sources of funding, who might provide some of that one to one or, you know, is it worth my while getting my boiler repaired or should I be looking at something entirely different? How would I even think about doing that and whether you're aware of that happening. Thank you. I'll start and Flora can chip in. On the energy networks, this is the thing that's coming. The question is when exactly. So there's been quite a lot of work done across London in terms of designating energy networks, different zones. So that work has been going on for a long time already and that is coming. The question is on timing and of course the funding. It will get rolled out by the third sector. There will be various companies that can enter that market. Private companies, third sector companies, in some cases, cancels if they are prepared to. I think the difficulty at the moment is this kind of transitional period which will take perhaps several years. So the issue is that my boiler packs up. Do I have to replace it now because the network is not coming to my area for some time? And it's almost like how do you time that? So there will be some perhaps tricky transitional period which in some cases might get tricky but we kind of know what's on the horizon generally speaking. It's just that the timing will take and it's not, it's horses for courses. These networks will not always be possible for everybody initially but all the time they will be. So it's kind of location specific and some local areas already have a network etc. So eventually at some point in the future most of London will be covered by heat networks. It's just the timing is tricky. Yeah, I'd echo everything said there and I think it's worthwhile sort of zooming out a little and remembering that our planning policies within the local plan are demanding on this factor. In the same way that they are on other sort of fabric efficiency requirements. Yeah, it's just a time question and as Sakipa says this document here really we're looking for the transitional sort of before we get to energy, distributed energy networks and heat networks. And I cannot wait for that moment but we need to solve the problem at hand and I'd speak to Councillor Basman-Quashie's point about really challenging contexts for new systems. And I know it sounds to me it's likely that some of your constituents have come to you with issues around heat networks and all of the air source heat pumps and all of the actual additional considerations that need to be had when you're installing like heat emitters and hot water tanks. And if you have a communal system, how to sort of, how to cope with that. There's also considerations about air source heat pumps in flats, which are really challenging if you don't have outdoor areas. So I'd just like to acknowledge that we're fully aware and thinking about these issues and doing our best to sort of, yeah, do our best to bring things forward and move things along. Thank you. So a couple of us on this committee are on the planning committee and we know how tough the local plan is and we know there's an SPD on the environment in existence. And will this SPD on the environment net zero, will that be replacing or will it be an addition to the current SPD on the environment? And the thing I know, so the guidebook is dealing with residential properties. Obviously you can't enforce on those, but where we can enforce is on new developments. And as I said, we have tough issues. We insist on green roofs, solar panels and as close to zero carbon as possible. But there's certain issues that are never tackled and one is the reuse of water. We're quite good on having blue tanks and getting, collecting water and suds, you know, stopping. We need to really work on protecting water, collecting water and reusing water. And this is where we cannot, you know, I would like to see that in the SPD so that new developments are forced to use grey water and that we start to really educate people on not using clean water in toilets and for example, you know, that is a massive, look at the heat today, 28 degrees, you know, we need to really start protecting our water and being careful about when we use clean water. And so I really think this is very timely that you've come to this committee tonight and that we can still make an input into the SPD and that, you know, it's still open to consultation. It's very, really, really welcome. We really welcome all the work you're doing and I'm just going to ask members of the public now if they want to come in. Do you want me to answer the question about the SPD? Just very quickly, the SPD on environment which you referred to is from 2016. A lot of that content has already been replaced by the local plan because, you know, this is almost eight, ten years ago. So it's still on the Council's website and it's still extant because there are elements in it that are still in use but most of it has been replaced by the local plan policies which are now much, much further, go much further than the SPD from eight, ten years ago. So yes, most of it will disappear once we have this SPD. So where there are gaps, we can just replace with additional guidance and advice in this SPD and that will eventually go, that SPD. It's almost, most of it has been replaced. And then on the use of water, there's already quite strong policies in the local plan and then this SPD can add to that. Absolutely, we have, it's probably the most complex policy that we have in the planet. There's seventeen parts to it and yeah, it's really useful to hear from your perspective that harvesting, rainwater harvesting and use of grey water is really important and we can make sure that that's reflected. That's really good news, thank you very much. So I'm just going to go to members of the public if anyone wants to ask a question of the committee or the officers. If you say your name and then ask your question, please. Hi, my name's Callum. I have a simple question. I guess my question's in regards to the suppliers. I assume that they will be coming from private sectors or suppliers and I guess I wanted to ask if there was any problems that people who were going to do these changes were, like in their houses. How do you hold the private sectors who are supplying this accountable for any issues? Thank you, it's a very, very good question and we've touched upon that earlier. I think most of the suppliers will probably come from the private sector and there's nothing stopping the voluntary sector or the council doing some of that work. But as we were saying previously, we can't guarantee the quality of that work as a council, they operate within the market. But if there is some kind of national quality assurance scheme where they can register with them, then I suppose that would be one thing that could help with that. Thank you for your question. Any other members want to ask a question now? Okay, well thank you very much for coming and so I guess it would be really good if you could come back to the committee when we have the final document. That would be really good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so now we're moving on to the selection of the scrutiny topic for 2324. And so we circulated a document suggesting that we do the next scrutiny on greening and cleaning the streets. And the reason is that we have, if you look at this document that was circulated earlier today, should I give the committee time to read it? Have you read it or would you like a bit of time to read that? Yeah? Okay, should we take five minutes to read it? Yeah? We might not need five minutes, not that long. I'll take comments and suggestions. I'll just add, I did write to the committee asking for suggestions and I had replies from Councillor Russell and Councillor Jeeps and both those replies seem to tie in with this idea of cleaner, greener streets. Councillor Russell was suggesting that we get TFL in to talk about what they've learned about difficulty from the different designs to best support disabled people, especially people who work with a white cane. And to look at the, well also you added something about the council's work to involve private sector partners in climate-related investment, e.g. the Arsenal net zero neighbourhood, and that's a separate item, exactly. So your first bit ties in with the streets, I think. And in terms of the disability piece, it was about the bus stop bypass designs because they obviously seem to be trialling different designs with bus stop shelter against the wall or on an island and whether you have raised the bike lane going past at a raised level or down or with bumps. So it's like they seem to have, in the CS50, they seem to have tried lots of different designs and so I just thought it might be interesting for us to learn what they learn from that and whether there's anything that comes out of it. And Councillor Jeeps was on a similar thought as well, which was looking at protecting and improving pedestrian spaces and stopping the deterioration of pavements for pedestrians and she makes the point about floating bus stops interfering with pedestrian space. So I think that all ties in with this greener, cleaner, maybe we could say safer streets and then, could we agree that then? Just take Councillor Heather and I'll take Councillor Haynes and I'll take Councillor Russell. Yeah, I mean it's a substitution, sort of an accident really. I've come as the recycling champion to these meetings but anyway, I am on the committee as a sub but I haven't seen this before but I quite like the idea of this. I mean there's a lot of things that we're talking about here that we've already been doing and I think it's working quite well with greening and we can talk about pocket parks here. One sort of question is, talks about new highways greening and I just wonder what exactly that means. To me it means the roads, it doesn't mean all roads or whatever, just interested in that. The other thing is that I happened to bang a drum about one of the last issues which is about cleansing or lack of it all. There's a whole bit about people that dump litter and changing behaviours and stuff and I've always said, I mean you need, the area where I live, I'll use that area because I know and I actually go out, I've actually got a litter picker, I got her from McDonalds and went out and did litter picking with McDonalds and got a litter. So when I come home I often go out and pick a whole bag of litter up. So I live near the town centre, I live quite near to the thing. The reason it's there is because every day people go to the supermarket, they buy a meal deal, they come back to their car, they eat it and they just dump it out the door. So for years it's always the same things and the bottles are always compressed over because they've obviously driven over and go out. So honestly every day you come back, I will go out and do it one day and I'll come back the next day and normally at the mouth of the street, nearest the cupboard market, it will all be there again. So I took to doing this thing as a way of not getting too mad about it but what it led me to do is when I was the Mayor, I came up with this idea of encouraging civic pride. What it means is it means it's going beyond like finding people and stuff, it's like saying this is our community, we want our community looked after and we want it looked after everywhere. And by the way, if you come to Islay and a lot of these people are people who come in cars that I'm talking about because they park down our streets, they haven't got a problem with that. We need to be getting it out that when you come here you don't do stuff like that and we need to be a bit upfront about it as well. So I'm quite pleased about the talking about enforcement and changing behaviours but we need to go beyond and we need to say to people who are in the community and businesses that you've got to play a part in it. You've got to play a part in that as well and work with them to do that. So I really do like this idea for scrutiny, thank you. Thanks for that and so it was Councillor Hayes next, was it Councillor? Thank you very much. I had contacted you but actually some of what I'd suggested was around green space and disability so I appreciate this does actually bring together a number of thoughts. I just had a couple of points in relation to this document. So it is fascinating that 300 locations for pocket parts have already been identified and that does seem a lot in a small area so it does feel like there is quite a lot to consider. And I wonder whether we could include, I don't know whether this document will inform, I've forgotten the technical term for the scrutiny, yes that's it. That's the one, thank you Chair. I wonder if we might explicitly include something on disability because I think that is a concern that a number of people around the table have. And also this document refers to both, so it's on page one in the last paragraph, the third line, refers to both boroughs but obviously this relates to Islington and we should be clear that we're not looking at what's going on elsewhere. But I also support looking at Cleanliness and how intelligence led might bring benefits to people. Certainly I was somewhere earlier in the week and somebody said oh I live in South London, I've come up to help with something. How clean is Islington? It's so clean. Which was really nice to hear and I have heard that from other people and we want to make sure that we maintain that and if anything improve it. But I think it is an issue a lot of residents are also concerned about. Thank you. I'll go to Councillor Russell, then Councillor Weeks and then Councillor Bosch-McCarthy. Yeah, I think as we develop the SID we just need to be really clear what kind of questions we're asking and because this document is very much what the council is doing and it kind of says what's coming up in terms of council activity. I think the piece about disabled people and the public realm is really important and I think that's something that just needs to be kind of threaded through it all. But also I was thinking about council staff and how we're making changes to our streets. I was talking to someone, we were doing one of our estate walkabouts with someone who's involved in the kind of looking after the green spaces on estates and I was surprised they'd come in a van because I thought that the council has lots of e-bikes and e-cargo bikes so that people can work using those. And it turned out there were various reasons why that wasn't suitable and one of them was that the cargo bikes get stolen. And I just sort of thought we're making all the changes to our streets, we are expecting residents to adapt behaviour and to change the way they get around and we really need to be leading the way with staff. And I just think it's really important that we hear from staff what their views are about the impact of these kind of changes and how the cargo bikes, the e-cargo bikes and things are working. And yeah, just sort of get a sense of how we're leading the way as a borough and showing through the way we get around as council staff, kind of lead the way in terms of making the changes that are needed in terms of transport. So I just thought that it just sort of felt like that would be an interesting element in this. Thank you, just a small point to say I agree with this topic as a sort of scrutiny topic but for me what stood out was just the intelligent led street cleaning and I think it would be good to see if the council could utilise using maybe artificial intelligence if it wants to be intelligent led and how that could be used to sort of progress this topic. Thanks chair and Michael, everyone else has said as well, I just wanted to push us a little bit more or challenge us a bit more on animal faeces. So I know in some wards, just saying some dog pests, it's not great especially when the heat comes about and it's not great for school children and those with hidden disabilities that don't often see when this mess is. I've spoken to Councillor Rowena already about this so I know her team's on to it but I also want to push us a little bit more on car ignitions. I know we can't police it, I've already spoken to Councillor Champion again about this but I wanted to raise it as this is the committee to kind of put these points across because constituents do speak to me, especially where we've got 20 miles per hour streets, which Councillor Russell told me about a long time ago that it wasn't actually our pledge but it was a former Green person. It was, it was Katie Dawson, give her the credit. But I think just moving on from there, we've done really well to be a borough that's producing really good clean streets and safe as well, our play streets, I kind of want to push us as well a little bit more. And I don't know if we can do this but have some sort of plaques because I think residents don't know that we're doing so amazing as a council, a labour-run council. It would be great to have some plaques that kind of show this and give the team some kudos and also a council who's leading on this. And I think Hackney has something similar where they've got like a little pamphlet or like a little walk and this would be really great for like kids, you know, colleges or you know, small children. When they're walking around locally just to see this amazing clean streets and where to walk, where it's safe and things like that. So just if this could be added somewhere, please. Thank you. Okay, so I think we agreed on greener, cleaner, safer streets. Oh, you want to add something? No, I just want to raise one other issue. Caroline mentioned about, first of all, about disability and I agree with you about that and actually for that. I just wondered whether we ought to say that if we're talking about safer, safer cycling because there's good work being done on cycling, cycle lanes. But unfortunately, again, there are an element that abuse it and ride the wrong way down the cycle lanes and whatever. But wider than that, I mean, again, last year when I was the mayor, I went on a, Valerie was there, it was at your daughter's school. I went to a cyclability event where they were teaching like young children how to, you know, re-ride a bicycle. And so it could include that as well, yeah. We actually did cover cycling on the streets in our last scrutiny and there's a recommendation that came out of that. So we'll be looking at that. Okay, so we agreed on greener, cleaner, safer streets and Emma will draw up a screen initiation document to the September meeting. We'll have a further discussion on that then and then we could talk about who would be witnesses and we can think about that before the September meeting. So we agreed on that, yeah? All agreed? That's lovely, thank you for that. And so now the scrutiny report on active travel which was, oh yeah, sorry, go ahead. The chair of the policy committee, whatever it's called now, he mentioned about, we got an email about Thames Water and about that. Well I think that this committee should say that, maybe that should be looked at through the big committee called whatever it is now, policy committee. I'm just going to move on to that after this. It's really good that we've agreed our topic for next year, we're really pleased with that. I was just going to say about the scrutiny report on active travel, last year's scrutiny, we agreed the draft of that at the last meeting in April and we'll be agreeing the final document in September, the September meeting and then it will go to the executive in September. So now I'm just going to move on, as you said, Councillor Jeeps, to the offer by Councillor Wayne to look to deal with Thames Water. We could have a one-off report here at this committee because we can have a scrutiny, a main scrutiny, we can have a couple of one-off reports and we can have a task and finish. If the committee wanted to we could get Thames Water to come to this committee for a one-off report where we ask them to answer the questions that were asked in 2022 and we could do that as well as give the main body of the issue to the Corporate Resources Committee. So, Councillor Jeeps, you think it should all go to that committee? Yeah, I think there should be a main review of it at the main committee but your comment about Thames Water reporting here for a one-off is a really good one and I'd like to ask questions around the quality of water and the financing of Thames Water and whether there, because there's reports, or possible reports, that the quality of the water that has been produced in Becton etcetera is deteriorating because they're running out of money so I'd like to really question them and say look I don't want our water quality to deteriorate on what you're doing about it and etcetera. That's kind of, around that area rather than focusing on burst water mains and things like that which the main committee could do. Because I don't think that the policy committee will focus so much on water quality whereas here as the Environment Committee I think we could do. Okay, thanks for that, that's very good. So, Councillor Heather. Yeah, well as you know I emailed you about this with all the reports about Thames Water and about, you know, even though they're in dire financial straits they're still like paying out big dividends to shareholders and not shareholders and God knows who, whatever, you know, we kind of wrote. The other day there was some implication that they're, because they've got like certain levels of bad debt, you know, they've got some of their debt since. Trash debt. Yeah, trash debt, like they're probably breaking their regulatory things anyway. But, so the thing about me is I do care about the quality of the water but I also care about the public safety. So Angel, Sobell, Seven Sisters Road which went into Hackney, I mean at least the first two there were, in the Angel there was definitely like a severe threat to life there, you know. And then the other thing of course is that it completely got washed away, Cowan and Patidge and whatever. The whole thing creates an enormous like problem in our area. So we need to get, I believe as Councillors and this was the tone of my email was that we need to be seen as Councillors to be calling them in again. To get some assurance from them that they've got a maintenance plan and a funding, an investment model that is up to the job for replacing the mains and whatever they need to, the big mains and whatever they need to and then they're testing them regularly and all the rest of it. For those of you that didn't go to those meetings I went to there was an enormous amount of detail. So would you agree with Councillor Jeeps that we have a one-off and that the corporate... I don't really mind, I mean I know that the Policy and Performance did it before and they did it on the Angel but they also did it on the Sobell as well, not so much on the Seven Sisters one. So I haven't got any problem with corporate resources doing it but Claire May, Councillor Jeeps may be right and maybe they won't focus so much on the quality of the water, rather the quality of the infrastructure. I've got Councillor Champion asking to come in and Councillor Russell, so Councillor Champion. There's quite a lot to unpick and I know that I say Councillor Wayne has been in touch with you, hasn't he, about who best to do it. Is it worth us taking it away and perhaps trying to unpick where we are and then come back with a proposal at the next meeting because I think we kind of need to work out what we can influence and what we can do. That's a good suggestion. Councillor Russell. That was very much what I was going to say. I mean I think when we did the Policy and Performance scrutiny on Thames Water, the original one with Angel and that terrible flooding and the kind of the way it just went garden wall after garden wall after garden wall collapsing and the basements filling up with water in a way that was incredibly dangerous. And the whole piece around compensation to residents was appallingly carried out and they really had to be pushed to do the right thing. I get the impression that they're a bit more contrite now and I mean like we've got a load of massive water main work going on in Highbury just now with buses diverted and roads closed and whatever. Are there issues where council officers are having trouble with working with Thames Water? Are there things that we should be looking at because actually they're not going well in practical terms in terms of the work they're doing to upgrade the water mains which are clearly very out of date and need upgrading urgently? Or actually are the council officers feeling like they've got quite a productive relationship at the moment things are sort of going okay and in which case having Thames Water in for a kind of a finger-wagging type session sort of seems a bit weird. I think the piece about I mean it was really worrying when we heard about you know the water in the southwest that was undrinkable and people being made very very unwell by it. I mean imagine something like that happening in London it could be absolutely devastating from a public health perspective so it could be very interesting to have people in from Thames Water to talk us through what they're doing to maintain the quality of the water and to protect Londoners health that could be interesting but I think taking it away, scoping it out, seeing what goes to come with a proposal and exactly what the questions are that we're trying to get to the bottom of and is there something that council officers are finding that they've got a difficulty with and therefore us providing some scrutiny might be constructive and helpful? Thanks a lot. I think that we're fairly agreed about getting the bulk of the issue to the corporate resources committee but we take the quality of water and other questions on that in this committee. Can we agree that? So I'll write to the chair and let the chair know what we've said about that. Really appreciate that. So that will come back to September's meeting. So we have a one-off report on Thames Water and we've got the SPD coming back on the environment and so now we're really, we did have task and finish group at the last scrutiny. I don't know if anyone's got a topic they'd like to look at there. We have leisure on our remit and we have got leisure on the work plan at the very end of the work plan year. I don't know if we want to, if anyone wants to maybe take that up as a topic or any other topic that you've got in mind. I'd have thought we absolutely, if we're the committee where leisure sits then absolutely we should be looking at how GLL are delivering and I would say they definitely need some scrutiny. I'm sure residents have got views about how easy is it to book sessions, how affordable is it, what kind of service are they providing. It just sort of feels like if we're the only committee that looks at leisure then we should definitely do a session on that. It is in the work programme at the very end so we should maybe bring it forward a little bit and then we can scrutinise it a little bit more. Councillor Bosch. Thanks chair. I love being in this group now, it's really nice. I kind of think it's at the end but I think actually it should come a little bit forward only because I know we are over the pandemic but I just still feel we're not, you know, people like being healthy and trying to get out and being active. I think there has been a lot of also we call it connectivity, poverty where people don't often access being able to, what's the word, book sessions. So actually I think it should actually come a little bit more than later on because just seeing the recovery of COVID and if people are still active as before. Should we have a one off report on leisure earlier on in the year and then we can have people, witnesses maybe come in on that as well. Councillor Hayes. Councillor Weeks. Thank you and I definitely support Councillor Russell's suggestion but I think in addition to GLL it would be useful to look, I think there's some interesting work happening around play zones in the borough and use of our green spaces. Particularly by groups who may not be traditional sports players if you like. And it would tie in I think quite well with our focus on disability around safer streets. So if we could also look at other work that's happening to encourage and support activity by groups who may find it harder. Thank you. Councillor Weeks. Thank you. I don't disagree with my colleagues. I'm with Councillor Russell and Councillor Hayes but I would like to maybe look at the growth of the e-bikes in the borough because only this weekend I was reading that sort of forest. Because first came to Islington before they came to anywhere else. I think it would be good to have a deep dive into the growth of those and get residents thoughts and organisations thoughts on those and also look at the accessibility and sort of the hazards they caused to residents with white canes as well. Do you think that deep dive could be as a task and finish group? That tends to be outside. It's like a more informal way of doing it so I don't know if it's satisfactory enough. Because there's a piece of work going on between TfL and London Councils on dockless hire bikes and yeah it's probably best if Rowena comes in. Yeah, Councillor Champion. Would it be helpful as first instance to get the team managing it to explain what we're trying to do and how we're going to roll it out so they can come give you a report and then you can ask questions and then after that if you think it's worthwhile to do it, would that be helpful? They are doing a lot of work in this space. It's like another one off report. Yeah, for me I think it would be good to have a report and then we have the opportunity to ask questions but I think we may want to do it more informally because of the nature and the opinions around the area but I'd be happy to receive a report as other members and then we can ask questions. Should we try and have that in September? What's the timing because there was a briefing for all Councillors just last week with TfL and London Councils who are trying to come up with a way of actually regulating the companies that leave these dockless bikes everywhere. The dockless bike companies can do what they like and we were told they take whole cities to court if they try and curb their activities so they're quite powerful. So it seems like the main game in town in terms of trying to get some control over them is this TfL London Councils bid to try and do something across London but I think if we had an update on it I think that would be really helpful. Thanks Councillor, I agree. So we'll take up Councillor Champion's suggestion and we'll try and get them in September or if not September, October the next meeting. I was going to say September as well but not just that, is it possible to get any residents engagement as well by then or not, please? I think we're just going to go for this report first and then we're going to decide where we take it further as a task and finish group. Is that ok? Thanks, thank you very much. So we've got three one-off reports and you're going to - does that get covered under - recycling rates get covered under the NLWA, we've got them coming haven't we? Can we have four one-off reports can we? Ok so Emma's reminded me about the one-off report on recycling rates so we've asked for already. In November, yeah. There's quite a lot of work there we've come up with. So we're going to move on to the work programme which we've added to and then we've added one-off reports to that now. So can we agree the proposed work plan for 24/25? Oh Councillor Heather, go ahead. Yeah I did inform the chair before I came to the meeting because as mentioned earlier, I came to the meeting as a Councillor but I was the recycling champion of his new council but then got drafted onto the committee because I'm a sub so I had intended to say this. So in doing that role I was wondering how to do it and one of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to endeavour to attend as many of these meetings as I can and be a sort of a questioner about recycling if you like. I'm not going to go out and labour it too much. I've looked through the work plan. There are lots of opportunities to do that. There's all sorts of things. North London Wastes will follow you involved. They've got the Executive Members Annual Report or whatever so there's plenty of scope for me doing that. The idea generally would be, because I'm the champion and I see them doing this I'd be hard for residents isn't it and it's looking at whether the recycling rate has improved, what is the rate, what more could the council do, how can we work with the North London Wastes to worry, how can we engage the residents more and I know all those things have been taken into consideration. That's just a general sort of idea what to do. So I just want to let you know that's one of the things I intend to do and I will be formulating what other things I do. I know that for example North London Wastes Authority are running a number of events and one of the events is Raising the Wellness of Children, the NOE program. So they're going to be doing it out of one of the schools in Marwolda Hamler School and it's about waste prevention outreach programs, it's about pupil education and waste management and all sorts of other stuff like that so that's good as well. So I just thought I'd update you about what my intention is there and the other thing is I will work closely with other councillors, with Councillor Rowan as champion and Councillor Tricia Clark as chair of this committee on what I do. Thank you very much. Councillor Champion can you comment? I think if you haven't already it's really worth talking to Matthew Homer and Jean Hughes about how we're engaging with communities because there's a lot of work going on in that space as well. I know Claire Jeeps, part of the Recycling Champions scheme as well gets updated on that so I think that's a really interesting piece of work. We don't necessarily always see directly here. I think we want to invite Councillor Matthew Homer to the committee in September. September he's coming, great. So thank you very much everyone for all your input. Can I just ask that you send in any ideas for witnesses to Emma and me before the September meeting so that can be included in the SID? It's the 3rd September. Have a look at the work plan. We've got Matthew Homer, is he on the work plan? North London Waste Authority in September and we're going to be looking at our scrutiny initiation documents and finalising that and adding witnesses so it would be really good to have suggestions before then. Do you want people on circular economy and what exactly, we're looking at their strategy which I think covers circular economy doesn't it? Do we want speakers on that? They're coming to speak about the North London Waste Authority strategy because they were supposed to come previously but their work was delayed so they're not coming in September but our committee doesn't cover circular economy or anything like that anymore so we would focus more on just the environmental side. If the North London Waste Authority comes under our remit then their strategy definitely covers the circular economy so are you saying that goes to a different committee on the council or that we would cover it here as we cover the North London Waste Authority? Obviously it's a bit more tricky now because our remit has changed. You can ask your questions on that but if there were to be a deeper look into the circular economy side of things I would suggest they now go to the committee that covers that as well which I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head. It's the corporate resources so we can definitely ask them about that. That's all part of the environment as well. If they've got their draft strategy could that be circulated in really good time because when things arrive on the day it's actually really hard to read stuff if you're at work and to be prepared for the meeting so something like this draft strategy we could presumably take it on our summer holidays with us and read it. We can ask them to do that. Thanks very much. I really appreciate everyone's input tonight. It's really good. The other point I think is important is about the SPD that we can still input, they're open to our suggestions and ideas so if you've got any we can actually email Sakiba with any thoughts you have as well.

• Okay, thank you very much.
• Excellent.