Transcript

Okay, welcome to the June meeting of the London Borough of Hammerspeth and Pullams cabinet. My name is Stephen Cowan, I'm the leader of the borough. Before I start, I have a few housekeeping points. This meeting is being live streamed, so if you take part in it, you are consenting to be filmed. If fire alarms run, if a fire alarm sounds, then you must exit via the emergency exits and will be advised to do so by the relevant people. And there you go. I'm going to be very quickly on to introductions for the cabinet team, and I'm going to start on my left with, over here Sharon. Councillor Sharon Holder, cabinet member for public realm. Councillor Wesley Harcourt, cabinet member for climate change and ecology. You always look surprised when it comes to you. Good evening Councillor Alex Anderson, Children and Education. Good evening Councillor Bora Quang, cabinet member for civic renewal. Good evening Councillor Andrew Jones, cabinet member for the economy. Hello, Councillor Francis Ume, cabinet member for housing and homelessness. Good evening, Councillor Rebecca Harvey, cabinet member for social inclusion and community safety. Good evening Councillor Rowan Rhee, cabinet member for finance and reform. We have Sharon Lee here, our fantastic chief executive and John Shorland our assistant director of legal services so welcome. I can see other offices in attendance so thank you. And we also have a member of the opposition here, Councillor Jonny Alford, welcome. Okay, we're going to move to item number one of the cabinet papers, and I'm going to ask a very simple question, are the minutes agreed? Agreed. Great, thank you. Are there any apologies for absence I know Councillor Ben Coleman is not here. Right, that's the only one. Are there any declarations of interest. Nope. Right, in that case we move very quickly on to item for the hate crime strategy for 2024 to 2028, and I'll pass over to my colleague, Councillor Harvey who will run us through it. Hello. The hate crime strategy for 2024 to 2028 outlines Hammersmith & Fulham Council's commitment to tackling hate crime and hate incidents in the borough is being developed in collaboration with key partners, including the Community Safety Partnership Board, and local organisations and residents. It aims to foster an environment free from prejudice and inclusive of all residents and visitors to Hammersmith & Fulham, irrespective of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. The strategy has four main objectives. These are to prevent hate crime and increase community cohesion, increase trust and confidence to encourage reporting of hate crimes and hate incidents, provide effective support to those affected by hate crimes, and work with partners to take coordinated action against perpetrators. Our hate crime strategy builds on the work of the Equalities Plan by tackling the issues of hate crime. This strategy also feeds into the wider strategies of tackling crime and violence against women and girls. Our strategy has developed a hate crime action plan that will be monitored by our hate crimes steering group, a subgroup of the Community Safety Partnership Board. The recent rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic offences in London since the start of conflict in the Middle East highlights the need for greater community cohesion and support for victims and witnesses of hate crime. Between 2023 and 2024, there's been 664 hate crimes, a 66% increase on last year's figures which shows the need for the strategy. The recommendation is for the Cabinet to approve the contents publication of Hammersmith and Fulham's hate crime strategy for 2024 to 2028. There we are. Are there any questions on this item please from the Cabinet? Any issues you'd like to raise? Anything for the opposition? In which case I would say that we live, as we have done for many years now, in extremely troubling times with hate crime being super fuelled by all sorts of different forces including popularism and the internet and many different factors and anyone in public life has a duty to face it down and to live up to the liberal democratic ideals that were set out over successive generations. So I'm really glad that we've got this and I look forward to seeing it implemented. Can I ask if this is agreed? Thank you. In that case we then move on to fixed penalty notices to be issued by the law enforcement team and again that's with you, Councillor Harvey. This report introduces amendments to the fixed penalty notice charges to be issued by the law enforcement team. In the Cabinet report on the 4th December 2017, the Council set picks the fixed penalty notices charges for littering and fly tipping offences. This report proposes some minor amendments to those introducing a fixed penalty notice charge for household waste duty of care offences and also slight increase in fixed penalty notices. The recommendations are that the existing fixed penalty notice charge for the events of leaving litter under section 88 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is increased from £80 to the maximum permitted charge of £150. It also recommends that the existing fixed penalty notice charge for waste deposit offences, fly tipping, involving larger deposits of waste and litter, for example two bags and above, under section 33, set A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is increased from £200 to maximum of £1000. The Council also should introduce a new fixed penalty charge for breaches of the household waste duty of care under section 34 to A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 set out £400, and that these changes should be introduced with the effect from the 1st July 2024. These amendments are important as fixed penalty notices have not increased since 2017. They act as a deterrent and educate people not to fly tip and create a mess. They prevent pollution and harm, prevent firming infestations and it helps the environment. Any questions on this? Councillor Alford? Good point. I have no problem, basically with what you're saying, but unfortunately, and I have to be thinking the best way to put this tactfully, is that sometimes our refuse crews are less than effective. I have come back quite recently, on about three occasions, to find my front garden festooned with my refuse, which has just seemed to have been emptied out by them. I don't really want to get a fixed penalty and I don't want any of my residents to get a fixed penalty, you know, because of something that hasn't been caused by a resident but I regretfully has been caused by the failure of our operatives. Thank you for raising that. I think that's a useful point. Can we, I mean I could give a view on it but before we do that, is there an officer who would like to respond? Brandi, would you like to take? Everything of mine is always in black bags so they managed to break the black bags and deposit it. Yes. What I would say is I too have been frustrated when I've seen this. It happens less now than it used to happen. But throughout both the time that we've been a Councillor, we will have seen refuse collection sometimes dropping rubbish into the public highway or into a garden and then leaving it there. You know, I think there were significant improvements made by the former contractor, CERCO. It's got a lot better with Veolia, I think, since they've come in. What will make a significant change is the new refuse collection system. In fact, I was in Paris at the weekend for my birthday, and I noticed they have that system there, and the streets are spotless all over the country. What will happen is people will not use plastic bags but will be able to put the rubbish directly into even recycling bins, food waste bins, or indeed to refuse bins. And they will then get hoisted, be led gently, and then hoisted onto the back of the truck, which will limit the amount of damage to refuse collectors themselves who suffer a variety of injuries because all sorts of things getting put into black plastic bags. But it will also limit the amount of refuse as bags split, or if bags are left out as foxes attack them. And so far where we've implemented the new refuse system, we've noticed significant increases in the cleanliness of streets and the fall in the number of these things happening. Now I appreciate this is slightly off point, because you're asking about what happens if someone is fined and I'm always aware that a bureaucracy can sometimes be extremely bureaucratic. So at that point, I will ask our Director or Strategic Director to provide a response to and tell us how he can assure us that there will not be any injustices. Yeah, thank you very much leader and thank you very much Councillor for raising the issue. Yes, that doesn't accord with our experience, what we have from dealing with the new contractor, but if there are any specific instances where that is happening, I will take it up personally with the contractor to make sure that that doesn't happen, it should not be happening. They should be actually putting back the bin exactly where they found it. But if there is an incident, I'm happy to go away and look into that thing. Yeah, I would stress if that has happened, then do let us know because it shouldn't be happening. Yes, okay. Excellent. Well, thank you for your civic responsibility. In that case, with those assurances taken on board and those warnings taken on board, can I ask, is the cabinet happy to agree to this point? Thank you very much. Right, we now move happily to Councillor Rowan Rhee, who will talk us through the H&F Companies update. Thank you very much leader. This is the regular companies report sets out to the Council's position in limited companies and joint ventures. These reports now come to cabinet every six months since the Commercial Revenue Committee was dissolved. Any questions on this? Is that item agreed? Thank you very much. And finally, Councillor Andrew Jones, Cabinet Member for the Economy, will talk us through the Avonmore Primary School Construction Contract and Procurement Strategy budget in request. Thanks very much. This is the latest report or stage in the redevelopment of Avonmore Primary School. It will provide a new state of the art primary school, a nursery and an active development with 91 homes, 50% of which will be affordable homes. We are at the stage where this cabinet report seeks approval for the procurement strategy to appoint a contractor, and also to set the overall capital budget for the scheme that does need to come to full council subsequently, which will be at a later stage so we've had reports before earlier stages on this and this is the sort of next staging post of the Avonmore scheme. And that summarises this paper tonight. Are there any questions from the cabinet? Opposition? In which case, is this item agreed? Thank you very much. Please note the forward plan key decisions, item number eight. As that's noted, I bring the cabinet to a timely end. Thank you very much, and good night.

• Thank you.