Transcript

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee. Firstly, we please know there's no fire drill planned for today. So in the event of a fire alarm sounding, it's probably a real one. My advice is always to follow me out of the building. So to the nearest exit here just on your left. Could I ask everyone to make sure their mobile phones are either switched off or put on silent, please? In line with our guidance on the use of social media. Happy for anyone attending today to use social media as long as it doesn't disturb the business of the meeting. Today's meeting is being webcast to the public and a recording will be available online afterwards. I'd also like to mention that this meeting allows for participation by video conference via Microsoft Teams and that some attendees are participating remotely. For those who are participating remotely, if the chat feature is enabled, please do not use it. Its use limits the transparency and the open discussion that the committee has in a public meeting. For those officers who have joined the meeting remotely, please use the raise hand function to indicate if you'd like to speak and then please mute the microphone and turn off your camera when not speaking. And finally for those officers and members who have joined us in person, may I please ask anyone presenting to speak clearly and directly into their microphones when called on to speak, press the right hand button on the microphone and start speaking when the red light appears. Please remember to turn it off when you've finished. And if you're sharing a desk and microphone, you may need to press either the left or the right hand button. I hope that's all clear. Thank you. Firstly, apologies for this morning's meeting. We've had apologies from a number of members. Firstly, Councillor Luke Bennett cannot be with us today. Also, Councillor Budi Washeringhi, who is substituted this morning by Councillor Helen Clack. Welcome, Helen. Councillor Liz Bowes can't be with us, but she is substituted by Councillor Bob Hughes. Welcome, Bob. And Councillor Cameron Mackintosh. Apologies. And he's substituted by Councillor David Harmer. So welcome to all of you. Item two is the minutes. Could I ask the committee to agree? The minutes of this committee held on the 5th of December and also the call in meeting on the 13th of January. Those agreed? Any declarations of interest? Members are required to declare at this part of the meeting or as soon as possible thereafter any disclosable pecuniary interests and or any other interests arising under the code of conduct in respect of any items of business that we're considering at this meeting. Are there any declarations? OK, I see none. Thank you. Questions and petitions. Could I welcome to the meeting Mr. Simon Collins? Welcome and thank you for the question which you submitted before the meeting. You've had a written answer from the officers. Could I ask if you'd like to ask any supplementary question or make a comment? If you'd like to come forward and just press the button for the red microphone. OK. Thanks very much. OK. Thank you. Thank you very much committee for having me along and thank you for your written response. I really appreciate the examples provided and the details in the document which show a great deal is being done for flooding across the county, in particular recovery after storms, improving the properties at risk of flooding and your action on suds. I do remain concerned about broader impacts of flooding beyond the unfortunate properties at immediate risk in the catchment. I'm thinking here of mainly the mole catchment which is my area of interest. For example, numerous bridges flood very easily even from frequent low period return events. Such flooding causes significant widespread disruption and has in the past cut off whole communities and certainly threatens to do so in higher impact events. It's common for people to drive through floods at these bridge sites and then farmers have to tow them out when drivers get stuck. Driving or walking through floods is dangerous and even with a small increase in flood level there would be a risk to life at some locations. From my observations locally, apart from the A217 at Salfords which was closed in November due to flooding of the bridge there, there is generally not much action taken to mitigate these real-time flood risks at bridges in particular. While the EA provides a flood alert and warning service, it does not provide specific or live information on the status of bridge flooding. I'd like to ask for more attention to be paid to these vulnerable locations around the county. We should be planning together to improve our resilience to much more frequent and extreme weather events. For example, my charity, River Mole River Watch, is working with a flood modeler called Flood Mapper to provide local communities in the mole catchment with live flood information for selected bridges that frequently flood. This live information has been well received, for example at Brokham, where people are keen to know, is Brokham Bridge flooded or not? In the light of such community-driven work, and I note also in your annual impact report of 2024 that you feel that community engagement, data sharing and partnerships are important to enhance, can I ask how the Council might intend to improve resilience to extreme flood events at vulnerable and frequently flooded locations such as bridges? Is that a question? I hope it is. Or I can reword it another way. Let me say. So how is the Council going to use its flood risk management strategy to increase flood resilience for critical infrastructure such as road bridges connecting communities across the county? That is the question. Thank you very much, Mr. Collins, and thank you for taking the time to come and meet us this morning as well with your questions. I'll ask Councillor Marissa Heath, who is the lead member at Surrey County Council, the cabinet member for the environment, and also Mr. Crowther, who is the executive director, if they would like to comment on what you've said. Yeah, I mean, thank you, Simon. And I genuinely say thank you because this, I consider one of the biggest issues facing this county, actually, the risk of flooding and particularly on our key networks. And I actually got caught in Brocken myself one night, drove through, didn't realise what was happening, got stuck there, my car broke down. So it was all very fun. But I stood there watching the live events unfurl, and it was mind boggling that people have to worry about this every time it rains. And it's not just there, it's becoming increasingly common across this county. So I do consider it one of the biggest issues, and I'm looking at how we up our resource around this. So, for example, I spoke to DEFRA civil servants yesterday about this very issue, saying they've got to start upping the funding for climate adaptation, which is actually coming later on the agenda today, about how we start working on this and prioritising what we do around this. There's two issues here. One, the resilience, like what are we going to do materially to try and stop this? How are we going to prioritise these sorts of routes? And then there's also the one about communication and information to people, how we're going to warn them that this is happening and help them. We do have community forums, and we've just had some extra money come to our ability to be able to do more around that. We've got Doug, who is our lead officer, I think, on the call. I don't know if anyone can see. Is he on there? Is Doug there? He is. He is. So I will ask him to come in, if that's okay, Chair. Because actually here have a bit more of the detail on this than I think both you and I would have, Simon. So if he could come in, but broadly on a wider sort of vision for this, I am trying to make flooding literally the number one priority here, and trying to think about how we get more resource in, but also how we combine the efforts of all different stakeholders and groups. We've got numerous threats coming at us. We've got a demand for more housing to be put on here, which is going to potentially exacerbate flooding in my view. So we've got to deal with that as well. So I think it's about bringing together all the key parties and working with the communities to make sure we're tackling this in the right way. And also when we're doing things that we're not causing problems down the route as well, because that is a serious risk. And then it all goes hand in hand, of course, with the other issues like pollution, which I know you are very active on. So water is the big issue. But Doug, would you be able to come in and give us a bit more information on resilience in particular, that point around bridges and key points? Yeah, of course. So thank you. So my name is Doug Hill. I'm the Flood and Climate Resilience Manager at Surrey Council. And thank you for the questions. It's really, really excellent questions. So my first offer is if you're happy, then we can have a proper face to face meeting to sort of discuss a lot of detail in it. Flooding is a very complex issue, particularly in a catchment as large as the mole. So there's quite a lot of detail there. So I'm happy to come and meet with you in the group, actually, and see how we can then work better together in tackling that. It does link very much to the specific elements going on in terms of how we tackle flood risk management, flood risk in the county. I think linking it to the paper that come coming later on in this committee meeting is around how do we adapt to a changing climate? And the climate, you know, flooding is a climate hazard. And we've been working very closely with services across the county, including highways in terms of making sure that we are assessing the risk of a changing climate, including work flooding getting worse and assessing the risk on their assets infrastructure and how we can deliver services. So from a highways point of view, that also includes keeping the network open and in terms of safety around bridges also. So maybe not necessarily answer the exact question about how we're doing it in terms of bridges, but that sort of assessment, that kind of asset assessment and infrastructure assessment is happening across services across the council. And if you stick around for the climate adaptation paper, you'll see how we're trying to approach that. But the offer there is for me to come and meet you, we can have a chat about this and then sort of work out a bit of a plan of action going forward. Thank you very much. I'd like to raise an additional question while we're on the topic with the cabinet member and the director. As you know, there are a number of flood forums around the county, which are voluntary groups often run by parish councils, but with local residents where there are particular histories of flooding. One parish council has recently been told by Tor Peebles that the officers will no longer be able to attend meetings of flood forums, either in person or remotely. And this rather defeats the purpose of them because it's the statutory authorities, whether it's the county or the borough council, other organizations like the water companies that have been on and off over the years. But if the statutory authorities can't attend, then the flood forums may cease to be of any value or exist. So don't expect an answer right now. But could I ask you to look at that? You can indeed. I mean, the flood forums are really important, as I indicated in my answer to Simon. We've they are vital, actually, for helping with community resilience and preparedness for this. So we take them really seriously. Obviously, there are always resource issues and flooding is increasing. So the team is stretched. Doug may want to come in on that. But we will I think we can take it away and have a consideration about how we manage it better. If it's not officers going to, you know, meetings on various nights and things like that, how we might consolidate it to ensure we're working with those groups, because otherwise they're going to feel like they're talking to nobody. They're completely right and they start thinking what's the point. So, yeah, it's a serious issue. Doug? Yeah, thank you. And Councillor, I spoke to Tor this morning, fair enough, about our question. I think it's not what it's not sure that's what we meant in terms of we can't resource. We can't come to the meetings. It's just we have to like think about how we best use our resource. So we maintain that coming to where flood groups work best is having the right person to answer the right question, if that makes sense. If there's a question about, say, highway drainage issue, then someone from highways really needs to come there to answer that. And actually, that's become a bit of a struggle in terms of making sure the resource is there. What we're not saying is that we're not going to attend the meetings. What we're saying we just need to prioritise which meetings we come to and actually the sort of level of detail we go to into those sort of meetings. We're also trying to make sure that the flood groups are almost self-maintaining. So where flood groups work best is where they're self-governing, that it's not the council or the councils or the environmentalists holding their hand. It's a sort of self-governing meeting. So that's kind of where we're talking about in terms of our resource. We've just had funding approved for getting National Flood Forum support for a number of flood groups, particularly the ones that flooded recently. I think mainly around the sort of Thames area and in the Guildford areas to get support from National Flood Forum, which is a charity that works with flood groups and those who've suffered from flooding and make sure sort of build evidence, make sure to get the answer question. But I think the offer from Tor was that we can have a chat about that specific issue. Councillor, you raised about that, but essentially that's where we are with it. And chairman, if I could add, when we talk about climate adaptation later, we're very clear that it only works with partners. We can only do that. So I think there's something to come through that as how we engage with these groups potentially that we could have a look into. Thank you. And if Marissa, you could come back to me after meeting when you looked at that. Councillor Helen Plack. Thank you, Chair. Very briefly, I'm the divisional member for Brockham and Dorking Rural. So obviously, I'm very keen to hear the questions and the responses. And I've been the local member for the last over well over 20 years. And we've had significant issues with flooding with with the River Mole in this area and the bridges, which include Brockenbridge, Betchworth Bridge and Flansford Bridge, all regularly go underwater when there's excessive rainfall. After a couple of days, all the water comes in. So it is really important to local communities, mostly that they are notified that the bridges are closed, because as Mr. Collins has raised and as Marissa has mentioned, you know, people get stuck on route. And that obviously causes a lot of distress for the person that's stuck, but also for the local residents who have to come out and try and give those people support. So I think, you know, if we could look at how we might have a better way of notifying that bridges and roads are therefore closed would be a really good idea. In Brockham, we're extremely lucky to have a group of volunteers called BERT, which is Brockham Emergency Response Team, who have for many years now gone out and made sure that people's homes are protected from flooding when the river rises. They have often told me that they would be happy to put out notices, et cetera, and to take them down again when the waters recede. And I think this has got to be part of the future of devolution with our parishes and town councils that, you know, we expect them or rely on them to take responsibility for making sure that residents are aware of what's going on and flooding, et cetera, is a big issue around that. And I hope that perhaps the county council can work with parishes and town councils to engage with them and to make them because they are after all the front line of our public services, really. And they're very useful people to have. So I think it's a very interesting topic and I'm very glad it's been raised today at this meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you again to Mr. Collins. Hope you've had a satisfactory, not just response, but actually quite a good discussion on the topic. So you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting. No, that's fine. Can I just say, sneak in a thank you to everybody for your very thorough replies? And I don't know how it would happen, but if we can organize another meeting, that would be really good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Right. Moving on to the agenda. Before we go to item five, could I just mention also under apologies for absence. Mark Sugden was hoping to join us online today. I can't see that he's online unless he tells me otherwise. Mark, are you there? If not, could we just add Mark's name to the apologies for absence, please, Jacob. Right. Item five is the rights of way improvement plan. We've already heard from Marissa Heath, but welcome again for this item. And Simon Crowther, the executive director for environment, property and growth. Also to Carolyn McKenzie, Claire Saunders and Katie McDonald, who are with us this morning for this item. Could I ask the cabinet member if you wish to give a few introductory remarks to this? Yes. Thank you, chairman. I will let Claire and Katie do most of the talking to say, particularly Claire has been at the forefront of this work. And it's part of a review process that we have to do. It has to be done every 10 years. But actually, as the paper sets out, there's something a bit different about this one. And I think it's the paragraph three where it talks about how we can connect this into all of the other strategies we've got, which to me makes this really interesting and exciting and why we wanted to bring it forward at this point. So you've got your climate change adaptation that we've just spoken about, your local nature recovery, your local transport plan, the LCWIPs, all of this kind of stuff coming together here, which gives us a chance to really do something meaningful, I think, with this piece of work. And I know one of the questions up front will be right away, what resource is going to come out of this? And that's not immediately clear as to what extra resource we can put into it. But we are thinking about how we work out how to, first of all, get the basic safety of our rights of way improved, but also then how to look at the opportunities that arise with housing developments, that arise with perhaps putting a priority list of the key routes that get people to places. So, therefore, the sustainable travel agenda, basically. So I think that is quite exciting. And we went out for consultation. And before the consultation, I thought, well, rights of way, it's very important, but I can't imagine that many people would be interested in it. Well, actually, it's highly topical and of huge interest. And I think we've had one of the highest respondents levels that we've ever had to a consultation through this. So it just shows the level of interest. You can always go broader. There are groups that we've tried to reach that perhaps we haven't been successful in doing. But nonetheless, we've had quite a few voices, and we have worked with the relevant groups on rights of way. What's come out of it, I will let Claire cover in a moment. But just to say, obviously, as I said, this is a piece of work we have to do. But how do we make it meaningful? Because some of the conversations I've had with people is, it's all very well producing a nice document that then sits on a website and things. But what does this actually mean for our community? What difference is this going to make? And I think that it then goes to the point Helen just made around flooding and working of communities. This very much is how we use the process of unitarization to think about how we empower communities more on this level as well, and stop holding the reins so tight. So the people who know their rights of way, who use them every day and things, can have more of a say in how we maintain them, how we improve them, and how we look to prioritize the routes in their areas for the very best access and investment. So if I could hand over to Claire, Chairman, just to talk about the outcomes of the consultation. Or Katie? Sorry, Katie? Yeah, either of you would be great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Obviously all members have had the paper, so do feel free to summarize whatever you would like to at this stage. ...to make sure that their views are heard within the plan. Obviously in the paper we set out the statutory need for a ROWIP, the engagement process we've been through, and the draft plan. We have been out to consultation on this plan until Sunday, and we have got some initial feedback on that that I think might be useful to hear. We didn't have as many as the previous one, but that was not to be unexpected. But we made nearly 500 responses to the statutory consultation. We have missed that we have not heard what the public have said. We have had a lot of in-detail responses as well, and we're going through those over others. Thank you, Claire. I think the responses that we've had indicate to us that we've probably got the structure right. We'll hand over to taking questions. Yeah, and I think it's probably best to get questions, shall we? Thanks very much indeed. For those watching us online, you will hear lots of references to the ROWIP. So that is the Rights of Way Improvement Plan. Okay? Always happy to have plain English. Could I kick off and just ask if... Because the ROWIP does state that the main priority for our users is to maintain public rights of way. What are the financial implications associated with making the necessary improvement to the condition of the rights of way? Katie, do you want to take that one? I mean, this isn't traditional, but just keeping health and safety, that kind of thing. Yeah, I'm very happy to take that question. There are three different areas of finance or funding that is available for us in terms of rights of way. We have a revenue budget from the council, which we use to carry out all of our budget was deemed to be too low. And we are expecting that level of funding to remain. It is in the current councils back level over the period of the MTFS. That capital budget is what we use to be able to maintain the rights of way. And by maintaining new area for us to be able to tap into. So I would say there are three different areas of funding. We do have a finite budget and we have finite staff to be able to deliver them as well. However, we have a prioritisation process, which we use for all of our two rights of way. We work on a reactive basis. So when inquiries come in and requests come in from the public for us to update or maintain, decide whether that is a priority or not. Most of that system has been agreed by cabinet. And we use that system in a similar amount of usage of the path, whether a councillor is involved, how much, how many people are asking for change and the benefits and whether it will benefit the need to prioritise. Okay, thank you. Now I know that Catherine Bart had a follow-up question. Does that answer what you were going to ask? Because I was going to ask if we could have the approximate, the budget information, what is available to you through those three budgets just circulated to the committee after the meeting, so that we have a better understanding of the resources available to yourself. Catherine. I have got another question. I'm interested in the, you mentioned Hampshire and they have trained or they've invested in an officer or officers to exploit SIL or obtain the opportunities from SIL and I'm interested in do we have plans around that. So staff resources and also having read the report in detail, there seems to be groups who are offering to volunteer. And I know it's easy to offer to volunteer, but I wondered what you see as the barriers to engaging more groups in volunteering to maintain, to help maintain structures and things. And I know that wasn't a question that you had any notice on. So just quickly, we've got the half a million, we agreed to pull back into greener futures, was it last week? So we, I have said that I want rights of way to be considered within that for how we have some serious results around this and don't just do this excellent piece of work that then falls flat. So that's on the table for that. And we also had a very good conversation about how we weren't connecting with the planning authorities as much as we might like. So there's probably been some opportunities missed here. I mean, how we treat announcements. We did set out a plan as to how we are going to do that in a meeting we had. But obviously, it's the new setup and making sure there's someone connected into planning who really gets what in the environmental asks. So I think we could be doing a lot better on it. And it's something that we plan to sort of weave through this to make sure whatever new system comes out really reflects that and Kathy spoke about in terms of getting money become very, very real. I'm also asking a line to your point, Chairman, about the amount of money we've got to really understand some of the key issues we've got across this county. So Councillor Essex, for example, you may know this better. There's a cycle route rights of way going to Paris or something. Is that right? There's also a mention of 81 gaps, 81 recorded gaps, I think, to do with cross-border issues. And picking up on your point, it would be great to make sure that we've got a lot as well, where they need £70,000 in order to make it usable. I'd like us to really have a strong grasp on exactly what we need on those key points. So even if the money isn't measuring up for that, I think that would be useful. Thank you. Just picking up on that, there's also a mention of 81 gaps, 81 recorded gaps, I think, to do with cross-border issues. And picking up on your point, it would be great to make sure councillors whose gap, where the gaps are in those divisions, know about those gaps, just in case there's anything those councillors can do with local landowners to support closing the gaps. And would you come back to me about the volunteer side, but subsequently as far? I'll let Katie come. And actually across the natural capital group that I look after, we have an additional 50% of work power and manpower dealing with what is happening in their communities. As I said, so the first challenge is really about who we work with first and that the council has on offer for them to be able to use. So, and there is, there are definitely ways that we will be able to link in Edinburgh schemes. For example, a really important target audience for us as are guides and scouts and cups and brownies. So there's lots of, there's lots of different things that we can do in terms of working with younger people. Those assets that the council has. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Spencer. Thank you, Chair. So really pleased that you mentioned councillors as part of the input in terms of prioritisation, which seems like a sensible thing. In terms of usage, so I come from Woking and we've got rights of way through the town centre actually, so very high volume of people go through it. I just wondered how you measure usage for footpaths. Roads, it's quite obvious how you measure it for footpaths and rights of way. It's not so obvious how you'd measure usage and therefore use that in your prioritisation. Before you answer, I'll ask David Harmer because I know he had a, wanted to chip in as well. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, I have, my division has quite a substantial length of border with Hampshire. And so there's two parts to this actually. One is where we're bordering with Hampshire and they have a different regime. The worst part of that is that they don't have boats. They retained rups from the old days and they have different rules at a legislative level. I appreciate that. But where we get two pieces of rights of way in different categories internally on the one hand and secondly, where we're meeting up with Hampshire, it's very unclear to the public what's allowed and what isn't allowed. And I don't know how we could best overcome that. But if you've got any good ideas, I'd be most welcome. I'm definitely throwing that onto you, Katie. If I start with Councillor Spencer's first question and we end up measuring badgers and all sorts of other wildlife as well as people. But in Hampshire, they have actually just invested in a, I'm not sure what we call it. Phone data. Phone data. It's phone data. And a system whereby they use phone data to be able to understand usage. Now I appreciate that and how we can, how we can find an effective way of doing it. So we are looking into usage. One of the things that we already do is as well and that our residents benefit from. So there is, we can measure and we can measure in the usage. What benefit would that give us? And, and because there are, there are costs associated with it. There's sort of that one off understanding how many people and how much usage it's getting is would be really helpful. But what it wouldn't tell us necessarily is how many young people are using it having rights of way to us. Yes, um, um, um, Hampshire didn't quite complete the process of investigating all of their ruts, roads used as public paths. Um, and, um, moving them in or provides the evidence to suggest a category of right of way. So Surrey may have said that they have the evidence to put it forward as a bridal way, something that we are looking at how we can move that forward. Um, one, one side's got to give, if you like, one's got to say, well, yes, actually, we do agree that it should be area. Thank you. So, uh, David, if you take those specifics up with Claire and Katie, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, yes, of course, uh, Sam Crowther. Thank you, Chair. Um, and, and obviously the conversation moved on a wee bit. So, um, I'd expect some kind of, um, questions today about the alignment between our ambition and our affordability. And echo the points made already about the, the need for partnership working and, and working with our volunteers. But the other point I wanted to make is, as, going back to Katie's comments about, you know, how do we actually schedule our work? We will get notice from a member of the public that says, you know, there's an issue. I just want you to infer that that's the point when we start to kind of motivate or mobilize our works. There is a huge schedule of works that we would like to do. So anything else that comes in goes into that schedule of works. Um, so it's really important that we will have a plan that is forward-looking. And the other point to make is, if there is additional funding that comes in, either through one of the partners, we're able to scale up very quickly. So it's not a kind of flat line. We can, we can mobilize quickly if we need to. Um, Helen Flack. Thank you, Chair. Actually, my question was about, uh, the location of, uh, responses. But your evidence report actually is very clear, um, uh, about placing it where those, where those responses came from. Um, I mean, you know, my, I represent a Dorky rural division, which is, as it says, a rural division. Like my colleague, David, he represents it. And it's really important that these rights away are maintained. I mean, over, they've been developed over hundreds of years. And originally they were used for people to get to, um, locations. So traders, joiners, laborers would use these rights away to get from one village to another. And in my area, you can still walk using, uh, rights away from one village to another. And they're also really important for bridleways, too. So we have a large equestrian, uh, group in the, in the county. And bridleways are incredibly important for them. They're safe places to ride as, as footpaths are safe places for people to walk. Um, so I, I, I think the other thing is about the mobile phone. We don't actually have full mobile phone coverage either in, in the rural areas. So it's not a wise idea to, uh, for someone to come out, perhaps out of town and think that they can use their phone to get around and get home. That doesn't always happen. I've got some great stories that happened in during COVID where people got very lost. Um, I think my question would be is, uh, is, uh, is recognizing the huge response that you've got from parish councils and the public and from people outside of the county as well, is to make sure that we do really recognize just how important these rights of ways are, uh, and maintaining them. Often on private land and private land owners are responsible for maintaining these too. It's not always down to the council. I always find that the rights of way team are incredibly good at responding to my inquiries. I'm really grateful for their help. We get a lot of incursions from unwanted people. Um, and you know, they are always incredibly helpful and on the spot when that happens to do what they can to support local landowners or trusts or whatever. So my question is, is what else can we ask? What else can we do to support the team to make sure that we do deliver this new plan? Thank you. And before you answer, I'll ask John Beckett, um, if he has a question that is also applicable to this discussion. Thank you, chair. Yes. Um, my question was in two halves. It was one about risks and one about challenges, but you have very much gone through the challenges that you are going through. That you are going to be facing or are facing. Um, what I haven't heard is about the risks that we face, um, in implementing the new plan. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So on the first question, um, from Helen, um, thank you, because it allows me to, um, point to objective eight, which is about, um, conserving and protecting the heritage landscape, biodiversity. And I think heritage is actually a really important word in there. Um, and that almost links to, to the riding point you made as well. And I've said this to, um, outside of this room, you might only get a low number of respondents on riding, for example, but I see as part of the heritage of Surrey, we want to be able to really reflect the needs for horse riding. And when you restrict that, you make it very much an elite sport because people aren't able to access this. So I think there's something to really think about around that. Um, and as you said, recognizing the importance of these rights of way for the Surrey heritage, for the history they've had is something that we might say, oh, is that as important as some of the other things? Well, actually, I think it is, I think it's hugely important, particularly as the county potentially comes under threat from huge change, as I've mentioned earlier development and all of the impacts that we're seeing, um, coming from that. I think that the key way that you can help is helping us with that join up. So you've got the local knowledge, as I've mentioned, you know where your people are using the rights of way because you're speaking to them, you're using them yourselves. So helping us flag that to understand where things aren't working, where residents aren't happy about, um, things where we can improve things. Having that knowledge is absolutely crucial, but also the connections between all of the groups. I mean, this is a small team who do a huge amount of work. Um, they really do. And they're working with SCAF, the, um, access forum with BHS of all of these different groups, but it is really hard to do. Um, so you connecting and making sure we're all talking and sort of sharing these same priorities and working towards the same goals for it. So for example, if a planning application comes up, how was the parish council, the county council, the residents group and the council are all on the same page as to where they want the investment, that kind of thing. So making sure this, this plan goes into the sort of smaller plans for your area and your priorities, I think would be absolutely brilliant. And then we've all got a real grasp of where we want to go on this and how we want to protect it. Um, on the count, um, point from Councillor Beckett, I mean, the challenges are to implementing this plan are the unitization, the throwing up of all the cards. Um, and knowing how this gets moved into those new organizations and we don't lose this work. And it ends up, as I've mentioned earlier, being a document that sits nicely on the website, but isn't actually coming into anything meaningful for us. So I think that's something we've really got to watch on this, that we make sure we guide it through that process and use the opportunity for these changes to make sure that we get resource, extra resource if we possibly can, um, out of it coming through. Um, Katie, Claire, what do you think are the other sort of challenges of the budgets that we have at the moment for, for our rights of way? Um, the other thing I suppose is around expectations, you know, the, the, the positive documents and it's a document that, um, that may well raise expectations beyond what we are able to deliver. Uh, and, and that is something as a team that we manage on a, on a day to day basis, really using our prioritization system, explaining to people how things are being prioritized and what we do need to put first. Um, and community forward. So it might be that your residents sort of think excitedly, oh, this means I'll get something done. You've sort of mentioned a particular rights of way in my area. It's going to get sorted. Well, it might not until potentially there's a planning development or there's some extra money or whatever else comes through. It's a bit, I suppose, like horizon, isn't it as well, that you've got roads on that doesn't mean they're going to be resurfaced in the next six months. It could be two or three years down the line or whatever, but at least this document gives us the pathway, literally, um, to being able to get these improvements and finding a way to do something rather than just sort of hoping on an ad hoc basis, we make some improvements and things at this refresh, as I said, in the county broadly. Thank you. And, um, could I just add a comment to one made by, oh, sorry, uh, Jan Mason. I'm thinking outside the box at the moment and remembering something we had in Epsom and Yule and we've got a huge area, 400 acres of Horton Country Park. And, of course, all the bridleways and footpaths gradually over ten years were getting worse and worse and worse. And I came up with, let's do a sill bid. I didn't think I'd get it because it was 200-odd thousand. I did. But it took several weeks of another councillor for the next ward working with me every Friday to go through it all. So we produced a really good plan. And then, lo and behold, my colleague on, on Ruxley with me, um, went in for the second half of Horton Country Park. So great. We've used the money well. My question now is, we don't have the many, as many as some other areas for flooding. And I'm concerned, is it allowed to use something like the monies we have, like the small funds, Surrey and whatever, it goes for hither and thither and all different things I've read. Is it possible that councillors for that area can actually, or you can, or not you, Marissa, but, um, they can approach a group of councillors where it's really prevalent and bad. And to say, we have real issues on do-do-do-do-do-do-do, the cost is going to be, say, I don't know, 150,000. But between five of you, you could work it out quite well. I'm just thinking that might be a way of pushing forward some of the things before it gets left. Yeah, I mean, that would be brilliant. My instinct straight away is great. Yes, I don't see why not. I don't know if there's some sort of small print that says we're not allowed to spend our councillor money on that kind of thing. You know, I'm spending my Your Fun Sorry money on a highways project, so it's not that dissimilar, is it? So, yeah, and perhaps it's part of the work, depending what happens with that funding going forward. Obviously, everything's got a big question mark on it at the moment, but let's pretend it did still exist. It's something, Carolyn, you could put into the Greener Futures, what should we call it, kind of shopping list of how people could spend their money and show them how it could be done. Because, yeah, there's quite a good bang for buck if you all share the cost. I mean, the reason I've raised it is because it's never come to me like something like, oh, the footpath and so-and-so will cost so much. Are you interested in... And I would have gone, yes! But if you don't get told it as a councillor, but only somebody mentions, God, it's overgrown, we can't get through that part, you won't know. So it really needs to be telling the councillors. I mean, I've spent my local maintenance money on cutting back my paths, doing an extra cut and things on some of my rights of ways, so that's an opportunity too. And there are a few projects that would cost £20,000, £30,000 resurfacing or whatever, that you could do jointly. Yeah, no, it's a good idea. We should set out how that could be done. It's dependent on us, on the money. Okay, thank you, Jan. And could I just emphasise a point made by Helen Flack earlier? Whenever I've contacted either the Countryside Access or Rights Away team, I'm always amazed by the incredibly prompt response and the action that is then followed up by team members. So would you pass on that appreciation? A prompt response is a good response. Okay. Now, I know that Bob Hughes has a question. Thank you, Chairman. Mine's about progress on delivery against the actions. How will that be monitored and reported to the Council and to the public? So, I think, first of all, actual tracking record annually of the rights of way we have improved or done works on our areas would be a point to come out of this. Secondly, the amount of money sourced from SIL and Section 106 and how we've actually upped the game on that, what percentage increase have we done, how much more successful have we been from doing that. And also, we are planning to have a look at our terms of reference with SCAF, which are the forums that are meant to represent our access, to looking at how we engage with them and get their feedback as well, which we could then present to this committee going forward to show that their actually feedback. Responded in the first place. But I think it would be, it's long. It is long. It is long. And if you could summarize it a bit, that would be great. Yeah. We can take that away as an action. Yeah. We did a similar, we did an impact report for our floods work, which was really accessible in the report. Bob. Thank you. Thank you. The mention of the parish councils. Obviously, I know that you consulted with them and I discussed it with a number of the parish councils in my area. One of the things that happens in some parish councils is that they look after footpaths and rights of way, which are not theirs, they're ours, but as we don't make them passable, they do the work to do that. Particularly one, I'm thinking of one where the chairman of the parish council and her husband regularly make it into the footpath that it should be. Will you be working further with the parish councils because they are doing this work? And also, what about those ones which, and I'm thinking of one in particular in Farley Green, that is completely impassable. It's a boat. I have strong views about boats. We ought to get rid of them, frankly. They might have been all right when we had horses and carts, but they're not good. Now we've got trail bikes and 4x4s going down them. What can we have done about that and how will you carry on working with the parish councils? So, I mean, the main thrust of this piece of work at the beginning was how we're empowering the parish councils and making it easier to work with them and utilising what they're offering us, because it's crazy not to, frankly. So I'm hoping for us to come out of this with some sort of strong direction on how we're going to engage with them and how we, not to throw our responsibility away, because we can't, it's on our shoulders, but how we release the reins a bit around what it looks like. I don't know if that's the case, Carolyn, Katie, Claire. Just before I bring in Claire, we have regular meetings with SELC to look at how we work, drawing the feedback around how they could work with their public rights of way. Does everybody know what SELC is? Could you just... Surrey Association of Local Councils. Parish councils. Yeah, well, that's what it means. Richard Teer. As usual, when you've got a question far down the list, your thunder has been stolen before. But a slight change of grip. When you do do something particularly good, as has happened in my division, where Bridal Way was cleared, it would really help me if that was got out publicly, either through media or whatever, or through the parish council, because it's a good job well done and we'd like to tell everybody it has been done. So could we please look at that? Thank you. They've been involved as well. Thank you. Catherine Bart, as well as a follow-up, would you like to work in your next question? Yes. It seems to me that a members' briefing would be really useful to pick up on a lot of the points that we've talked about here, of just getting out the good news about the excellent report, you know, what we're planning to do, but also how council... So I don't know if a members' briefing could be considered. And my question was, again, an excellent report. I really enjoyed reading it. And how, could you just talk a bit more about how are you, how are you, what are your links to LTP for, you know, those safe routes to schools? How, in practical terms, how do you make that happen? Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I was just saying that sits more with Simon and I about how we ensure the teams across the portfolios, the directorates are working together. And actually why there has been sort of awareness of the connectivity between these issues. It hasn't been formalised, i.e., you need to be thinking across planning, across highways, across environment, across flooding, all of those areas as to how this all works. So I think this piece of work has actually broken that open, which is really useful. So obviously it will be a strand of work that now continues to come up in our collaborative meetings as to how we do that. Simon, I don't know if you want to just talk about how we're going to make it. Yes, in terms of how do we make that happen. I mean, so it was alluded to earlier on in terms of the criteria for how do we identify or prioritise where we invest in some of our work. So we can give an example about, you know, is it improving safe routes to school? Well, that could be a priority for therefore for the projects that we're doing. So it will feature in the criteria that we're looking at will help us prioritise allocation of funding and projects. So that's kind of operationally where it would exist. But one of the takeaways for me from this morning as well is to kind of work closely with my colleague who's dealing with highways as well. So I think there's an important message there to take away and not least Mr. Collins question earlier. But that's kind of where it would be operationalised and reflected in those criteria. Thank you. Now the last question that I've got a note of is from Lance Spencer. Lance. Thank you, Chair. So this refers to paragraph 14 and the importance of collaborative partnership working. So, again, going back to my experience in Woking, we have the Basin Canal Authority, the Board, Hallsville Common Preservation Society. You've got all the parish councils. There must be hundreds and hundreds of organisations that you need to deal with. Other than the sheer challenge of the number, how do you prevent them ending up just being talking shops? Because I've been involved in a few of these and it's jolly interesting conversations, but nothing ever seems to move forward and you must end up getting involved in an awful lot of those. So what are the challenges of dealing with all these organisations? I mean, the challenges are obvious that resource issue again, that they simply can't go around, you know, spending all their time engaging. So, therefore, we've got to funnel it into organisations that can collaborate and organise themselves to put forward their views. Two of those that spring to mind straight away are, of course, SALC that we've just spoken about. So how do the parishes work through SALC to then direct it at this team? And the other one is SCAF, the Access Forum. How do we empower that so that people can work within SALC and get involved in it and it becomes open and very transparent in order for people to do that, so they can feed in through that? And then how do we set the formal arrangement as to how we're going to engage, take notice of SALC, all of that kind of thing, in order to sort of organise it as much as we possibly can? Now, the challenges, the other partners, of course, were the district and parishes, about how we work with them. That is a conduit as well to kind of let groups feed into them and then feed up to us. That being taken out of the equation makes it even more important that we have representative bodies across the county that can do that. So can people from the Residence Association and things go be a member of SALC and speak through that? I think those are the sort of things we're thinking about at the moment to try and make this as organised and focused as possible. Because, as I said, the wide interest in this issue is huge, but also the diversity of interest of what people want out of this is very, very difficult and it will be incredibly hard. You say one thing, it displeases another group. It's those sorts of issues. So you have to get everyone in the room, whether it's like an annual or biannual kind of conference on this issue. I don't know, but those are all the things we're working through at the moment so that people's voices are definitely heard. If there's any heard or not, then there are ways and means that we can take it past those groups to either local committees or through our system to be able to make decisions to make sure that things do happen. But if there are stalemates, Councillor Spencer, that you feel that are not getting you anywhere, then look at some of those and how we can get past them. Because the team are very operational, they're very much a sort of delivery orientated team. Just anything that has reached that point. Thank you very much. Now we are, yeah, we are now coming up to time. I've got several other speakers who've asked to contribute. So could I ask you just to be as brief as possible? Firstly, Andy McLeod. Thank you, Chairman. I'll try to be brief, but it's a problem that's come to me in the last few days actually, that there's a footpath problem in Farman. And I've tried to describe it briefly. There's a block of high-end, high-end flats that have been built in Farman. They each cost about a million each roughly. So you're talking about a big project, nine flats. And the transport assessment that appears to have been done when this was planned obviously dealt with the vehicular access properly and that is not a problem. But there's a footpath access problem into these flats and that there's no pavement outside them. And the only way the residents can get in now is through a footpath from the back of the flats. And this turns out to be in very poor condition. And the resident who got in touch through Surrey, with John Baker, who I believe is the local man, he said that this footpath does require improvement and it would cost about £25,000. But he can only afford out of his budget half of that and he's looking for extra money. The developer doesn't want to provide it because they already provided a lot of money on SIL. And SIL you can only get by applying to Waverley and that's a long, convoluted process. So the developer doesn't want to pay it. Surrey can't afford it in John's budget. So he said to me, can I do something about it and perhaps I can do something out of the members' allowance, I'll try to do that. But I just wonder if this shows a general problem that when these applications are being made, it's a proper transport assessment is being made and are you guys consulted actually? The importance of the transport side is always the main thing that people are worried about. I just wonder if the footpath side gets overlooked and you finish up with not getting money to improve the footpath that you should have had actually because it's the fault partly of the developer. It's the fault of Surrey and the original allowing the transport plan and it's the fault of the Waverley Borough Council actually as the planning authority. And the residents finish up with no way in and out of the flats. Sorry, Keith, I wasn't able to do this very briefly, but I think it probably represents a general problem that you should be aware of and try to get something done about. Thank you. And we put forward our wish lists and our wants. That unfortunately is not always reflected by the planning authority. We don't... Right, Jan, was it a quick point, please? I was only going to say that when I've been chairman of different groups, the way I've found stopping a talking shop because you go back and you go, oh, for God's sake, I've gone through this before. Why are we talking about it still? I just used to have them type up the minutes and in red put action, say JM, Jan Mason. And once these people get there, they go, oh, God, I'm supposed to do something there. And then we get them moving and then you go back to your next meeting and say, Jan, what have you done about... And you start to move. You just have to chivvy people up sometimes. OK, thanks very much indeed, everybody. If I could ask now, we've drafted a few recommendations, including one taken up from the discussion just now. If we can have those on the screen for everybody to look at, that would be great. Yes, Helen. Just my point on perhaps producing a summary of the report. I think perhaps we could ask... This is a recommendation. I mean, we can simply, Helen, we can simply ask for that. And I think the point has been taken up by the cabinet member. I don't think it's necessarily a recommendation issue. Has everybody had a chance to read through those, including the last item which we spoke about a few minutes ago? Could I ask if anybody has any comments or any officers or cabinet member have any comments? Catherine? Yeah. Is it possible in number one to say... to recognise the level of consultation that was achieved? OK. Right. Is everybody happy with those? Thanks very much. And I think that the cabinet member and the director have taken on board Helen's request to circulate to the committee. Right. Thanks very much indeed, everybody. Thank you to the team for attending this morning. You're very welcome to stay. You're also welcome to leave. Right. Item five is a report on the Surrey Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. This is sort of a report to the committee which we're asked to note. And it is around the flood and climate resilience team giving us a progress update around SEC's first adaptation reporting power report, highlighting progress and actions on climate change adaptation and future efforts. I'll ask either the cabinet member or director if there are any comments you'd like to make introduction and then I'll throw it open to any members if there are any questions or queries. Yeah. I mean, I think I can be really brief on this. The report is here for us to have a conversation about. I personally think it's a massively important piece of work. We only have one team member, Sarah Birch, who's on the call, who's leading on this. But obviously it filters into all of our other directorates from across the flooding, on highways, planning, housing, well not housing, you know, infrastructure, all of that kind of thing. So I think we could probably just go straight into talking about it unless Simon's got anything to say on it. And as I said, Sarah's on the call too. So all I need to do is to throw this open to the committee if there are any questions or comments. Catherine, do you want to kick off? Thank you. Yeah, do we know, do we have any expectations about what response we might get from central government or when or? Oh, that's a question. Pause for laughter. They're going to write to us saying here's a few million quid in order for you to announce this. Short answer to the question, no. But they have, there has been an illusion from indication from partners that we're working with that they would like further conversations. So, but we haven't heard exactly what that is. I'm just going to say we're quite unique in having done this at this stage or not, or is everyone doing this? No, no, not everyone's doing it. It was a, it was a voluntary, but it's, it will come in. So we wanted to get ahead of the game on doing it. But yeah, we are quite unique along with a number of other councils. Sarah Birch is online. Welcome, Sarah. Do you have any comments you'd like to contribute? Thanks. I could just add that we did get feedback from DEFRA and our report was positively received. I can share the feedback that they provided us does give some indication for where we can improve in future, but overall it was well received. And there are only a small group of local authorities that did this. So we'll get that full list. Once it's published, we can also have a look at what other local authorities have done and benchmark against what they've done as well. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Helen. I haven't read through the entire strategy, but I just wanted to know how much engagement we're having from other partners like the districts and boroughs and parish and town councils, please. So we run a Greener Futures partnership group, which is the relevant cabinet members for environment and the officers in the same forum. So we worked through this with them. And then we also have strong engagement on an officer one-to-one level across the district and boroughs as well. With parishes, I don't know, Carolyn, can you answer on the town councils? We've certainly had initial conversations around the strategic agenda, but we probably need to follow that up in more detail, especially when we're doing the risk assessments as well. And we've got sorry chairs where partners are invited to and invited to contribute. Sarah, would you like to add anything? I think that's a good coverage there. We also work on adaptation and climate change related risks through our flood and climate resilience boards as well. And there's a lot of integration into other partnerships and boards. So it's not just a standalone. We're doing it through other existing partnerships already. Yeah. I think it's worth pointing out that this quite substantial piece of work has been led by Sarah with Carolyn and Doug supporting. I would like to see more resource go into it so that we've got the opportunity to engage in a deeper level with all of the different partners, because it is a partnership piece of work at the end of the day. So we're looking and considering how we do that at the moment. Can I just come back and ask whether there's going to be a member briefing on this? I don't think we've had one, have we? So we can certainly do it. I don't think we've had a member brief because we've probably done it through flooding. But yes, absolutely. That's completely fine. Okay. Anything else from anyone? If not? Oh, sorry, Catherine. Thank you. Just picking up on the resources. Recently in the budget, some of that will go towards supporting Sarah. I would very much hope so. As we all said, we all mentioned this at the full council meeting. I think there was cross party agreement that we should this and the residents want to see a response to climate change that they can actually tangibly feel right now to it in order to re-engage them as well. And I think this piece of work could be very vital in doing that. So I would like to up the resource. Simon seems to be nodding, which is good. Well, I mean, that change was put into effect last week, wasn't it? Or the week before. So, yeah. You will put some of it, or when you say you put the work out, how to allocate it? Yes. Yes. We've already started discussing across the teams as to how that could best allocate. Because it's 500,000 pounds, obviously a lot of money, but in other expects it's not a lot of money. So it's how we can use it. It's very much across council, across team, across service approach. It's really looking at joint projects that kind of deliver across the piece and that have an ability. It's adaptation is at the core of that 500. Great. And I think in terms of resource, there's a member role here for us as well. I think we've got to up the game on lobbying on this and getting it up the government agenda, making this normal BAU that everyone's got this climate adaptation strategy that they're working across, not just partners within Surrey, but across boundaries as well, and that funding follows that. Well, if there is a motion to be drafted there, that would be an opportunity. And just one final thing. The adaptation action plan, when is that might be published or be available? We're in the process of doing some risk assessments. So we'll do, we've already done a broad risk assessment and we're doing geographical based ones and also priority ones around different services and different themes and topics. We'll hope to take out some of those priority options, priority actions from that to develop the adaptation action plan. So I would expect within the next year to be able to, to get, at least get some indication. I'm going to put a heavy caveat on that because of all the issues with local GOG steps are. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, everybody. We're happy to note that report. Agreed. Thank you very much indeed. Right. Thank you very much. You don't need me and Carolyn anymore, Chairman? No, it's always lovely to see you, of course, both of you, but not for this meeting now. Okay. Our next item is item seven, which is the waste infrastructure update. And we have with us today, Natalie Bramwell, the cabinet member. Welcome. Simon Crowder is still here. Online, we have Stephen Foster. Stephen, are you there? Come in, Stephen. Hopefully you're there. But we also have with us today Jade Ashley Cotts-Rawning, who's the Head of Strategy and Policy for Waste. I am chair, yes. Oh, hello. Hello, Stephen. Hi, welcome. Should be there. I am chair. I am chair. That's okay. So if, first of all, could I ask the cabinet member if she would like to make any introductory remarks? Just very briefly, thank you, Chairman. As you know, we're the Waste Disposal Authority and we're responsible for the bulking transport treatment and the disposal of 500,000 tons of waste, which is collected by our 11 boroughs and districts. And we also provide community recycling centers. Critical to the delivery of the service is our waste infrastructure. As you probably recall, we took our strategic waste infrastructure plan through Cabinet in April 2023, which outlined the program of work, which is required over the period to the end of the current services contract with Suez, which finishes in September 2029. And we've made significant progress. So just to outline that we're developing a full business case through procurement and through our Reg 3 team for planning to support developing a MRF and material recycling facility in Surrey, developing a planning application for business case for the redevelopment of Doman Road Waste Transfer Station, agreeing a land swap or similar, whatever that means, with Guilford Borough Council for Slyfield Waste Transfer Station and a new community recycling center there. And we're working with the boroughs and we're working with the boroughs and districts to deliver infrastructure and to tackle waste holistically. Also doing planning application and outline business case for Ivy Dean Cottage, a reuse hub in Spellthorne, and we will develop and execute the procurement strategy for the re-procurement of all our remaining waste service contracts. And I know yourself, Chairman, you have a question which I think is probably quite pertinent now, bearing in mind where we find ourselves with LGR. Thank you. Thank you, Natalie. If there are no other comments from officers at this stage, I'd like to kick off by asking all of you how you feel that all of this project now is going to play out in the next year or so, given the government's announcement concerning the abolition of this council and all of the districts and boroughs? Very briefly for myself, I think very briefly for myself, I don't actually think we know. But what we do know is Surrey's waste will still have to be disposed of. So I really don't see that there's any point in stopping anything because irrespective of whether we go to one, two, seven, eight unit trees, we will still need to dispose of Surrey's waste. So I think we do need to continue. I wouldn't suggest stopping. Indeed. But I think it's something that certainly those who are interested in the subject would like to hear. Reassurance is probably the wrong word because, as you say, we don't know yet, but sort of have some advanced thought on that. Simon. Thank you, Chair. So, I mean, just in terms of a bit of context, first of all, this kind of infrastructure plan or improvement plan was designed on the basis of this service supporting the entirety of Surrey County. And we would think that principle would still prevail in the near term. And the main reason for that is, as you recall, the vast majority of our spend and our service delivery is through our supply chain. Over 90% of our spend is through two main contracts. You will recall that we had a major PFI contract that came to an end in September 24. And it's been succeeded by two things, an extension to that existing contract and a procurement separate contract for the disposal of our residual waste or black bag waste. Those contracts will prevail for at least another five years. Certainly the extension to the PFI will be another five years. So we're locked in to those two main contracts. Should we want to break down the waste disposal function to reflect perhaps what the new organizational structures might be will mean have significant implications for those contracts. So it may well be sensible to continue to operate in a holistic way on behalf of Surrey or the authorities that are in place in Surrey in several years' time. But as Councillor Bramwell said, we don't know what the answer is. But personal view is I think we should try and maintain the current model for the medium term and then reflect on the changes when we know more about them. Thank you very much indeed. John Beckett, would you like to kick off? I think actually, Chair, your opening statement answered most of the question I had. I would just like to pick up on one point, though. You mentioned an holistic short term look at this. However, within the executive summary, it does mention a 30 year period. So what's in the summary and what you're telling us seems to conflict about, you know, let's do it short term, but we've got a 30 year plan in the summary. Thank you. I think the point about the short term is about still needing to maintain the program of work. Our assets for waste across Surrey serve all of our districts and boroughs. So to Simon's point before about whether or not we get split up into multiple different divisions or whatever that might be, we will still require the assets in the geography that they are in the hope that what we will then move on to do is create inter-authority agreements for the use of those assets. So part of the work that we've done in building up this whole body of work that we're presenting today has been to look at what assets are available for the treatment of waste across the southeast. And that has led us to making the recommendations that we are within this report of developing business cases for infrastructure within our geography, because waste will still need to be collected. And the most beneficial thing to do with it is to dispose of it at its nearest location rather than transporting it across the country. So in that sense, the fact that assets and infrastructure need long-term, that is where the 30-year plan comes into it. Thank you. Richard Teer. Thanks. A key element of the plan is building the new materials recycling facility and the intention to achieve savings and reduce dependency. And you just spoke about facilities within Surrey. What's your assessment of the risks involved in the project and the likelihood of it succeeding? And is there a plan B if it doesn't succeed? Yep, I can take that one. So to this facility is the planning application and not receiving planning. And at this stage we have submitted our planning application. It's gone through validation just now. And we did stakeholder engagements or pre-consultation, pre-application stakeholder engagement. And on the whole, it was really positive. There were some issues that were raised regarding noise and application and have hopefully alleviated all of those concerns that were raised. Further, we're continuing our pre-application conversations with our planning colleagues to make sure that all concerns are alleviated. And just to note that this site was and is identified in our Surrey waste local plan. The Long Cross was aware of this potential facility coming on board as well. So I guess in terms of plan B, our only option, which is not our preferred, would be to look again to the market. And this would separate their materials into greater categories. That means we need more space. Ideally, we'd like this to be delivered to a site in Surrey, but that we can then create that circular economy around those materials. Thank you. Are we the planning authority? We are. Stephen Cooksey. Yes, thank you, Chairman. And paragraph 11 on page 43 refers to third-party MRFs within Surrey. Now, to my knowledge, and I may be wrong, I think there only is one third-party MRF, and that's the Leatherhead one. Can I just ask what discussions are taking place with third-party MRFs to ensure their future and there is sufficient material for them and for the new one to take care of in the period that we're discussing? So with regards to the site at Leatherhead, so we use three third-party MRFs, we use Leatherhead, we use one that is based in near London, on the outskirts of London. In terms of our conversations, these plans are out in the open, we've been having conversations with our contractors for some time now about what our intentions are once the end of our contract comes in 2029. In terms of the Leatherhead MRF directly, we have been in conversation with Moor Valley over the course of kind of the period of time that we've been thinking about developing our MRF and building up our business case. At this point, they've chosen to look at something that is self-sufficient for them, and hence why we've decided to go forth with our plan. Our MRF that we are proposing would satisfy all of the residents in terms of the waste that they produce them, and we'll be able to take on more materials. Yeah, thank you. But I think to my knowledge, actually, Leatherhead is the only one that's actually in Surrey. Yes, that's right, it is. So, Leatherhead is the only one in Surrey, we don't wholly depend on... Okay, thank you. Andrew McLeod. Thanks, Chairman. The policy context part of the report explains that under the Environment Act of 2021, a new thing is being introduced called extended producer responsibility, which actually requires the people who produce this packaging to pay the county council for our work in collecting and dealing with this. But it also says that it will be measured on how effective and efficient we are in doing it. So, could you just explain how this is all going to work? I mean, the Act was several years ago, but it looks as if it's going to happen now. How is it going to work? How are we going to arrange with the borough councils that they collect more stuff? And how will it all be measured how efficient we are? And what income can we expect from it? I can take that one. So, there is no income generation expected, but what we do know is we do know that as a whole, Surrey are going to receive £20.3 million next year from extended departments, looking at how much packaging waste is in our system, and that £20.3 million is how much they've determined is available. 9.3 of that will come to Surrey County Council, and they're supporting our work programme that we are identifying and determine effectiveness and efficiency is still to be decided. We, as an organisation, have been lobbying quite hard death threat in terms of getting more clarity on that. Because whatever the residents are putting in the bin, we then end up having that cost for at the end of the cycle. So, we're working on what we're calling our decarbonisation transition plan. So, we are working at ways in consideration. We need to be moving through higher up the waste hierarchy. So, be that textiles or further reuse of materials. And the other thing about the new legislation that's coming in is there will be something called simpler recycling. So, that standardises across the piece what recycling materials need to be put out to be collected. Again, just before our work on the materials recycling facility is, regardless of how the districts collect their material, all of that material will be the same, which provides great benefits to us. I can just say, Chairman, I haven't seen anything as a household or a Waverley councillor to tell me that Waverley are going to do anything about this. That they've got any plans to collect a wider range of materials. So, when can we expect that to actually start to happen? So, for households, it doesn't kick in until 2027. So, we've still got a little of the Surrey Environment Partnership. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. David Harman. I'll get used to these things one day. Yeah, I apologise for raising something which I made a fuss about a long time ago. But I haven't seen any indication for the last more than 10 years of any progress on this particular point. I detected that all those years ago, when we had a regional government and a regional development authority, that we were transporting a lot of our waste a very long way. And it just seemed to me that this wasn't a very good idea. So, I did some investigation. And I found, for example, that we were utilising per annum between 50 and 100 million of those four-pint milk bottle things that we get from the supermarket in those sort of numbers. And so, I investigated what happened to them. And yes, you MRF them. And so, they fall out of somewhere in the MRF and they all get in the same batch. They go in the truck and they go to Yorkshire. And then they come back again. And so, I investigated rather further as to where exactly in Yorkshire. And I found that actually it was about two or three miles from where I used to live before I came down here. And so, I called up the factory who were the recipients of this wonderful collection of plastic. And I asked them what they did with it. They said, well, we take the little caps off the top and put them aside because they're tiny. And the rest of it, we steam clean and then we melt it down into blocks about the size of the top of these tables that we were all sitting at. And I said, what happens then? They said, oh, we send the next truck that comes along from you. And we send it on just across the A1. There's a place where they take the sheets. And I said, what do you do with them? They turn them into milk bottles. And we take them back down south. So, I did propose at the time that we ought to propose to this organisation that they did a joint venture with us. Because we don't know how to construct the appropriate factory for doing this. So, they would be the guidance as to how to do that in Surrey. And with the intention, by the way, of offering the results of that service to the neighbouring authorities. Subsequently to getting it ourselves. And it would, first of all, save us a lot of money. Secondly, it would be very good for climatic behaviour, would it not? And thirdly, possibly provide a certain amount of income from other authorities. It just seems to me that it's the same sort of idea. I mean, I know for paper we send it all to Kent. And that's not too far away. So, I don't get too upset about that. But it does seem to me that we ought to set out to target the easiest particular products. And give ourselves the benefit of processing them within Surrey. The interesting, that is a really interesting point. And I guess my perspective, if you will, is that being able to have a MRF within Surrey gives us the economies of scale that we need. So, currently we have a variety of different contracts. So, our material, our residence material is managed in different places. The opportunity with the collection and packaging reforms and with building our own infrastructure is that actually we can play a part in that system. We can work with the packaging producers as part of our off-take contracts when we hopefully build this facility to say, look, Sainsbury's, Pepsi, whoever you are, you're in Surrey. How would you like to work with us on being our off-take rather than it going to a third party somewhere else to then go back to them to reproduce into those materials? So, that is one of our hopes for creating a circular economy within Surrey by starting to play in that supply chain more and being part of it rather than a supplier to that. Thank you. Simon. Thank you, Chair. I completely agree with the principle being articulated here is how we can be, you know, as self-contained as we possibly can be. I'm just wondering if I could bring in Stephen, if I may, because he can articulate in some detail the challenges we've had in trying to get, for example, incineration capacity within the county to avoid a lot of these vehicles travelling around to Kent. So, may have some broad views if that's okay. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, indeed. Thank you. Yes, I mean, Wasting Surrey has a long and fascinating history, and I think this is a really quite exciting time that Jade is presenting on our behalf. We have a small gasifier, as you know, in Spellthorne at the Eco Park, and when the Suez contract was let in 1999, there were plans for some more local incineration and energy recovery facilities. It's very, very difficult to get planning permission and public approval of facilities like that in Surrey. So, we've always had a problem with infrastructure. I would just support Jade's point that she made, that when we started the pre-consultation on the MRF specifically, we had a lot of enthusiasm from local residents, because once they knew it wasn't going to be noisy or smelly, and that we'd taken transport into consideration, they thought the idea of local recycling, local control, the ability to send things to local reproducers, which is what the gentleman was saying earlier about milk bottles, is all much more within our control. So, I think it is good that we invest in infrastructure across Surrey. I do think that LRG or LGR should not get in the way of a countywide approach to waste. It doesn't work on a small scale. That's why we have the difference between disposal authorities and collection authorities. And I think actually at this point, with all the initiatives that Jade has been talking about, including things like Ivy Dean and the Guildford redevelopment and Doman Road, it's actually quite an exciting time for waste in Surrey. And I think we should approach it on that basis. I certainly hear what the gentleman said about initiatives about how we reduce waste. And that is a challenge. But our primary concern at the moment from our responsibility is to dispose of what the public leave us. Okay. Thanks very much indeed. Richard's here. Thank you. Apologies. What are the primary outcomes you wish to achieve through the re-procurement of the waste service contract? I know you have time to develop these, but it's not due until 2029. And what are the risks involved in that? And are there any savings, even more importantly, I think? Please. Simon, I'll take that one again if that's okay. So our waste service contract, as Simon mentioned, will run until the 30th of September contract. So we don't have any choice but to seek a re-procurement. It's unlikely that we would want to bring these services in-house, but instead what we're thinking is two specific sets of things where people have the right skills and being able to target SMEs where we can. The aims of the re-procurement will be the best value for the taxpayer, so by carefully defining what our service needs are. Procurement colleagues to do soft market testing, which is part of our initial work to be done this year, actually. It will look at continuity of services for residents. What we don't want to do is reach a date on the 30th of September and then not have anything for the 1st of October. We want to consider the best environmental solutions for managing waste streams, so much like what we've done through our residual waste contract that we recently retended. We tend to be part of the conversation, so to reduce our costs further and actively work with what our residents are delivering, what packaging, what products are being put in the bin to be able to effectively get the best out of our services for our residents. In terms of the risks, I think there are probably two. The first is that the market can't deliver what we want them to deliver, but as I mentioned, we'll be doing a significant amount of soft market testing and working closely with the market through dialogues to make sure that what we put out there is an attractive proposition for them. The second is that the programme is not delivered. Thank you. Thank you. Catherine Bart. Thank you. This is a question about the reuse hubs, and can I just say that I am a regular visitor to the reuse hub in Ellswood, and it's absolutely fantastic in my opinion. And it also caters to, you can, there are things on offer there that are not in the high street charity shops. So, great, all sorts of things. So, I am interested to know, you know, what do we think about the cost benefit analysis, including the soft benefits, whatever the phrase is for the, and, but do we, do we, the black bag situation? Thank you. So, I guess, to take the last point about are they making a great impact on the black bag? As a tonnage, it's about the number of items that we are avoiding being put in the black bag. So, it's estimated that this year we'll be diverting over 170,000 products from the black bag. So, whilst that, those products could be anything from a bicycle to a bottle. So, the weight is kind of irrelevant in that sense, and our estimates are that we'll probably make an income of around a million pounds from the diversion of those materials. So, achieve through reuse, and I think we should certainly be doing more. With regards to the reuse hub at Ivy Dean, this will be our place to showcase our reuse initiatives, and it'll be an opportunity to bring our communities together. It'll be an opportunity to have repair cafes, furniture, reuse, to be able to really showcase what you can do with the heat of the same form, tying with the greener futures element of our service as well. In terms of if we would want to expand it, I think it'd always be great to look at how many more shops we could have at our community recycling centres. It's about, I guess, getting that balance right about not flooding the sites, because of that where space can strain, but also being able to maximise what we can divert. And I think part of what I mentioned about our partnership work will be about encouraging reuse, and, again, changing that narrative about reuse and how we think about it, not kind of as an alternative to recycling, but actually as kind of the top priority for us. And I want to say one thing to you. Scrap shops. I don't know if you're... I will leave it with you to have a look into... So, people who are particularly interested in crafting scrap shops, which seem... Yeah, thank you, Catherine. I also go down to the Ellswood CRC. And the reuse shop there is very good, and I take things down there as well. I think, and I've spoken to Suez on a number of occasions, about how we can make them better, how we can increase what we offer there. And we are somewhat limited by that... Ellswood is a very good CRC. It's split level. There's plenty of space there. Whereas on some of our other sites, they're very constrained. So we are sort of, you know, in some ways, that's why we're looking at making changes at Guildford, at Slyfield, so that we can have a better offering across the whole of the county. Thanks. Andrew McLeod. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Paragraph 43 of the report states that the waste management provider, Suez, will manage maintenance works related to the contract. However, under the new arrangement, associated costs will now pass to Surrey, County Council, and an additional maintenance budget has been established for five years, I believe. Does this present any level of risk to Surrey? Do we have any say in agreeing with Suez what level of maintenance works are required? What say do we have on this? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. So just to give you the context for this, and Stephen, who's online, knows the details very well. This refers back to the renegotiation of our PFI contract. So when it came to an end in September 2024, Surrey chose to take back the risk for lifecycle works on the assets themselves, which ordinarily, in the PFI, everything is transferred across to the service provider. And so we took that risk back over five years. We did an assessment of what that risk would be over five years. And before that point, sorry, Suez quite rightly got the assets into the condition they needed to be in at the end of that contract. So we did some assessments working with Suez on what that cost might be over five years for the assets within scope of the contract, which came to a number of circa £10 million. So the financial risk, we think, is minimal overall. We think we've got sufficient provision in that five-year period. And in terms of what say we have, we absolutely do have a say in that. So there will be a dialogue between both parties as to what the issues are, and form a judgment, you know, agreement on how that's taken forward. So we are in control of that as well. So it's not just they will, you know, work out what it needs to be and send us a bill. We're very much going to be involved in that process. Thank you. All right. Are there any other comments or questions from any other members? If not, class that the recommendations just be put up on the screen so we can all have a few moments to look at those. Okay. Are there any comments from anyone? If not, is that agreed? Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much. And thank you to everyone for attending for this item. Okay. We'll just take a few moments to change over as the next item is from Surrey Fire and Rescue. Do you want a few? We're slightly ahead of time. Shall we have a five-minute break for everyone first? And then we can sort ourselves out. Thank you. Okay. Item eight is the Surrey Fire and Rescue Service performance update, which was deferred from the 5th of December session. Purpose is to provide an initial update of the outcome of the Council's strategy. Could I welcome Councillor Kevin Dinas, the Cabinet Member for Fire and Rescue and Resilience. Also, John Simpson, Assistant Chief Fire Officer. And Elizabeth Lacey, Assistant Director of Organizational Development at Surrey Fire and Rescue. Welcome to all review and thank you very much for coming. Are there any comments that, Kevin, you would like to make or any of the officers would like to make before we go into questions and discussion? Thank you, Chair. I've got a few opening remarks. I always find a scrutiny session like this not easy, but I always feel comforted that I've got my team with me who will answer all the difficult questions. So I'm here just really to do the introduction and take the credit for all the good things and they will answer all the difficult ones. So sorry, Fire and Rescue has undergone significant developments and improvements following the third full inspection by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Service. That's an easy one to say. So that was in spring 2023. This inspection identified a cause for concern and 24 areas of improvement. So in response, so Fire and Rescue have implemented a comprehensive action plan and an inspection improvement plan to address these issues. And as the old saying, you can never have too many action plans. By October 2024, all actions within the cause of concern action plan were completed and leading to the discharge of the cause of concern by HMICFRS in February 2024. The inspection improvement plan, which is a dynamic document updated quarterly, has seen substantial progress. So the key achievements have included the enhancements in operational readiness and training, targeted prevention plans for vulnerable communities and active promotion of equality, diversity and inclusion. The report highlights Surrey's commitment to continuous improvement, operational excellence and the safety and wellbeing of the community. So the performance report for quarter three, 20, 24, 25 indicates that Surrey Fire and Rescue Service has shown strong performance in several key areas. Out of 27 key performance indicators, the KPIs, were set targets, 13 are green, six are amber and eight are red. Notable achievements include a high percentage were conducted on vulnerable people with a 23% performance improvement compared to the same period last year. And that's the safe and well visits, nothing that was really, really pleasing to read. 100% of call competencies and fitness assessments are up to date, ensuring that staff are well prepared to respond to emergencies. High performance in 999 call taking, appliance availability and instant response times. While there are areas requiring further improvements, the overall progress demonstrates a commitment to excellence and continuous improvement. This report provides a detailed account of the progress made, the strategies implemented and the ongoing efforts to ensure that Surrey Fire and Rescue meets and exceeds the standards set by the HMIC Fire and Rescue Service. Therefore, reinforcing its dedication to serving the community effectively and efficiently. So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody at Surrey Fire and Rescue Service who has contributed towards the inspection and subsequent improvements. We are very proud of our Fire and Rescue Service, whether you're on the front line or behind the scenes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much indeed, Kevin. That's very helpful. If I may, I will kick off. I think John's just going to add a few comments. Go on, of course. For the bits I've forgotten, probably. Not at all. Thank you very much. So good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to present this report to the committee. The last six months have seen further improvements across Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, continued progress against our inspection improvement plan and improvements in productivity and performance. In addition to the completed actions currently showing, our inspection improvement plan update for February has just been published, which shows that a further 20 actions have completed in the last quarter and 23 have been closed due to incorporation into business as usual activities. Evidence to support progress is also being collated in preparation for our next inspection. Our Cabinet member has already highlighted some areas of notable achievement. Other areas of achievement include a 40% increase in the number of business safety audits and strong performance in completing operational premises surveys, which is well above target. And those we do to ensure firefighter safety at risk premises. Finally, we are expecting confirmation from HMIC FRS, the Inspectorate, in June regarding our fourth inspection, which we are anticipating will start in late summer, early autumn this year. The Inspectorate have advised that there will be a review of governance integrated throughout the next inspection, including scrutiny of our Community Risk Management Plan, our CRMP, with a focus on outcomes for our communities, and a focus on leadership at all levels. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, John. Well, I'll start. The inspection identified a cause for concern in spring 2023. This was in relation to the risk-based inspection program. The committee will be pleased to see that the inspectors were satisfied on your corrective action by February 2024. It appears that Sorry Fire and Rescue agreed with the inspectors that the risk-based inspection program's methodology needed improvement. Is there learning from this cause for concern that could be applied to the service more widely to avoid the concerns arising in the first place? Yes, thank you for the question. The identification of a cause of concern in spring 2023 and the subsequent corrective actions taken really did provide some valuable insights for us. From a protection and fire safety perspective, the improvements made to our risk-based inspection program focused on using updated National Fire Chief Council's methodology and triangulating the concerns of the inspectorate with our own internal audits, the actions of which are routinely monitored with a follow-up plan for March this year in relation to the original cause of concern. Engaging with all relevant stakeholders, especially our peers and local fire and rescue services, allowed us to gather diverse perspectives and insights which helped in refining our risk-based inspection process. This is something we do more broadly in terms of sharing recognised practice. In terms of our broader learning, one aspect that we do utilise more widely is the use of internal audit. Current examples include our safe and well visit processes, business safety and fire control, all of which have been subjected to recent internal audits. Surrey Fire and Rescue also actively utilise a range of National Fire Chief Council fire standards to review ourselves against. The fire standards support the development and maintenance of professional standards for the whole of the fire and rescue sector, and we use those routinely through our assurance work. On a practical level, we also undertake fire station assurance processes on a rolling two-yearly basis, and that's to help us to ensure professionals are maintained operationally. Thank you very much. John Beckett. Thank you, Chair. As we can see that the emergency service interoperability principles training for our borough and multi-agency partners was completed in March 24. Are all the targeted partners now trained? And is there a way that we measure that training and the improvements that it's brought? Yeah, thank you again. So the Jessup, as we abbreviate, it's much easier to say. Much easier to say. So the Jessup training for partners is the responsibility of their own organisation and not Surrey Fire and Rescue. So I can't confirm whether all partners are now trained or provide evaluation of the impact. However, what I would say is that the Jessup principles were first introduced back in 2012. And whilst the initial focus at the time was an improving response, multi-agency response to major incidents, Jessup is designed to be scalable and is routinely observed through day-to-day multi-agency incidents that we collectively attend. In addition to the operational incidents, the real incidents that we attend, we have significantly increased the number of multi-agency exercises that our frontline crews undertake with partners such as police, ambulance and local authority. So for the financial year to date, we have completed 154 training exercises, many of which will have involved blue light partners. For us, this is a really tangible way of observing those Jessup principles in practice. And that will include debriefs and hot debriefs after the event to share learning with partners. The Local Resilience Forum is about to undertake a training needs analysis and review of occupational competencies across the partnership. And we anticipate that there will be a desire for further Jessup training, whether that's a bespoke course or as part of strategic tactical continuous professional development or CPD. There will always need to be further CPD, which the Local Resilience Forum is looking to develop within the training and exercise in offer. And this will be developed after the training needs analysis has been completed. Thank you. Richard Teer. Thank you. The performance conversation tool, that's an interesting title. You say that this tool is under review. What benefit have you found so far? And I know that you're cascading that down to frontline staff at the moment. How's that going for you? Thank you for the question. So just add a bit of background to the tool we speak about is our performance management template. So this was developed a number of years ago. And initially it provided staff and line managers the opportunity to have discussions around capability, capacity, upcoming objectives and development aspirations. But based on staff feedback and obviously subsequently our HMIC visit as well, over the last 12 to 18 months, a new and updated tool, as you call it, has now been developed and co-designed by a wider group of staff. And it's going to be implemented at the start of this financial year. So the service has matured in its approach to performance conversations. And so the updated template has a focus on wellbeing, looking at demands of work, support mechanisms, working relationships and physical wellbeing. And it also goes into greater depth on how you can lead yourself and others. So there'll be sections in there for all staff around attendance and behaving in line with the core code of ethics like integrity. Then there'll be certain elements for our operational staff as they have requirements around their core skills and their fitness standards to maintain. And also managers around leading by example and achieving targets. And the form itself is also designed to align with the performance conversations taking place quarterly, which just came into force last year. And that means we can then identify trends over the years, making it easier to spot areas for improvement and also recognise some good performance. So the benefits brought by the new template means that there's an emphasis on the wellbeing, which ensures employees mental and physical health are regularly monitored and supported. The inclusion then of the future aspirations and development plans help employees focus on their career growth, making sure their activities and goals are aligned with our own, with the services objectives. And then the structured conversations obviously promote clear and open communications between managers and employees, fostering an accountable and also collaborative work environment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Stephen Cook, please. Yes, thank you, Chairman. Your performance report states that in KPIs, that in quarter two and quarter three, you responded to 78% and 74% of freedom of information requests on time. Council-wide, the response rate is 92%. Do you know why the fire service is below the council average? Thank you for the question. So I'll start by saying FOIs that are received by the service has increased. They're actually up 14% from the previous year. And they're also increasingly complex. They can include a lot of data requirements, for example. The main reason for delayed responses for FOIs is that most require gathering information from teams, not just within the service, but teams and departments service-wide across, sorry, across council-wide. So you are very much relying on prompt responses from those teams in the council as well. In addition to that, key contacts or specialists in particular roles also leave the council and also move departments. So we have to spend some time then identifying who is best to contact with regards to getting the information we need for the FOI. And then finally, if they are new enrolled, there is an element of, there's a lack of understanding around the FOIs, around the process. There's a big exercise that has to be undertaken with regards to redacting confidential information before it's shared, and obviously embedding those deadlines as well. So our internal business support team work really hard to gather as much information as possible in a timely manner. But unfortunately, there are elements of that that are out of our control. But what we do do internally is we do do an end-of-year review where we try to identify some of our internal teams that may need extra support in getting that FOI information to us in a more timely manner. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Andy McLeod. Thanks, Jim. I've got a similar question to Steve, and this is about fees and information. This is about corporate complaints where you are responding to 67% within time in a six-month period. It doesn't seem to me you receive a very high number of complaints. It talks about 18 over a six-month period, which doesn't seem to me that high a number. But you're still only responding to 67% within time. And again, similar to Stephen's question, you should be achieving 90% according to the Council's normal measurements. So if you could comment on that, please. Thank you. So you're right there to acknowledge that we do get a low number, which means that obviously a small amount that goes out of date really impacts the performance measure. But similarly to the FOIs as well, they are quite complex in its nature at times. So when you are relying on teams and personnel outside of fire, that can further cause some delay when you have to coordinate with multiple teams. And an example of this would be complaints relating to driving standards and behaviour. So that's been a theme over the last couple of years. And the first step in that is needing a detailed review of the telematic information within those vehicles, which can be really time consuming. And that data tells us around the vehicle's movements, the speeds, and other critical parameters. So this data then needs to be reviewed by our driving standards and compliance manager. And they will then have a conversation with the investigator around whether the complaint will be upheld or not. So in addition to that, we also obviously have operational staff on shift patterns. And if we need their accounts of any information regarding the complaint, then that can delay the process as we have to. They're not immediately available like the rest of us Monday to Friday per se. So coordinating their input can take time as well if we want to compile a comprehensive response. Catherine Bart. Thank you. Just picking up on the safe and well visits and the business safety visits, you're doing lots of them and it's really good activity. I'm just interested, when you've got that information, who, how can you, how can it be made even more use of by sharing themes with other than business premises? Thank you. Thank you for the question. So I guess my answer to that would be to provide some reassurance that this is always done in a multi-agency and to not overload them with, you know, repeated visits as well. So the partnership officers, the partnership coordinator team within our prevention team to kind of list now, but it's the very essence of what they do. If you have an incident to learn from an incident to learn from, we will undertake a formal review to read their occurrence. Thank you. Bob Hughes. Thank you. A report on the performance of the fire brigade gives me the opportunity to commend and thank the fire brigade for their incredibly swift response to the fire in Sample Oak Lane in my division. I gather that the deployment happened within a minute of it being reported to the fire brigade and I know how quickly they were moving because I was driving through Bookham at the time when the control vehicle with its lights flashing and sirens on came past me. So congratulations to that and I know that the parish council locally are very impressed largely because the chairman of the parish council lives in the next door house. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Helen? I just wanted to ask, building on Catherine's question really, about safe and well visits. Do you still, for example, when visiting residents' properties, record fall issues? So, you know, a resident's home and elderly people, for example, do you then, can you then, especially if they've got a care package, report back to adult social care? It's building on what Catherine was asking. How much of the information can you then share with other relevant services that would be helpful to them? Yes, so to reassure you, that absolutely still happens, Councillor. I think another area I'd like to just give you sight of is an innovative pilot that we're running at the moment actually, where one of our experienced partnership officers is actually being externally funded to provide support to Surrey Heartland's ICB in terms of a hospital discharge team. The role title, I think, is Home Fire Safety Coordinator, and that is actually a very multi-agency approach to ensure that people's houses are fit for people to return to after trip hazards, banisters, key code, locks on the front door, and a raft of other things. So that role actually only started in January, and we're getting some early feedback now on the early indications, which sound really positive. So we're hopeful that one will potentially grow further. It's outside of the traditional vulnerability criteria. They may be situationally or momentarily vulnerable. So our advisor is able to go in and provide some advice on home safety in a really broad sense. Another area that I would signpost to is our recently approved Community Risk Management Plan for the next five years. One of the proposals in there, which we'll now be working to develop and implement, is around working with health partners and other partners in terms of improving the lives of residents. So things like force assist will be something that in the next five years of our CRMP, we'll be looking to do something more proactive in. I mean, that's fantastic, and I'm really pleased to hear that because actually Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, amongst all the blue light, I think is the most trusted blue light service amongst Surrey residents. When asked, they trust fire service personnel more than any of the others, not saying that the others aren't totally trustworthy. Of course they are. But, you know, there's a certain, you know, love for the fire and rescue service and their personnel. So that's really good. They will trust them to come into their homes and to give them advice and everything else. I think that that project is something we should keep an eye on as counsellors, and we'd be very interested to hear how it developed. I also sit on the Adults and Health Social Care Select Committee, and I think to hear about when you've done a few months more to see how that's coming back. If I may make that note to our committee clerk to let my colleague on committee clerk know on an interest, I think, of hearing more about that. I think that's absolutely brilliant. It's exactly the sort of thing, you know, where we've got people who are trusted and responsible, people more vulnerable, et cetera. So well done. Thank you. Jan. Well, having had quite recent issues with hospitals and discharge and goodness knows what else, Surrey go down to the home and they check. Like my husband's in a separate bedroom and the bathroom is opposite and it's flat, which, just to be honest, I would do anyway. But perhaps if you're a lot older and not thinking about it. But my argument is that I saw that being done by Surrey, all in their green, and they were lovely. And they did six weeks of other things afterwards, you know, physio and whatever. So I'm not sure, this is where I sound horribly cynic, but I'm not. I just worry that we keep putting things on to the police. We keep saying, which is the government for instance, we keep putting things on to the fire brigade. We have a finite number of officers and we're asking more every year for them to check on. Now, I think what, you know, Helen said is great. But I'm just thinking, if with all the build up of homes being authorised now because we've got to build, that's what the Labour tell us, then that involves people. And that could involve more fires and more everything. So I'm just worried that we don't put the police off fire service to extra work to cover things that should damn well be done by somebody, say in Epsom Council, who are the health department in there that deals with it. I just worry that we ask officers who are trying to deal with a fire, if they've got enough time to then talk to the person. I think if they're vulnerable and frail, yes. But if they've got some sort of family, get the family around and tell them to sort it out. But I think they're very vulnerable and very frail, probably helpful. But I'd like to see how these fire people get on with it all. Thank you very much, Jan. I'd like to ask a couple of other questions, mainly around some information to the committee and also public communications. Thankfully, the number of fatalities from fires in Surrey has always been relatively low. People tend to have an exaggerated view of how frequent or how serious that is. Could we be given some up-to-date information for the last few years about the number of fatalities that there have actually taken place, whether that's been going up, going down from year to year? And also, alongside that, some stats in terms of the work on rescue. And a lot of the work is on the roads with road traffic collisions, et cetera. And I think, not right now, but if we could be circulated with some information on the level of work and how that has changed maybe over the last few years, that would be helpful. The other request is I used to see fairly regularly Surrey Fire and Rescue posts on Facebook just updating the public on what you've been doing, the number of incidents, the types of work, et cetera. And, you know, safe and well visits is one of those areas that people may not be always aware of. I don't know if I've just missed them, but could we have, you know, an up-to-date maybe Facebook page post to just keep people informed about the work of fire and rescue? I think all of the members here replicate the view that the fire and rescue service has always had and continues to have huge respect and thanks from the public of Surrey and from this council for the work you do. But just getting that information out from time to time just reminds people about the huge amount of work that you do actually do. Yeah, thank you very well. Can I just say to all of you, I really do appreciate your support and your kind words. It's not lost on us how valued and how important that is, so I really do appreciate it. Just to provide some reassurance to the chair, we still, to this committee as well, and we can share that with you. I do see the reports on specific incidents. Yeah. You know, we are attending, you know, something so-and-so. What I haven't seen are the summary pages. You know, last six months we've done X, Y and Z. Yeah, so we tend to do the monthly. Monthly, okay. So this is a monthly post for our comms and media team. And I know personally, we can get that sent over to you. Just in terms of the point, if I may go back to an earlier point from Councillor around the impact on fire rescue resource. Just to be clear, this pilot role is an additional post. So we're able to backfill that role. It's not someone who undertakes an emergency response role. It's one of our specialists within our prevention team who's in a non-operational role. So we're using one of our experience, because we think this pilot has got such potential, we're using one of our experienced partnership officers who already does some fantastic work to go into this pilot role, of which we will then backfill to cover the gap, if that helps. David Hart. Yeah, I would have thought that something like that we ought to send, ought to be sent to all councillors, not just the committee. Say something, I'm just, it's, I'm, I've been here 20 years, so I've seen it all good, bad and indifferent. But, I, I'm not convinced that we, as a county council, are promoting ourselves as well as we could. I'm told we have a communication team. I'm often not told about anything that's happening in my division. I just think we're not, actually, residents love reading it. When they say, see my little green book, they say, we love it, Jan, because it tells us all this, that and the other. And sometimes, they just like something that they, perhaps, in hard coffee, that they could actually pick up. I'm not saying libraries or wherever. But I just think sometimes, we don't blow a big enough trumpet for what we do here. Because we, it is a big county, and we do really well. And when you think of education, it's outstanding. But, I think we ought to let our residents know exactly what goes on. I think most residents in my road, they know, oh, it's the fire brigade, as they say. And I keep saying it's a pump. We've got one pump. You know, we have to go through it all. But once they're told, there's an interest. But if you're never told like that, or the green belt with all the issues on the Horton Country partner, if you're never told about it, then why would you be looking for it? Because you're not aware. So, I do think we need to be upping our game as a council to promote what we do. I think Mr. Simpson has already responded to that point and agreeing with you, as with my point. Kevin. Just to wrap up a couple of points that was raised about road traffic collisions and deaths on the road. Obviously, our chief fire officer Dan Quinn is the national lead. So, we're in a unique position that we get the best practice as soon as we can. And the point about the amount of time attending fires. I mean, in the time that I've been within emergency services, that has changed dramatically. You know, years ago that was the majority of the time. Now, it's a much smaller, which gives us some capacity to do other things. And finally, we will ask our comms team if there's a way of giving a link. Because what we don't want to be doing is sending out lots of paper copies of information because of the cost and everything else. But we'll see if Sophie can find some sort of link that could be sent to everybody. So, you can just click on the link every week and get the up-to-date or every month the up-to-date information. All right. Are there any other comments or questions from anyone? If not, then I'll ask for the summary just to be put up on the screen for us to have a read-through. The significant progress instead of work. Sure. That's fine. Okay. Any other comments? Well, if everybody's happy with that, is that agreed? Thank you very much indeed. And thank all of you for attending this morning. We'll move on then to Item 9, which is the Cabinet Response to Select Committee Recommendations, which is in the agenda. We're asked to note the Cabinet Response following the 5th of December meeting. Is that agreed? Agreed. Thank you. Item 10 is the recommendations for the Tracker and Forward Work Programme. On the Forward Work Programme is the item of Surrey's Transport Delivery Plan. I know this is of significant interest to committee members, but please note this item is not yet ready for discussion in April as we had planned. It will therefore be deferred to later this year, and that will allow for a complete discussion when the report comes to us as a committee. Are there any other comments or queries on the Forward Tracker? Andy? Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to comment on the item that started for the next meeting on the Ringway Performance Review of the Ringway Contracts over the last two years. You'll remember that many of us went, or several of us anyway, went to the Merrill, and we saw that they were doing things in terms of new machines for white lining. It would be interesting to know a report on how well that has worked, because it was supposed to be more efficient and save costs, etc. We were also given a demonstration of improved methods of pothole, dealing with filling potholes. Unfortunately, we are still receiving complaints, certainly within our group, about potholes. Not just the numbers, but the quality of the pothole filling isn't as good as it was. That was what we were shown. Catherine was there. We had a demonstration of how it was all going to be much better. We were going to see all around the edge. It doesn't seem to be happening in the real world and in practice. So we'd just like to get a report back on that, if we may. Yeah. Thank you, Andy. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments on the Forward Work Programme, if not noted? Sorry. Catherine. Yes. Sorry. I was just going to pick up on, because one of the questions I had still was, one of the questions I had to ask at a forthcoming Cabinet meeting is to say what... I'd like to... I will be asking that question. That's fine. Thank you, Catherine. Okay. Right. If that report is agreed or noted by everyone. The date of our next meeting is scheduled for the 10th of April. That's the last item on the published agenda, but we do have a briefing note that's been circulated, which we asked for in terms of the Your Fund Surrey. I don't know if we will have yet online. They're just coming on now. Just... Just... I think we've got Denise Turner-Stuart. You need to formally close for me. Fine. Sorry. Okay. So we've got a couple of people joining us online. So if I can just close the committee meeting with the agenda that we've covered, and this item will now be dealt with as a briefing following the formal committee meeting. So thanks very much everybody. And...