Transcript

Thank you very much. The members and officers present, please ensure you have switched off or to silent any other devices that you may have that could interrupt the proceedings. Now, this meeting is being broadcast live via the Council's website, and members are reminded that our images and sound are available for all to see. By participating in this meeting, members of the public are also consenting to being filmed Voting will be undertaken in the time-honoured way, by general assent or show of hands Only the votes of those present in this chamber will be counted As is customary for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, neither I nor Councillor Vollam will vote on any items So let's now turn to our first Agenda Item Agenda Item 1, Minutes May I sign the Minutes of the Annual Council Meeting held on the 13th of May, 2025? As there's no dissent, the Minutes are agreed Agenda Item 2, Announcements Now I have received the news of the death of a former councillor of ours, Lawrence Oliver Lawrence represented Hammond Peterson from 1978 to 1981 And indeed I remember him because it was he who signed up, myself and my husband To join the Liberal Democrats back in, well we were the Liberals I think, back in 1978 So I remember him with great fondness Lawrence moved to Hertfordshire and I send condolences to his family I shall be launching my appeal and fundraising events for my charities Small Steps and Crossroads Care on the afternoon of the 13th of July This event will be held at Asgill House, a long-time supporter of the Mayoralty Tickets are available from the Mayor's office or online It's going to be a splendid afternoon, the weather is set fair And I hope to see you all there Now does the Leader or the Chief Executive have any announcements? The Chief Executive, no? Nothing from me, Madam Mayor Right, and the Leader? Thank you, Madam Mayor Just following on from the Rev. Jeff's comments regarding Councillor Samuel And the fact that we don't often say thank you to those who have served this borough And the testament is there as the honorary aldermen to Geoffrey, Samuel and Martin Angle Was awarded posthumously It's time to correct one glaring error that we have And one of our greatest gifts that the Council can bestow is the freedom of the borough of Richmond upon Thames And I'm delighted to say that I've been in conversations with Sir Vince Cable And have offered him the freedom of the borough He has been delighted to accept And we will be bringing forward a special meeting in the autumn To honour him for his services to the borough for over 30 years Yes That's splendidly Many thanks for arranging that and for sharing that information with us Right, so we move on to Agenda Item 3, Declarations of Interest Does anyone wish to declare an interest in any of the items on the agenda? Agenda Item 4, Petitions Does anyone wish to present a petition? Agenda Item 5, Public Questions For which there's 30 minutes allotted Now the public questions are published in the supplementary list And following the Chair's reply Questioners may ask one supplementary question But it must arise directly out of the original question Or the reply And should not be preceded by a statement So we're going to start with the first reply Mr. White Are you here, please? Councillor Cambridge Please provide your answer to Mr. White Sorry Mr. White Could you please come to the Microphone Microphone's down there Sounds right to me Right, in that case Councillor Cambridge Please provide your reply to Mr. White Well thank you Mr. White So of the 47 cases Lodged with the first tier tribunal Send in 2024 17 Were conceded By the local authority A negotiated settlement Was reached with the child's parents In 22 cases And 7 cases Were withdrawn By the child's parents Now these decisions Were made prior To a formal tribunal hearing Only one case Progressed To a formal tribunal hearing This case was found Found in favour Of the parents Mr. White Do you have a supplementary question? I'm just trying to digest Madam Mayor Those figures Which are of course New to me And it may be that Councillor Cambridge Would find this difficult To answer But it's a question Of timing When were those Conceded Was it At the door The night before Which I say As a Special educational needs Judge For many years Was something We saw quite frequently And that causes Of course A lot of distress To the families Thank you Mr. White So Councillor Cambridge Are you able to provide A reply? So my understanding Mr. White Is that you are Asking about The 17 Cases That were conceded By the local authority And you are asking For information About what point Those were conceded Thank you for the question And we will get back to you I'm so sorry We can't continue To Carry out this Just one supplementary Could you write in Please Because this is We can't continue With a second supplementary Okay Thank you Right Question two Miss Seven Are you here? Please could you come forward? Councillor Roberts Please provide your answer To Miss Seven Madam Mayor For the purposes Of this meeting As we have Several Four questions On the agenda I'm going to cede My right of reply To this question To our Violence against women And girls champion Councillor Mansfield Okay Right Thank you Councillor Mansfield Great Thank you There's actually Three questions Relating to violence Against women And girls And what I was going To do was Respond to all of them First of all And then invite Supplementaries From the various People who have Submitted the questions So the first one In relation to your On question two It was very much About the education Providers And what we're Doing with Education providers And helping young People So yes We have been Delivering a lot Against all of those We've been working We've been training People including Young people affected By intimate Partner violence The rise of Incel ideology And misogyny And how to be An active bystander But we haven't Stopped there We've also been Working very closely With St Mary's University to work With people from Tertiary education And make sure That they're protected From violence against Women and girls We've also been Working with the Youth Council And another survey Has just been Generated by the Youth Council With regard to What the issues are And we'll be Hearing more from Them next week As to what they Want us to do And finally We have done Some work with Primary schools Because I know That was specifically We work with Loudmouth to get Into primary schools And do some Education with The primary schools With regard to Question number three Do I need to Check if the Person's here Madam Mayor Ms Wilson Are you here? Would you come Forward to the Microphone please? And while we're About it Ms Tavanya Are you here? Right would you Like to come Forward as well Please? Thank you So in relation To question three And the white Ribbon So there are Legislative Provisions In procurement Practices that we Need to follow I do understand What you're saying With regard to The white Ribbon and how We need to Consider it with The contracts That we're Providing We are going Through developing A contractor's Charter at the Moment and Certainly as White Ribbon Champion I Would advocate For something to Do with violence Against women and Girls being in There as part Of the mix However I have To say it Wouldn't necessarily Be that they Are white Ribbon accredited There's many Different ways To show that You're standing Up for violence Against women And girls It's not just The white Ribbon and I Think we need To be a little Bit more flexible Than pushing People down One direction And the Question for the Last one was In regard to The resourcing And the Finance that We're providing For violence Against women And girls So you make Reference to the Strategy and The paper that's Just gone through The finance Committee which Is a very Ambitious strategy Going forward And I think The comment that You're making is We're not putting The money behind It necessarily That you saw From that paper But I think It's because They're separated The strategy went Through the Finance Committee In June However in November there Was additional Funding provided To IDVA Because that is Somewhere where We need to Provide additional Support to So 73,000 was Put from the Finance Committee To IDVA And we also In terms of The cost of Living allocation We put 50,000 As well towards Violence against Women and girls So what we're Doing is we're Ongoing reviewing The situation We're ongoing Looking at the Demand But of course It's prevention That we really Need to address And some of The actions That we're Taking in Terms of Prevention Hopefully Will stop That increased Demand I don't know The supplementaries Now Thank you Taking them In turn Then Miss Seven Do you have A supplementary Question So you mentioned There's several There's several Different strategies For the different Levels of education I wonder if you Could expand a Little bit more On the delivery Mechanisms used For teaching Those who For training Those who deliver That education To young people In our borough In terms of When we might be Being able to see That training Can it be shared Yeah I can share The details of the Training And we use Expert Expert people To come in And do some Of the training So we don't Do it ourselves The one piece That we do To ourselves Is the bystander Training We have Internal Colleagues Internal Officers Who are Trained To do that And they've Created a Module On bystander Training And they are Doing that Themselves But the Other ones We use External Parties Thank you I can email You if you Write it Thank you Thank you Miss Wilson Do you have A supplementary Question Yeah I do I definitely Agree that Prevention should Be wider than The white ribbon Accreditation But since the Council is one Of the leading Councils in That field And given Under the Social value Element of the Procurement toolkit That was released Last year Is there any Reason why It could not Be included In that space White ribbon Specifically Or generally Both Now you've Raised both Probably both But white ribbon Given it's Something the Council is Working hard On white ribbon It would be Good to see What's happening And whether That does get Privileged in Procurement But other Activities I think we Need to let The process Take place Where we're Looking at The actual How we Define the Contracts And how we Make the Decisions on That That is Something that We're Currently Looking at And I Certainly Like I Said As white Ribbon Champion Would advocate For something Like that To be Included Thank you Thank you And Miss Can you Provide a Written update Of the Actions in The Vorg Strategy Action plan With 224 And 2025 Timescales Which are Complete Which remain Open And of those Which are Not yet Complete What are The revised Timescales I can but I guess you're Not asking me To do it Now so I'll do that Afterwards Thank you Right Thank you Now Question Five I believe Miss Saunders Is not Attending Therefore She will Receive a Written reply Question Six I believe Mr Marlowe Is not Attending And he Will receive A written Reply We now Go on to Question Seven Mrs Finn Are you Here Do I Do I See or Hear Mrs Finn In that Case You will Receive A Written Reply Question Eight Miss Head Are you With us I am Marvelous Would you Like to Come to The Microphone And Councillor Roberts Would you Please Provide Your Answer To Miss Head Thank You Madam Having A Former Mayor And Former Mayor It's Like one Of Those Episodes Of Doctor Who When Two Appear In The Same Room At Once It's Vaguely Terrifying So Yes The Twinning Reaffirmation Weekend Was met With an Overwhelming Positive Response From The Public It Fosters A Sense Of Community And International Connection A Number Of Cultural Organisations Club Societies Actively Participated Contributing To A Diverse Program Of Over 50 Events The Weekend Drew Visitors From Both France And Germany And Further Afield Within The UK Who Joined Their Richmond Counterparts In A Variety Of Activities Including Competitive Chess Tournaments Tennis And Polo Matches Choir And Orchestra Performances And Numerous Social Gatherings Many Local Clubs Organisations And Community Centres Independently Hosted A Wide Array Of Events Walks And Talks Which Added To The Celebratory Atmosphere And To Visually Mark The Celebration Most High Streets And Town Centres Displayed Flags And Bunting Highlighting Their Participation A Key Priority Was To Create Opportunity For Young People To Engage And Showcase Their Talents And The Youth Stage At Whittaker Avenue In Richmond Town Centre Featured Performances From Local And Visiting Youth Groups Musicians And Dancers The Weekend's Grand Finale Which Was A Heavily Oversubscribed Performance By The European Youth Orchestra At The Landmark Car Centre In Teddington Was An Amazing Event Which We Both Enjoyed Very Much Overall The Twinning Reaffirmation Weekend Was A Huge Success I Would Like To Pay Tribute To The Officers Who Were In Delivering That Success And Also To Members Of The Richmond In Europe Association Of Which I Know Miss Head Is A Member Because They Played An Absolutely Vital If Upon This Splendid Success Thank Well We Will Of Course Be Looking Forward To The Next Event Which Is The Next Reaffirmation Event Which Is Happening In Constance But That Is Not For Another Five Years There Are Already Expressions Of Interest From Other Twins Towns I Will Not It Would Be Invidious To Name Individuals But We Are Finding Expressions Of Interest Not Least Because They Saw What A Splendid Event Was Put On Which Was Described By The German Ambassador No Less As The Most Beautiful Event He Had Witnessed During His Three Year Tenure In The Job So Everybody Is Queuing Up To Be Friends With Richmond Thank You For Your Question Thank You Thank You For That Okay So We Can Move On To Question Nine Miss Squire Are You Here No Okay In That Case Miss Squire Will Get A Written Reply And And Then We Move On To Question Ten Mr Moshi I Know You're Here Because I've Spotted You Would You Like To Come Down To The Microphone And Councillor Cambridge Please Provide Oh Yes Please Provide Your Answer To Mr Moshi Thank You Mr Moshi So Due To A Significantly Reduced Attendance Over Time And A Lack Of Items Submitted By Meeting Attendees For Discussion No Further Meetings Of The Send Voluntary Forum Have Been Arranged Now There Will Be Other Opportunities For Voluntary Sector Organisations To Be In The Development And Scrutiny Of Send Services Voluntary Sector Organisations Are Members Of The Multi Agency Send Partnership Board Chared By The Executive Director Of Children's Services And I Know You Represent Mencap In This Group Which Is Also Attended By Organisations Such As Rules Small Steps And The Richmond Council For Voluntary Services Mr Moshi Do You Have A Supplementary I Do But Let's Make We All Right I Do But May I First Thank You Madam Mayor For The Publicly For The Service You Gave To The Education And Children Services Committee Throughout Your Seven Years And Also For Coming To Orléans Primary School Two Weeks Ago To Launch The Pedal To Paris Bike Ride May I Thank You On Behalf Of The Teachers The Staff The PTA And All The Children Who Are Delighted To See You We Made £35,000 For Skylarks And For The School And We Very Grateful That You Came Councillor Cambridge I Am Dis You Probably Notice I Am Disappointed My supplementary Is Why Should I Have To Come Here To Ask That Question To Find Out That The Send Voluntary Forum Is Being Disbanded When The Meeting That Was Supposed To Be Held In March Was Cancelled And We Were Told That A New Format Would Be Put Together Between The Council And Democratic Services For Voluntary Organisations To Give Their Input And If I Just Make The Comment Of Council Of Frost As Chair That We Managed To Turn What Was A Difficult Situation With AFC And Special Needs For Children Around Was Because Of The Input That The Voluntary Organisations Gave And Certainly The Welsh Committee And The SFV Was The Right Vehicle So Could I Just Ask You To Think Again Please About The Disbanding Because And I'm Saying Subjectively I Think It Is Not A Great Idea To Disband The Voluntary Forum But Thank You So I'm Just I'm Just I'm Picking A Question From That I Was A Keen Attendee As You Know Mr Moshe As Was Councillor Frost Before Becoming Madam Mayor It Was A Good Forum You Will Have Not Like Me That There Were Some Of Those Meetings Where But I Hear Your Call And It's Noted That You Would Like The Forum To Continue I Think Perhaps You Will Remember Within Those Meetings There Was Quite A Long Discussion About Next Steps And Where We Should Go From Here But The Eventuality Of That Which Appeared At The Last Meeting Was That It Probably Wouldn't Have The Legs To Continue But I Will Take Away And What You're Saying Thank You Thank You Now Mr Evans This Is Question 11 Are You Here Online Yes I Am Madam Mayor So Council Eyman Would You Please Provide Your Answer To Mr Evans Of Of Of Of Richmond Officers Have Joined A London Council's Working Group That Is Focusing On Vision Zero Initiatives While We Wait For Additional Collision Data To Become Available That Data Which Will Inform The Study Will Be With Us At The Earliest By 2026 Across London The Number Of Cycling Trips Have Increased By 39% Returning An Increase In Collisions Whilst The Risk Of Being In In The Collision Has Reduced By 23% Right Thank You Council Eyman Mr Evans Did You Have A Supplementary Question Yes I Do Madam Mayor Please Go Ahead Thank You For Your Answer Councillor Do You Now Accept The Increase Serious Cycle Collisions As Set Out To The Transport And Air Quality Committee On The 16th September 2024 Was 130% An Increase From 20 To 46 And May I Ask If You Now Regret Not Checking The Officer Information Since I'm Not In Possession Of Those Facts In Front Of Me I Can't Confirm Or Support Them All I Can Say Is I Listen To The Comments You Made Right Thank You So We Move On To Question 12 Miss Hayden Are You Here Please Would You Like To Come To The Microphone And Councillor Roberts Please Provide Your Answer To Miss Hayden Hello And Thank You For Your Question I Mean This Isn't Normally My Area I I Be Up Front But It's A Governance Question And The Question Is Was The Council Acting Within It's Own Corporate Code Of Governance And Yes Is The Short Answer There Are A Few Points Of Clarification Which Need To Be Made The Question Refers To That The CNS For 2530 Sets A Target Of Reducing The Number Of Gas Boilers In Homes By 6700 In Point Of Fact That Is Not Correct According To Numerical Target For Reducing The Number Of Gas Boilers There Is A Reference Within The Net Zero Roadmap Which I Fully Take That You're On Board With This But There Are People In Even In This Room Who Describe It As The Insane Net Zero Strategy I Don't Agree With Them On Page 31 Of The Need For 47 Percent Of Domestic Heating Systems To Be Electrified By 2030 To Be In Line With Achieving Net Zero In 2043 That's Just A Need For But Not A Target Which I Appreciate Is Semantics And Playing With Words But It Ain't The Target So That's Yes It's The Answer We'll Be Acting Within The Corporate Governance Framework When We Came Up With The Framework Yes We Will Is The Short Answer To Your Question You May Have A Supplementary Which I'm Sure You Will And I May Call Upon Council In What Who's Area It Really Is To Assist With That Or Give You A Written Answer But Let's See Right Thank You Do You Have A Supplementary Question Just Take Okay So My Question Is I'm Thinking That's Right There Are Around 77 Thousand Homes In Our Borough That Currently Are Heated Using Gas Boilers That's Around 91% Okay Now Those 77 Thousand Homes Are This Sorry Those 77 Thousand Boilers I Should Be Really Clear Are Responsible For 34% Of Our Borough's Carbon Emissions And Do You Need To Get On To Your Question So So As Leader Of Our Council All Right Are You Prep To Adopt A Climate And Nature Strategy Okay For The Next Five Years Okay In Which The Number Of Gas Boilers Overall Is Set To Reduce To Zero By 2043 And We All Accept Yeah That We Need To Get Rid Of Those Gas Boilers By 2043 Yeah When That Would Require A Reduction Per Anum Of Over 4,000 Okay Everyone In The Room Do 77,000 Divided By 18 Years I Can Answer I Can Answer The Question For You Yes I Am Is Again The Short Answer Yes I Am Prepared To Adopt The Strategy Because We Don't Have The Powers To Mandate Removal What We Can Do Is Use All The Levers At Our Disposal To Try To Encourage Cajol Find Funding Sources From The Mayor Of London From Central Government To Try To Encourage People To Make That Change But I Don't Think It's A Bad Thing For An Administration To Have Ambitious Goals As Part Of A Climate Change Strategy Because If You Don't Have Ambitious Goals Then You Sit Back And Say Oh Well Not Our Problem Thank You I'm Sorry If You Want To Continue To Take Up This Question Then Do Please Write In Thank You Okay Right So We're Moving On Now To Question 13 And Mr Baker Are You Here You Are Here Right Thank You Now On behalf Of Councillor Baldwin Who's Not Able To Be Present Tonight Councillor Chard Please Would You Provide An Answer To Mr Baker Yes Thank You Mr Baker And I Apologise That Nancy Can't Be Here Due To So I Received An Answer From Councillor Baldwin Which I Will Now Read Out I Shant The Can't Be For The Item That Councillor Bennett Had Registered To Speak On Six Public Speakers Had Also Registered As Councillor Bennett Had Also Registered To Speak On Two Other Items On The Agenda For That Evening I Took Advice Councillor Baldwin Took Advice And Determined That It Would Be Reasonable To Invite Councillor Bennett To Please Submit A Written Representation Which He Did Pursuant Given The Number Of Items On The Agenda I Councillor Baldwin Considered My Approach To Councillor Bennett That Is To Invite Him To Make A Written Submission Both In Line With The Council Standing Orders And A Reasonable Compromise To Ensure A Variety Of Views Were Shared On The Evening And That The Business Of The Meeting Could Be Properly Managed And On A Personal Note And This Constructive Right Thank You Now You Can See That It Is Going To Be Difficult To Take A Supplementary Question From You Mr Baker Given That Councillor Baldwin Is Not Here To Reply So Did You Want To Write In A Supplementary Question Sorry I Just Wanted To Raise I A Little Bit Confused Because My Question Was Actually Directed To Councillor Roberts Not Councillor Bold Bold I No Not Right I'm Being Prompted Here That The Reason That The Question Was Picked Up By Councillor Bold Was Because She Chaired That Particular Item I'm Not Sure She Made That Decision May I Ask The Question May I Ask Councillor Roberts The Question I Don't Know Okay It Sounds Like We're Allowing That Thank You Thank You Given That A Councillor Bennett Is Not A Regular Fixture At Finance Committee Meetings B That You Knew Agenda Item 6 Was Controversial And C At The February 2024 Meeting You Allowed Councillor Bennett To Speak On Three Agenda Items Why Did You Choose To Refuse Him Permission To Speak On The Pencer Field Item Rather Than One Of The Later Requested Items Well I'm Sorry That Mr. Hard But You Just Had Clearly Explained To You That The Decision Was Taken By Councillor Baldwin So I Didn't Take Any Decision Thank You For Your Supplementary Right Thank You And So We're Going To Move On Now We Have Now Covered All Of The Questions From Members Of The Public And I Want To Thank You All For Your Questions We're Moving On To Agenda Item Six Which Is Members Questions And You'll Know That There Are 30 Minutes Again For Members Questions And I'm Asked To Remind You That This Is A Session For Questions So Please Do Not Begin Any Supplementary Questions With Statements Your Hundred Word Answers Should Take Only A Minute Or So Questions Are Listed On Page 16 Of The Agenda And This Part Of The Meeting Will Last No More Than 30 Minutes And I Will Also Ask You To Note That Should We Reach Question 14 Councillor Crook-Dake's Question Will Be Taken At That Point With Councillor Freese Moving Her Question To Question 21 Right Thank You And Any Questions Not Dealt With In That Time Will Receive A Written Answer So The Timer Could Start Please With Councillor Roberts Please Reply To Councillor Dalton Thank You Councillor Dalton I Appreciate That This Is A Very Localised Issue But It Has Impact For Many Areas Across The Borough Our Network Management Officers Have Asked Thames Water To Implement A Number Of Mitigation Strategies Including Fixed And Variable Message Signage Being Placed At Strategic Locations Away From The Immediate Area Of The Works Thames Water Also Held A Local Engagement Event At Hampton Library In Order To Try To Address Residents Concerns They Have Also Been Asked To Ensure There Is Messaging Of The Closure On Local Radio Stations And On Travel News Stations Once The Work Start Which They Already Have Of They Will Also Have A Dedicated Web Page On Their Website For The Project Furthermore They Will Operate A Visual Stop And Go Traffic Control On The A308 At Church Street Junction At Peak times To Ensure Optimal Traffic Flow In Both Directions And Finally Double Yola Lines Have Been Implemented Along Lower Sunbury Roads To Address Parking Concerns And To Help Alleviate Traffic Build Up In The Area And I Would Add That The Double Yola Lines Were Put In At Thames Water Expense And Not At A Penny Piece Cost To The Local Borough Council Tax Pair Right Council Dalton Do You Have A Supplementary Question As He's Aware There's A Lot Of Concern Locally About The Fact That It's 15 Weeks Of Work So What Reassurance Has Thames Water Given Him That These Works Will Be Completed Within The 15 Weeks If Not Earlier Thames Water Have Been Very Clear That They Intend To Complete These Works Within The 15 Minutes I Wish With The 15 Weeks Allocated I Would Pay Tribute To Our Officers Who Are Able To Work With Thames Water And Bring Down The Original Estimate From 20 Weeks Down To Five And I Am Given To Understand If They Overrun By Even One Day That Thames Water Will Be Fined £5,000 Per Day This Is Information Given To Me By Thames Water At The Drop In Center That They Will Be Find £5,000 Per Day For Any Overrun And I Know That Our Officers Will Be Working With Thames Water Constantly To Ensure That They Are Keeping A Close Eye On The Works And If They Can Be Made To Move Quicker They Will Thank You Is There Another Supplementary Question On This Point Okay Thank You In That Case Sorry Oh We Have Got Another Yes If They Were To Get Fined Sorry Where Does That Money End Up Going Does It Come To Us Or Somewhere I Will Ensure That I Get An Answer To You At The Earliest Opportunity Oh Councillor Raymond May Be To Assist It Comes To Us It Comes To Hampton Walls No Is That Right Thank You So Question Two Councillor Needham Watts Would You Please Require To Councillor War Thank You I And Colleagues Have Previously Explained On Various Occasions The Reasons For Granting A Lease To Penseford Field To Dose Of Nature In May The Council Went Through A Statutory Process That Invited The Public Views On The Council's Proposal This Lasted From April Until 22nd May And The Outcome Of That Exercise Was Considered And Debated At The Finance Policy And Resources Committee For Over Two And Half Hours During The Meeting It Was Reported That There Were Over 160 Comments In Support As Well As Testimonials From GPs That Had Referred Patients To Dose Nature And Residents That Had Used Their Services Some Of Who Had Previously Tried Other Therapies That Hadn't Worked For Them We Accept That The Termination Of The Lease Could Have Been Handled More Sensitively It Remains The Case That Granting The Yes What Has The Council Learned From Its Handling Of This Admittedly Controversial Issue Well I Can't Speak For All Of My Colleagues But I Certainly Think That We Need To Embark Upon Important Changes With More Consideration For People Who Perform Great Service In Our Local Areas I Would Hope That We Have All Learned That But That Also When We Believe In Something That Is Truly Important Such As The Mental Health Of Many People In The Borough Struggling To Find Provision That We Also Must Prioritize Acting On Their Behalf Thank You Question Three Councillor Millard Could You Please Give A Reply To Councillor Brown Yes I Will Cover Most Of This In The Motion We're Bringing Later In Brief The Impact Of These Is That London Is Being Stripped Of Funding And Whilst Richmond Gets Very Little Government Support As It Is The Government's Modeling Shows We'll We'll We'll Suffer The Biggest Percentage Loss Of Grant Across The Whole Of London I Want To Make The Point Since Taking Control In 2018 Under The Stewardship Of Robin Brown This Administration Has Made Just Shy Of 50 Million Of Annual Cash Savings By Modernizing Services Streamlining Processes Improving Procurement And Generating Income We've Invested In The Borough Without Needing To Borrow And To Built Up Reserves Yet The Government Thinks We Haven't Done Enough And Wants To Take What Little Funding We Get Away From Us We're Being Penalized For Having Managed Our Finances Prudently We'll Continue To Lobby Right Thank You Now I Understand Councillor Brown Is Not Present Is There A Supplementary Question To Be Put On This Point Right Okay In That Case We're Moving To Question Four Councillor Cambridge Would You Please Reply To Councillor Sacks Right So The Latest Government Data Published In June 2025 Shows That 5,300 School Aged Children In Richmond Upon Thames Live In Households That Claim Universal Credit 3,785 Children Are Currently Eligible For Benefits Related Free School Meals So This Means That An Additional 1,515 School Aged Children Will Benefit From The Extended Eligibility For Benefits Related Preschool Meals Announced By The Government In The Spending Review Thank You Councillor Cambridge Councillor Sacks Do You Have A Supplementary Question No Madam Mayor I Do Not Thank You Right Thank You In That Case We Will Move On Oh Sorry Councillor Wollow Right Sorry The Next Page Missed That One Question Five Sorry Okay Question Five Councillor Allen Please Would You Reply To Councillor Dane Thank You Madam Mayor So The Government Has pulled Back On Some Of The Proposed Changes In The Universal Credit And Personal Independence Bill And There Will Be No Changes To The PIP Rules Until After A Wider Review Is Completed The Council Will Work Closely With Voluntary Sector Partners Such As Citizens Advice Richmond Aid And Rules To Try To Mitigate Any Negative Impacts Of The Welfare Reforms This Will Include Raising Awareness About How The Changes May Affect Our Residents Clear Signposting To The Advice And Support Available And The Continuation Of Proactive Support To Ensure That They Receive The Benefits They Are Entitled To The Council Will Continue To Use Its Low Income Family Tracker Lift To Identify Households Potentially Losing Out On PIP And Other Benefits To Proactively Offer Support As An Employer We Are Signed Up To The Government Disability Confidence Scheme As We Develop Our People Strategy We Will Ensure That We Continue To Support Staff With Disabilities As Well As Promoting And Providing Access To Work Opportunities For New Staff Who Have Disabilities Including Those Who May Have Been Affected By These Changes To The Welfare System Thank You Councillor Do You Have A Supplementary Question Yes I Do How How Many Residents In Our Borough Actually Receive PIP And Since No Changes Will Be Made Until The Thames Review Next Year What Effect Might These Have Had On Our Future Climates If These Concessions Had Not Been Made Thank You For That Supplementary PIP Is A Working Age Benefit So Will Impact Those Eligible Under The Age Of 67 There Are Around 5,800 People Currently Receiving PIP In The Borough There Are Two Elements To PIP A Daily Living Component And A Mobility Component Claimants May Be Eligible For One Or Both The Government Had Plans To Tighten Daily Living Assessments For Future Claimants This Would Not Have Affected Those Already Receiving PIP The Concessions Originally Proposed By The Government To Introduce The PIP Changes To New Claimants Would Have Created A Two Tier System Who Are Disabled People That Are Working And Need To Pay For The Extra Cost Of Getting To And From Work In Richmond Where There Is A Shortage Of Affordable Housing To Purchase And A Large Proportion Of Disabled People Privately Renting This Additional Income Is Essential Under New Haunted Proposals New Claimants Who Would Only Rely On PIP To Cover Housing Associated Cost Would Have Been Left Short Forcing Them Out Of Their Homes Or Out Of The Borough This Could Mean A Disabled Person With Mobility Needs Losing Their Independence And Ability To Work This May Also Have Caused The Rise Of The Number Of People Choosing Between Paying Their Care Costs Rent And Eating And Homelessness Applications Putting Further Pressure On Statutory Involupory Services Services Thank You Councillor Crookdate Do You Have A Supplementary Question Okay Thank You So We Move On To Question Six Councillor Roberts Please Reply To Councillor Bishop Thank You Madam I Can I Thank Councillor Bishop And Councillor Gant And Councillor Davies For Their Assiduous Attention To This Particular Matter In Their Ward The Building In Question Has Been Boarded Up And Is Checked On A Regular Basis For Any Breaches However Due To The Recent Level Of Issues Relating To Trespass And Antisocial Behaviour Full Time Security Is Now Being Deployed And Has Been On Site Since Friday The 27th Of June This Is For Two Week Period While CTTV Cameras Are Being Installed Which Are Linked Back To The Joint Control Center Who Can Respond Quickly 24 A Application For Consent To Demolish The Buildings Which Is The Best Way To Mitigate The Risks Around Trespass And Associated Issues Will Be Submitted In September Once Relative Surveys Have Been Completed And The Procurement Of A Demolition Contractor Is Nearing Completion In Preparation To Starting On Site In October November Once The Ink Is Dry On The Well One Hopes Granting Of Planning Commission We Can't Preempt These Things Can We Mustn't Do That Thank You Councillor Roberts Do You Have A Supplementary Question Thank You Madam Mayor Thank You For That Information And For Confirming All The Actions That Have Been Taken To Improve The Security Of The Site I Wonder If The Leader Of The Council Could Comment On Any Future Plans That There May Be For The Site Longer Term Uses Could Be Used For The Site I Can't Go Into Too Much Details Obviously Owing To Competentiality Etc What We Have To Do First And Formist Is Recognize That This Is An Educational Site And As Such It Needs To Be Viewed Within That Context It Doesn't Necessarily Mean That It Has To Be Education For Forever In A Day But We Do Need To Recognize First What I Do Wish To Make Sure Happens Is That The Open Green Space Which Is Currently Enjoyed By Carlyle School In Hampton North Which Has No Outdoor Space Of Its Own That There Is Preserved For Use By Carlyle School Which They Use For Their School Fates For School Camping Trips So Anything Which Happens On That Site A Key Priority Will Be To The Retention Of Open Freez Do You Have A Supplementary Indeed I Do Madam Mayor Thank You And It Relates To The Similar Site In Ham Which Next To The New Russell School We Have Clarendon Site Which Has Equally Suffered From Antisocial Behaviour Young People Gaining Access That Kind Of Thing Are There Similar Plans For Securing The Sight Ensuring The Demolition And Making Plans For That Sight To Turned Into Something More Useful Than Just A Magnet For Antisocial Behaviour Yes As You Are Probably Aware We Are Looking To Improve Our Special Education On Needs Provision In That Part Of The Borough Unfortunately The Plans Have Been Delayed By The Ever Present Incursions Of Badgers We Now Have Special Turnstile Gates With Those Ones That You See Outside Vape Shops The Sort Of Things Reach Come All The Way Down To Stop The Badgers Getting Back In Again We Are Assured That Badgers Have Been Not Spotted On The Site And That We Will Be Start Work Shortly But We Are Looking After The Badgers Safety At All Times Of Course Thank You Councillor Eden Watts Please Reply To Councillor Butlin On Question 7 Thank You So This Is About High Temperatures That Pose A Threats The Borough And Its Residents Especially Those Who Are More Vulnerable Such As Older Residents Very Young People And Those Living With Health Conditions And On Lower Incomes Public Health Have Issued Information And Guidance On How To Deal With High Temperatures Whilst Emergency Planning Officers Do Have Plans In Place For Extreme Heat Events We Have Also Been Working Jointly With Other West London Boroughs To Increased Signups Across Our Region To The GLA's Cool Spaces Programme These Are Places Which Offer Shelter To Residents From High Temperatures As Well As Providing Guidance For Voluntary And Community Sector Organisations On How They Can Support Communities Who Are Feeling The Effects Of Heat Our Landscapes Are Also Threatened By Excessive Heat We Are Working With The Friends Of Street Trees Initiative To Recruit And Encourage People To Water Street Trees Know Their Homes Especially During Periods Of Drought You'll See That Our Newly Planted Trees Have Labels Attached To Them Encouraging Residents To Water These Young Trees And We're Issuing Comms On Fire Risks In Our Parks Our New Climate And Nature Strategy Sets Out A Long Term Approach To Climate Adaptation And Resilience Which Is Supported By A Specific Adaptation And Resilience Strategy And Our New Tree Planting Strategy Sets Out How We Will Plant More Resilient Species Plant Trees To Provide Shade And Cooling In Key Locations And Along Active Travel Routes To Help Protect Residents Thank you Thank you Councillor Butlin Do You Have A Supplementary Question I Thought I Think It's Very Comprehensive But Small Area I Like You To Review And Possibly Contact These Across The Certainly In The South Area There's A Large Number Of Little Groups Of People Being Shepherded Around In The Winter And Also In The Day And There's Lots Of Nurseries And Child Mining Groups I Would Like To Think That We Contact Them Directly To Give Them Guidance I Know They Do Very Well Because They Have Great Little Hats They Wear But I Would Like To See Just Reminding People Because Us Old People Were Hard Away But Kids Go Out And Play No I Understood And That's A Good Point I Mean Public Health Have Issued Additional Guidance For Residents And That's Supported By Messaging On Our Council Communications Channels And I Know Our Climate Change And Sustainability Team Have Been Working On Encouraging Community Venues To Sign Up And To Distribute Information Through That And There's Guidance For Voluntary And Community Sector Organisations But I Think That An Interesting Comment Has Been Raised About Making Sure That We're Getting To All The Organisations Who Shepherd People Around In The Heat Such As Nurseries And Schools I'll Make Sure I Follow That With Officers Thank You Councillor Freeze Do You Have A Supplementary Thank You Madam Mayor It's Just A Quick One On The Mowing Regime Which Some Residents Have Raised With Myself And Other Wards Council About The Mowing Of Very Brown Parched Burges And Commons In The Ward And Wondering Why That's Still Going On What Action You Could Take To Reduce The Amount Of Mowing That's Going On At This Time When It's Clearly Not Needed Thank You For That And There's A Few Things Going On There I'm Aware For Example On A Couple Of Parks Near Me That The Mowing Was Halted In Very Hot Weather The Grass Isn't Growing Because It The Best Thing Is If There's A Specific Site That You Think Isn't Quite Being Managed Correctly Then Send Me Details And I'll Take That Out To The Parks Team Thank You Now We're Going On To Question Eight Councillor Millard Could You Please Reply To Councillor Bennett Thank You Madam Mayor The Stated Position Of This Administration Has Not Changed Councillor Bennett Do You Have A Supplementary Question I Do But As A Little Preamble Can I Just Welcome The New Lead Member For Finance He Will Recall The Whole Chamber Will Recall The Warmth Of My Relationship With Robin Brown And I'm Very Fond Of Robin As You Know But Will You Also Recall That Wonderful Benefits Assessment In Which The Project The Riverside Project Depends Has The Total Of 12.7 Million Against It For The Health And Well Being Of The Tenants Who Get The Affordable Housing So I Just Want To Remind Him And I'm Sure He Will Agree It's Important That You Do Carry On With That Affordable Housing Commitment Because Otherwise The Project Looks A Good Deal Less Viable I Agree Thank You I Haven't Know If Councillor May Have A Supplementary Thank You Madam Mayor So In Addition To The Benefits That Will Come To The Residents Of The Affordable Housing On The Development There There There's There's A Number Of Additional Economic And Social Benefits That Will Support People Across The Borough So Could Councillor Millard Perhaps Expand A Little Bit More On Some Of These Economic And Social Benefits Certainly With Pleasure The Twickenham Riverside Regeneration Is A Transformative Investment Expected To Deliver Over 43 Million Pounds In Social Economic And Environmental Value Including Major Improvements In Public Realm And Green Space Better Access To The River And Enhanced Flood Resilience It Supports Local Jobs Generates New Business Opportunities And Boosts Council Income Through Business Rates And Tourism I Was Disappointed To See The Green Party Vote Against Going Ahead With This Project At The Recent FPR Committee Because This Is A Project Which Brings Tangible Benefits Borough Wide Helping Us Deliver On Climate Health And Economic Priorities For Our Whole Community Thank You Councillor McLeod Do You Have A Supplementary Question Sorry There's An old Saying Victory Has A Thousand Fathers I Did Put It On I Thought It Was Just The Greens Of The Chamber On There There's An Old Saying That Victory Has A Thousand Fathers So It's Fitting That This Last Father's Day Our Council Did Something Unique And Special In Running The Country's First Cargo Bike Fair The Interest In Such An Event Was Untested But The Council Backed By Many Councillors Around The Room For Which I'm Grateful Chose To Lead And A Leadership Which I Hope Will Contribute To Greater Adoption Of These Important Vehicles Exhibitors Were Effusive About The Event With Many Personally Thanking And Congratulating The Council For Running The Endeavour And We Were Delighted To Host Will Norman London's Walking And Cycling Commissioner Who Said He Wanted To See More Local Authorities Than London Quotes Be Like Richmond When It Came To Promoting The Delivery And School Run Benefits Of Cargo Bikes At Its Heart Though We Wanted To Connect Curious Residents With These Bikes And Councillor Roberts And Myself Along With Many Other Councillors Saw First Hand The Wonderful Consequences The Event With Hundreds Of Residents Viewing And Testing The Bikes That Were Available On The Day Crucially 20 Cargo Bikes Were Purchased On The Day With Many More Sales Leads Generated Which I Hope Will Transpire In Coming Days And Week While The Council Still Needs To Formally Assess The Event And Hold A Debrief To Consider How To Take It Forward I Can Confirm Councillor McLeod Got A Supplementary Question Thank You Madam Mayor Councillor Freeze Did You Have A Supplementary Question Quick One To Ask How Plans Are Going For Introducing More Cycling Infrastructure To Ensure The Safety Of Everyone Who Purchased Cargo Bikes Which Of Course We Support And Delighted To See And Welcome The Fair But We Want To Make Sure That The Safety Infrastructure Which Is So Needed For All Of These People Cycling Is Going To Be Put Into Place A Bit Of A Crowbar Effort I Think There With The Supplementary But Nonetheless I Welcome Any Proposals From The Green Members Opposite On Specific Areas Of Cycling Improvement We Can Make To Date I Haven't Seen Any Thank You Now We On To Question 10 Councillor Millard Please Reply To Councillor Wren Thank You Madam Mayor Some Of The Savings Identified By Keir Were Found On Further Investigation To Either Require Changes To The Approved Planning Consent Or Significantly Compromise The Quality And Long Term Value Of The Scheme So These Options Were Rightly Rejected Under The Pre Construction Services Agreement Keir Provides Costings On An Open Book Basis Ensuring Full Transparency This Has Enabled Our Quantity Surveyor Arcadis To Work Collaborative Especially Changes Needed To Comply With The Latest Building Regulations This Has Brought Greater Certainty Over Cost And Delivery Justifying The Medium Risk Rating Now Applied Councillor Wren Do You Have A Supplementary Question I Do Thank You Madam Mayor And Thank You Councillor Millard For That Very Detailed Answer It's A Shame That These Questions Are Necessary Both The Original And The Supplementary That I'm About To Make But It's Motivated By The Fact There Wasn't Chance To Properly Debate The Item Finance Policy And Resources Committee I Do Need To Correct You A Little Bit We're Into A Supplementary Question Of Course Yes I Just Wanted To Correct The Fact That I Voted Against The Project What I Voted Against Was The Extra Funding Of Course Which Was The Decision On The Table At The Time And The Question Really Is How Are We Now Going To Govern The Project More Tightly So That It Proceeds On Time Hence Forth Thus Minimizing The Risk Of Further Extra Cost Thank You Councillor Yeah That's A Really Good Question And It's Incredibly Important The Key Point Is We Now Have A More Accurate Jointly Agreed Cost Base With Independent Oversight Which Gives Us Stronger Confidence In Delivering On Time And To Budget That's The Basis For The Medium Rating Not That There's No Risk But The Level Of Uncertainty Has Been Significantly Reduced We Will You Know We Have A Maturing Cost Picture And We Are Focused On Delivering A High Quality Scheme With A Clear Financial Framework Thank You Thank You Now We're Going On To Question 11 Councillor Mansfield Please Reply To Councillor Vassalova Thank You For The Question Yes Centre Stage Richmond Is Going To Be Fantastic It's Going To Be Held On 13th September And I Hope You Have Time In Your Diaries To Come Along And Celebrate Richmond Town Centre So We've Got The Vision For The Town Centre And One Of The Peaces Of Feedback That We Got During The Course Of The Research We Were Doing As To What People Wanted Was That People Didn't Really Understand The Benefits And What Was Hidden Beneath The Surface Of Richmond There Was So Many Things Going On So Many Community Initiatives Going On So Many Creative Ideas Going On And People Didn't Know About It So A lot Of What We're Trying To Do On The 13th Of September Is Bringing That To The Forefront We're Bringing The Creativity Out From Behind Closed Doors We're Bringing The Community From Behind Closed Doors And We're Going To Take Over George Street And We're Going To Create A Great Festival With A Stage With The Community With Lots Of Creative Partners And Really Bring That To Life On The 13th Of September So Please Come And Join Us Do You Have A Supplementary Question I Do Thank You Madam Mayor Can Councillor Mansfield Please Confirm Whether The Residents Of South Richmond Which Comprises Richmond Down Centre Have Been Consulted Yes So We've Already Had A Session With The Most Impacted Residents People Around The Green And Some Further Up Around Who Might Be Impacted By The Holding Of A Festival And Councillor Warlow Was There As Well And I Think On Balance What The Residents Were Saying There's Going To Be Some Inconvenience To Them They're Completely Open Minded About That But They Think This Is Still The Right Thing To Do They Were Still Enthusiastic About Putting A Festival On In The Middle Of September They Thought That It Would Bring Life To The Space And That They Were Behind It So Bearing In Mind That They Were Going To Have Some Of The Disadvantages We're Going To Start A full Communication Plan With Regards To Richmond Town Center And This Event And Some Of Things That Going On Starting Next Week And If Anybody Is Interested In Hearing More About And Being Completely Up The Speed Sign Up For The Emails That Are Going Out Thanks Thank You Councillor Waller You Have A Supplement Yes Are There Any Plans For Other Similar Events In Richmond Town Center In The Future If You're Meaning Similar By Taking Over The High Street And Holding A Festival No But We Have Activations Going Along By The Riverside And Parallel That We Got A Piece Of Work That Will Be Bringing The Riverside To Life With A Whole Series Of Events Over A Period Of Time As Well So There's Different Types Of Things Going On But At The Moment We Don't Have Any Plans For Another Festival Thank You Now We're Going On To Question 12 Councillor Varley Please Reply To I'd Like To Thank Councillor Sarah For His Question And I Echo Those Concerns That Any Change Is Made To Be Of Benefit To RHP Residents The Development Of The Social Housing Improvement Plan SHIP Puts Residents At The Heart Of Decisions Made By Our Housing Association Partners While We Do Not Have Direct Regulatory Oversight Of Our Partners We Work Closely With Them To Ensure They're Providing The Best Possible Service Each Year Each Of The Four Main Housing Associations Reports To Committee On How They're Meeting The Standards Set Out In The Social Housing Improvement Plan And Specifically In Relation To RHP We Have Twice Yearly Governance Meetings As Well As Twice Yearly Officer Meetings The Governance Meetings Are An Opportunity For Senior Officers At RHP To Share The Work That They're Doing Undertaken To Bring The Repair Service In House And The Mechanisms In Place To Ensure A Smooth Transition To The New Arrangements Now This Is Only In The Early Stages But We Will Continue To Work With RHP To Ensure We Have Regular Updates On How The New Arrangements Are Working So We Can Provide Advice To Residents And Counselor Colleagues As Required In Addition We All Social Housing Providers Thank You Counselor We Are Almost Out Of Time But Counsel Sarah Do You Have A Supplementary Question Yes I Do Thank You Madam Mayor Can I Use This Opportunity To Very Quickly Congratulate Counselor Varley On His New Role The Supplementary Is Linked To The Point Made Just Now With This Guidance What Changes Can We Expect To See Coming Down Can You Tell Us A Bit More About This Guidance Thank You Thank You You You Have To Keep It Very Brief Well Very Specifically And By The Way Thank You For Your Congratulations And I Will Be As Quick As I Can Specifically The Guidance Is Known As AWAB's Law And Is Coming Later This Year And Will Affect All Social Housing Providers In Relation To Dealing With Damp And Mould Following The Tragic Death Of AWAB Hishak This Places A Responsibility On Landlords To Respond To Damp And Mould Within Prescribed Time Scales And Through Our Community Ambassadors And The Housing Association Annual Reports We Will Ensure Our Partners Deal With Damp And Mould Within The Necessary Time Frames Thank You Right The Time For Questions Has Elapsed And We Move To The Next Item Remaining Questions Will Receive A Written Answer So The Next Item Is Agenda Item 7 It's Reports Of The Council's Committees Now We Have Two Reports 7A And 7B Starting At Page 21 Of The Agenda Pack I'm Advised That Councillor Vassil Labour Will Move The Report And Councillor Alan Will Second Is That Correct And I Call On Councillor Vassil Labour To Move Reception Of Tenants Champion Annual Report For Last Year You Have Five Minutes Thank You Madam Mayor Firstly I Would Encourage Anyone To Have A Look And Read Through The Tenants Champion Report It's A Very Detailed Piece Of Work And Within Five Minutes I Can Only Highlight Some Key Points As Some Of You May Know The Tenants Champion Service Was Pioneered By Richmond Council In 2011 And Since Then It Has Involved Into Independent Scrutiny And Complaints Escalation Service For Social Housing Residents It Is Also There To Be A Critical Friend To Our Housing Partners To Guide Them And Nudge Them In The Direction Of Improving Their Complaints Handling And Services And It Is Also There To Sit On The CIMARIC Panel Which Is The Community Risk Assessment Multi-Agency Conference With Richmond Council So Quite A Lot That The Tenants Champion Does And Please Go And Have A Read At The Report For This Financial Year We Had Around 145 Cases Out Of Those Predominantly There Were Problems With Repairs Around 60% Of Those Were Repairs Weight Transfers And Antisocial Behaviour Following Closely With Just Under 20% Each And Then Some Other Matters As Well Now The Champion Services There For Residents To Escalate After The Internal Complaints Processes Of Housing Partners Have Failed Or Stowed And Within For July 2024 There Were A Lot Of Maladministration Cases Regarding Some Of Our Housing Association Partners Given By The Housing Ombudsman Now I'm Pleased To Say That Within The Year Today July 2025 A Lot Of Our Key Partners Predominantly Our Major Partners Have Worked Very Constructively With Myself To Improve Some Of Their Processes Some Of Their Complaints Handling Processes And I'm Pleased To Say That They Have Made Progress Their Maladministration Cases Have Falling Down Their Referral To Housing Ombudsman Have Falling Down The Key Take Away Is That Our Smaller Partners Are Struggling To Achieve Quite The Same Level Of Efficiency But We Are Working Together Move Along As Well With Complaints Handling Which Has Been One Of The Main Issues This Year And The Problems Have Been Following Through And Coordinating All The Information That Housing Partners Have And This Has Sometimes Failed They Have Worked With That To Introduce New IT Systems Flat Vulnerabilities Introduce Case Managers For Traging Complex Cases All Very Positive Things That Have Made A Crucial Difference I Would Say That The Second Worst Issue That We Faced This Year Have Been More Complex Antisocial Behavior Cases Now Now What What I Am Pleased To Say Is That Again Housing Associations Have Realized That They Can Use The Tenant's Champion As A Resource To Coordinate All The Information Between Multiple Partners And Agencies So So That They Can In Effect Get To Resolving Those Cases A Crucial Highlight Would Have Been The Case Of Resident X Who Contacted The Tenant's Champion After Multiple Failures To Address Repairs That Have Been Needed Ever Since They Moved In They Felt Very Ignored They Contacted The Tenant's Champion Highlighted Some Vulnerabilities And Some Erratic Behavior Which Prompted Me To Organize A Professionals Meeting Which Highlighted Some Very Serious Risk Behavior Including Risk To Operatives So That Resulted In An Immediate Referral To The CIMARAC Panel Where We Worked To Coordinate With Housing Providers Mental Health Services Rules Our Fantastic Voluntary Partners Council Community Safety Team And I'm Pleased To Say That When We Were At The Stage Where The Housing Association Had Taken Legal Action Against The Tenant They Then Worked With All Of Us To Stop That The Tenant Is No Longer A Threat Of Being Homeless And The Issue Has Been Resolved So I On That Note I Would Like To Say That The Council Has Also Worked With The Tenant's Champion To Address Various Issues Across Housing Throughout The Tenant's Champion Interagency Forum Which Is Our Closed Doors Forum For All Of Our Partners To Discuss Frankly The Issues That They Are Facing And Also How They Can Work Freely With Each Other Where The Official Policy Protocol Have Been Exhausted Now Madam Mayor I Would Like To Just If Possible Take A Moment To Thank Our Outgoing Lead Member For Housing Councillor Millard For Firstly Introducing Me To The Role At The Stage Where Frankly I Probably Didn't Realize The Entire Magnitude Of What I Was Getting Myself Into But Thanks To His Passion For The Role His Dedication And Guidance Turned Out To Be Quite Contagious And I Am Now Looking Forward To Developing The Future Scope Of The Role And On That Not Also Welcome Councillor Barley In The Role And Express How Firstly Grateful I Am That He Has Hit The Ground Running Very Actively And I Look Forward To Working With Him To Define The Future Of The Role As Well Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Council Alan Do You Wish To Speak Now No Madam Mayor Other Than Asking For The Council To Adopt And Report The Work And To Receive And Adopt The Report And To Thank Council Does Anyone Else Wish To Speak We Have Council Bennett Madam Mayor It Is Just To Thank Council Vatula Labor For The Report And Thank Her For All Her Efforts For Another Very Successful Year And To Endorse The Praise That Everyone Always Heaps On For The Work She Does So Green Party Thank You For Your Work Thank You So In That Case Is The Recommendation To Receive This Report Agreed Thank You So Next We Turn To The Climate And Nature Strategy On Page 43 Councillor Needham Watts Please Move Reception Of Your Report You Have Five Minutes Thank You So I'm Asking Council To Adopt The Climate And Nature Strategy As Part Of The Strategic Policy Framework Of The Council This Isn't A New Adventure This Strategy Stems From The Achievements Of Our First Climate Emergency Strategy And And The Report And The Report Sets Out Some Of What Has Been Achieved But Now We Are Stepping Up The Level Of Ambition The Areas We Need To Address Will Be Familiar But More Time Has Passed And Action Becomes More Urgent Areas Of Focus Are How We Make Our Buildings Energy Efficient How We Travel The Quality Of Our Air How We Can Serve Resources And Move To A Zero Waste Economy How We Prepare For A Changing Climate And Become Resilient And How We Ensure That The Council Itself Is A Carbon Literate Climate Ready Organization We Now Have A Specific Retrofit Strategy And An Adaptation And Resilience Strategy Within The Suite Of Documents Addressing The Need To Reduce Reliance On Fossil Fuels Especially For Domestic Heating And The Need To Acknowledge That Climate Change Is Already Having An Impact Locally For Example An Increased Likelihood Of Flooding And Extreme Heat We Should Also Embrace The Tangible Benefits That Come From Addressing The Need For Resilience Now Healthier People And Places Greener Streets Cleaner Air More Biodiverse Natural Spaces In Our Rivers Ponds Parks And Gardens We Must Also Ensure That There Is Fairness And That Those Who Are Most Vulnerable To The Risks Of Heat And Flood For Example Are Prioritised When We Implement Our Actions The Council Cannot Achieve This Alone And The Strategy Recognises The Continuing Need To Work With Partners In The Borough We Are Privileged To Have Some Expert Individuals And Organisations Locally Who Share Many Of Our Objectives On Climate Resilience We Also Recognize The Importance Of Working Across Borough Boundaries For Example On Flood Resilience Initiatives On Waste Disposal And The Development Of Skills We Recognize The Importance Of Working With Community Organisations Residence Associations Social Housing Partners And Businesses In All Sectors And Sizes And We Need To Step Up The Quality And The Availability Of Reliable information For Anyone Seeking To Do The Right Thing You Will Be Relieved Have It As A Reference Point To Be Annually Scrutinized And Refreshed At Committee Each February Documents Before You Were Discussed At Environment Committee On The 17th June And There Was Broad Support For The Contents And The Level Of Ambition Hence This Recommendation To Council Committee Members Were Keen To See More Commitment On Setting Out Milestones For Progress And Having A Clear Indication Of Monitoring And Evaluation And These Can Be Found In The Action Plan Overall The Strategy Sets A High Level Of Ambition And Commitment To Ensure That We Take Good Care Of Our Burra Not Just For Its Beauty And Its Heritage For Its Future Liveability And Its Prosperity The Action Plan Ensures We Have Specific Tasks Set Out With Responsibilities Clearly Assigned To Officer Teams Along With Time Frames For Delivery Ambitious Yes Achievable If We Focus On The Task Ahead Of Us And Commit Ourselves Across All Of Our Committees And Our Communities And As A Whole Council To Them I Therefore Ask You All To Support The Adoption Of Richmond Upon Thames Plan And Nature Strategy 2025 To 2030 As Wish To Speak Now Councillor Charance Thank You Thank You Madam Mayor I Am Very Pleased To Have The Opportunity To Support This Paper Which Details All The Efforts That So Many Different Departments Across The Council Have Worked Together To Achieve There Was A Good Discussion About It When It Was Presented At The Environment Committee Meeting Last Month Where Some Concerns Were Raised That The Targets Were Unrealistic Of Course We All Appreciate That It Is Going To Be Extremely Challenging To Achieve Net Zero By 20 43 The Council Alone Doesn't Have The Resources To Meet This Challenge And That Is Why Working In Partnership Is A Key Area Of Focus For The Strategy Retrofitting Domestic Buildings Is Vital As We Can See That They Are The Largest Contributor To Carbon Emissions We Also Know That While Initial Costs May Be High Reduction In Energy Costs Long Term Is A Great Benefit To Home Owners It Was Stated At The Committee Meeting That Nearly 4,000 New Gas Boilers Are Replaced Each Year At A Cost Of Several Thousand Pounds Each That Clearly Shows That There Are The Resources Available Within The Community To Support Retrofit And That Is One Of The Reasons The Retrofit Working Group Was Set Up By The Policy And Performance Review Board To Find Out Ways To Alleviate The Barriers That Would Prevent These Boilers Being Replaced With Sustainable Alternatives The Recommendations From The Working Group Included Simplifying The Planning Process Communications Campaign To Clearly Explain The Benefits And Costs Along With Identifying Potential Sources Of Funding And Other Support To Encourage Take Up All Of These Were Approved By The Environment Committee Earlier This Year And Have Been Included In The Strategy They Are All Moving Forward At Pace Not Least The Creation Of The Retrofit Officer Post With Specific Responsibility To Promote This Area Of Work It Is Also Important To Note The Adaptation Resilience Strategy Included In These Plans We Know That Climate Change Is Already With Us And Even If We Achieve All Our Targets We Still Need To Adapt To Those Changes The Ongoing Development Of Things Like Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems The Parklets And Using More Permeable Paving Options Should All Help With Flash Flooding Risks That We Have Already Seen In Various Places Around The Borough Increasing The Tree Canopy Cover In The Borough By Planting More Drought Resistant Trees Will Also Help With Increased Shade And Biodiversity Reducing The Risk Of Wildfires Again Something We Have Seen In Recent Years In My Own Ward In Twickenham We Need To Fully Support This Strategy For All Our Futures Thank You Thank You Now Do Others Wish To Speak Councillor Warlow Thank You Ambition Is A Great Thing As Councillor Roberts Said This Strategy Is Extremely Ambitious It's A Compelling Vision For The Future Of The Borough And We All Want Clean Air Renewable Energy Lower Bills And Warmer Homes Green Spaces Rivers And Streams Protected And Enhanced So The Green Group Has Always Applauded The Ambition Of This Strategy And The Previous Climate Emergency Strategy If We Were Just Voting On That Vision Alone It Would Not Be An Issue At All For Me To Support It But The Thing Is We're Not We're Voting To Approve The Action Plan As Well We've Heard From Lucy Hayden I Don't Even Know She's Still Here About Her Concerns On Retrofitting And Domestic Emissions Which Account For Over 40% Of The Borough's Emissions If We Don't Meet That Target Or If We Look As If Our Action Plan Is Not Sufficiently Effective To Meet That Target There's A Risk That We Undermine The Entire Effectiveness Of The Strategy If We Vote To Approve This Strategy Without Any Further Thought We Risk Undermining The Credibility Of The Strategy Itself In My Opinion And We've Seen In Environment Committee Meetings And Even Apparently Some Members In This Room The Strategy Is Not Universally Approved Of We've Heard It Come Under Fire From Climate Deniers On One Side And Allies Of Sustainability On The Other Side For The Same Reason And That's A Pretty Awkward Place To Be In So I've Had A Great Deal Of Stressful Thinking About What I Was Going To Say Today About This Strategy And For Me There's No Shame Necessarily In Deferring Either Deferring This Decision Until Further Consideration Of The Retrofitting Situation Is Done Or Splitting It Into Two Decisions To Approve The Strategy Which Is The Vision And Then Look At The Action Plan Separately I Voted To Approve It At The ESCS Committee Recently But I'm Not Ashamed Or Scared To Say That I Think I Was Wrong To Do That At That Committee I Asked Officers And My Fellow Committee Members To Be Honest With Residents And Tell Them What This Council Can And Can Do To Meet The Net Zero Target Without Substantial Help From Central Government So I'm Asking Us All To Tell Residents What The Gap Is Between Ambition And Action Honesty Is Always The Best Policy This Is Such A Vital Strategy Demands No Less Of Us Than To Pause Reflect And Then Act From A Position Of Understanding To Review The Action Plan And Present Residents With A Plan For Tangible Emissions Reductions Then Communicate The Situation Honestly Thank You Thank You Do Others Wish To Speak On This In That Case Councillor Needham What Would You Like To Conclude Thank You It Grieves And Upsets Me Deeply To Hear What Councillor Warlow Has Just Said That His Right To Do I Was Pleased At The Unanimity Of The Vote That We Had Environment Committee I May Even Have Said It's Not Perfect But It's Very Good I Still Believe That Letting The Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Very Good Is Not The Right Course Of Action Kicking The Can Down The Road Is Not The Right Of Action The Agency Is Now We Agree That We Can't Do It Ourselves We Will Lobby We Will Communicate With Our Residents With Our Businesses With Our Community Organisations We Will Seek Expertise Where We Can Find It We Will Do Everything We Can To Make Progress With This Strategy We Have An Action Plan For The Coming Year It Will Be Be Be Beefed Up Each Year The Rate Of Progress Must Increase Residence Associations Across The Borough Will Be Dismayed At Further Delay I Urge Council To Adopt This Strategy Thank You Council Eden Watts So Is The Recommendation To Adopt This Report Agreed Agreed Thank You The Recommendation Oh We Want A Vote You Are Calling For A Vote Okay You Want A Recorded Vote On This So In That Case We Will Go For All Those In Favor Please Raise Your Hands And Those Against And Those Who Wish To Abstain So We Have Four Abstentions Four Abstentions In That Case The Recommendation Is Agreed Thank You Agenda Item Eight The Debate On Opposition Priority Business Nothing Has Been Submitted For This Item Agenda Agenda Item Nine Reports On Joint Arrangements And External Organisations I Have No Reports Agenda Item Ten Reports Of The Head Of Paid Service Councillor Roberts I Understand You Are Going To Introduce This Thank You Madam Mayor For Those Councillors Who Are Unaware There Was A Discrepancy In The Voting Counting At The 2024 General Election For The Richmond Park Constituency Which Resulted In An Incorrectly Reported Result Now It Could Have Been That And Would Have Happened At Some Councils That This Would Have Been Quietly Looked At Dealt With As An Internal Report And Lightly Brushed Under The Carpet But That Is Not How We Do Things Here In Richmond Upon Thames What We Wanted To Make Sure There Was Transparency At Every Step Of The Way So We Made Sure We Had Proactive Within This Borough And We Made Sure That That Report Has Been Brought Back Here Now Again It Would Have Been Quite Easy To Have Allowed This Paper To Go Through On The Not But Again That Would Have Not Been Offering The Full Transparency Both To Councillors Who Need To Be Sure That Elections Are Being Conducted And Counted In The Correct Way But More Importantly We Need To A Result That They Can Rely On It Is Unfortunate That In This Case A Wrong Result Was Declared And I Wish To Apologize On Behalf Of Officers And The Council For That Error It Has Been Rectified We Have Been Given Certain Safeguards Which Are Put In Place To Ensure That That That Particular Issue Cannot Happen Again And I Hope That Can To Ensure That We Will Not Have A Repeat Of That Particular Circumstance So I Hope That You Will Adopt This Report It Is Thorough As I Say It Has Been Checked Through By An Independent Person And It Has Addressed The Issue And Well That Thank Thank You Does Anyone Wish To Speak On This Report Councillor Warlow Well Thank You Apology Accepted I Was The Candidate Of Course Whose Votes Were Incorrectly Counted I Have Only Got A Couple Of Things To Say About It Of Course Human Error Just Happens And There Is No Need To Really Go Overboard On That One I Did Make A Particular Suggestion To The Returning Officer About A Way Of Avoiding This Mistake In Future A Very Simple Way Of Doing So And I Hope That Suggestion Will Form Part Of Any Action Plan To Be Taken Forward Another Suggestion Is Of Course That The Count Should Take Place On The Following Day After The Election As Happens In Some Constituencies So That Might Take Away Any Grants For Errors Of That Kind But Otherwise Yes I Would Like Thank The Officers Who Have Done The Investigation Very Thorough Investigation And Yes Let's Hope It Doesn't Happen Again Thank You Councillor Hale Wishes To Speak Thank You In The Interests Of Transparency And Accuracy Can We Make Sure That There Is An Amendment In This Document On Page 10 Of It It Says In The Fact That Two Parliamentary Constituencies Fall Within The Borough When In Fact There Are Actually Three And We Should Be Apologizing Again To Our Lovely Constituent Of Whitten Who Are Now Under A Third And Labour Based Person Called Ruth Cadbury And Can Can We Please Ensure That The Sort Of Scrutity We Are Now Talking About Having For Making Sure We Don't Make Mistakes In Elections Is Also Applied With The Reports Thank You Does Anyone Else Wish To Speak On This Matter Madam Mayor A Very Minor Point I'm Sure But On Page 19 Under 7.10 It Says The Error Had No Material Effect On The Eventual Outcome Now It May Not Seem That Important To You But Us Coming Ahead Of Reform Feels Pretty Material To Us Right Thank You Anyone Any Further Points Anyone We Just To Raise Pardon Councillor Roberts You're Going To Pull This Together Yeah I'm Happy With Both Of Those Points Which Have Been Raised Just On The Issue Of Daytime Counts Unfortunately I Believe That Would Require A Change In Primary Legislation For General Elections Which Are Mandated To Have An Overnight Count There Is A Degree Of Riggle Room For Local Counts But National Counts General Elections Have To Happen Overnight Except In Extreme Circumstances Places Like All Things I Actually Imagine But Yeah So The Recommendation Cannot Be Accepted Thank You Thank You So Agenda Item 11 Oh Yeah Okay Sounds A Good Point Are The Recommendations Agreed And Do You Want A Vote On That Or Are You Quite Happy Splendid Splendid Right Leaping On Agenda Item 11 Notices Of Motion The Text Of The Motions Is Set Out On Pages 4 And 5 Of The Agenda A First Motion On Abolition Of The Committee System I Call Upon Councillor Roberts To Move This Motion Thank You Madam Mayor We And It's A Phrase Which I Really Detest But I'll Use It In This Context We Are Sovereign Borough We Make Our Own Decisions And In 2018 We Went To The People Of This Borough With A Manifesto Commitment To Reintroduce The Committee System Which We Thought Was A System Which Added Greater Transparency Greater Accountability And Greater Involvement Of All Cancillors In Decision Making Of All Parties I Remember The Days Of The Conservative Administration From 2010 To 2018 When Cabinet Would Sometimes Last An Average Of 15 Minutes No Matter The Items On The Agenda No Matter How Much Money Was Being Spent From The Public Purse 15 Minutes And By And Large The Decisions Were Taken By A Small Inner Cabinet Of The Deputy Leader And One Or Two Senior Cabinet Members So This System Which We Had Which We Brought In And Went Through Lots Of Consultation Lots Of Discussion In order To Come To The Right Conclusion Is The Right One And We Think It Works For Richmond And The Only People Who Should Be To Tell A Council A Sovereign Council How They Should Conduct The Governance Of That Council Is That Council Themselves If At A Future Time An Incoming Administration Decides That They Wish To Go Back To The Cabinet And Again A Phrase I Hate Strong Leader Model Which Is The Official Title If You've Never Heard Of It It If They Wish To Make That Change Then They Should Be To Do That They Should Have That Choice What A Change Through On Local Councils Now It May Be That They Think That It Will Bring Greater Transparency Having A Cabinet Approach Once Again It May Think It Will Speed Up Decision Making Again I Would Merely Point Out To Jim McMaster Minister That Recent Behaviour And Recent Decisions Taken By The Labour Government Are Not Really A Ringing Endorsement Of The Cabinet System Not By A Country Mile So We Feel Very Strongly That This Is The Right Way Forward We Feel Very Strongly That It Gives That The Committee System Gives A Voice To Opposition Members Critically I Remember Again The Dark Days Of Overview And Scrutally Where With The Cabinet System We Used To Have Post Decision Scrutally So It Didn't Matter What Happened In The World What We Were Doing Was Marking Denied The Opportunity Because The Mayor Would Refuse It So I Would Suggest That Everybody In This Chamber If They Value The System That We Work Under Which Is Not By No Means Perfect Not By A Long Chop But If They Value The Opportunity For All To To Be In Decision Making If Thank Thank Thank You Is That Seconded You Have A Seconder Right Thank You And Do You Wish To Speak Now Or Reserve Your Right Thank You Now Others Who Wish To Speak There I Got Councillor Bennett Down As Speaker Right Councillor All right So We've Got Councillor Bennett And Then Councillor Hull Councillor Crookdake Okay For The President And Okay Right In That Case Councillor Bennett Would You Like To Start Thank You Madam Mayor The Government Thinks That The Committee Structure Means Slower Less Sufficient Decision Making Councillor Roberts Says It Empowers All Councillors I Must Say It Certainly Appealed To Me Back In 2018 And It Still Does However How Are We Doing How Is This Committee Structure Doing In Richmond As As Of As As Of Sadly I Think It Is Trending To Less Empowerment For Councillors It Is Now Characterized In My View As A Front Bench Back Bench Divide You As Liberal Democrats Are Expected To Focus On Your Ward And On Your Committee And Always Appear United On Everything Strangely The Leader Wants Us As Opposition To Have Our Participation Similarly Restricted And Is Beginning To Engineer It Regularly So That's A Complaint About It But I Do Want To Improve As I Say I Support The Committee System And I Do Want It To Recover And Progress So How Is That Decision Making Role Working For It Appears Difficult To Align The Need For Decisions To Timely Decision Making With The Cycle Of Meetings As They Occur Committee Members Are Finding When Other Recommendations They're Asked To Note Very Frequently Asked To Approve Much Less Frequently And Asked To Delegate Increasingly Often Oxford Sheer Has Done A Review On Changing To Committee System What They Came Up With Was Committed Decision Making Requires More Meetings Longer Meetings And Better Forward Planning So Let's Recognize And Accept That And Let's Start Doing Something About It Start First First All I I Would Add One Committee Meeting A Year And Make It Five Instead Of Four I Would Aim For Better Balance Of Heavy And Light Agendas

There's no time to review it and be well-equipped for a debate. Usually there are hundreds of pages to read. And member briefings. What's going on in the pipeline? What's happening in terms of progressing of making reports? Before we finally see reports, what's going on with them? What is happening? How are they getting on? Could you bring your remarks to the question? And finally, transparency. Committee debates are important and they should be more significant than the pre-meets, where I'm sure some valuable debate goes on, but we don't see it. And more importantly, neither do our residents. So we can improve the committee system and I support it. And we'd vote for this motion, but it isn't perfect here and we should make it better. Thank you, Councillor Bennett. Councillor Howell, who wanted to speak? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I had a good look at the Local Government Association website and it made a good point that the Cabinet system is the most common. I don't honestly think that's a good argument. It may be the most common, but one size does not fit all. The Minister, Jim McMahon, has also said that a Cabinet system would be more simplified and more accountable. I don't agree. I remember my first year on the Council when we had the Cabinet post. I sat on the overview and scrutiny for adult social care and I remember thinking that we didn't really have any teeth. And I was pleasantly surprised when we abolished the Cabinet posts and we moved to a fully committee system how much teeth the committee system has. And what Councillor Bennett says, from my own experiences of sitting on the Education Committee, Councillor Crook-Dake is very good at scrutinising what we do on the Education Committee. So I do think there is accountability. Also, if we move to a Cabinet system, the public, as well as the Opposition Councillors, would have less ability to scrutinise what's being said and what's being done. Finally, if we do revert, as the Government wants us to, to going back to the Cabinet system and we then go back to having the overview and scrutiny committees as well, then we need to make sure that overview and scrutiny is robust. The Local Government Association website says it can be robust. When I was that first year on the Council, I didn't think it was. But I agree with colleagues that we should keep the present committee system. Thank you. Now, next to speak is Councillor Crook-Dake. Thank you. Whilst I agree with the motion, I am surprised by it, given the way the administration has acted in several key areas. In 2022, when I was first elected, residents had a right to speak at committees about ward concerns. This was much better than having the concern raised solely by a councillor, and I felt reflected the administration's manifesto promise of listening to the residents' voice. I was very surprised when the Constitution was changed in December 22 to remove this right. Why was this done? Well, apparently to prevent vexatious residents from raising concerns, but this has also prevented residents with perfectly good issues, raise issues themselves in service committees without the Chair's consent. Further, for a councillor to join in a debate of an agenda item, which they have registered to speak about, this also requires a consent of the Chair. Consent has been refused, and this has prevented meaningful discussion of controversial policies, for example, the discussion of Council tax policy in the Finance Committee last autumn. With 49 Liberal councillors and only five Green opposition councillors, other tactics have been deployed in what is effectively a one-party council. They include, first, if, as a Liberal Democrat, you abstain or vote against the administration's view, well, beware. I understand my fellow Liberal ward councillor lost his vice-chair position, principally as a result of this. Second, some Cabinet members have refused to engage on important topics, wasting time and costs on policies that should have been given closer scrutiny. Third, dubious challenges on whether Green members have properly registered to speak at a meeting have been used to prevent opposition scrutiny. Fourth, resisting the use of AI transcripts, transcripts, which are much more representative of a full committee discussion. Or fifth, struggling to get public hearings broadcast. All backsliding tactics, which reduce, not strengthen democracy. So, Councillor Roberts, whilst this administration might be better than some, I think the Council's glass house is actually quite fragile when it comes to democratic tactics, and this motion is something of an old goal. Two recent examples spring to mind, where the Council administration could have acted more democratically, Pennsford Fields and the Pools on the Park Health Suite. There is much more you can do within the committee system to give residents and opposition councillors a meaningful role. You can start by reversing the constitutional change you brought in in December 22, and reinstate residents' right to speak toward concerns, and further give all councillors the right to take part in an agenda item debate when they have properly registered to speak at a service committee. So, would you agree to reverse this democratic backsliding and discuss these changes in a meaningful way in the governance working group, and also make the current unavailable minutes available on the Richmond website? This will help strengthen the democratic committee system this Council is in favour of. You will get no opposition from Green councillors if you do. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cookdake. And Councillor Wren, if you should speak. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I was grumbling a little bit at Councillor Millard a moment ago, and I thought this is a good opportunity to turn that into a slightly more constructive comment. It was relating to the fact that the Finance Policy Resources Committee was recently guillotined after three and a half long hours of very important debate. And it felt, you know, some of us felt aggrieved because we didn't get a chance to debate other perfectly deserving and really important items on the agenda, including only a few minutes on Twickenham Riverside and no minutes at all on some of the other agenda items. So, that didn't feel like proper scrutiny, and it was very, very disappointing. But, imagine how differently we would be feeling if we were under a Cabinet system. By and large, there is proper debate in the committee systems. There are some improvements that I do think could be made, and hopefully some of those highlighted tonight by Councillor Bennett and Councillor Crook-Date have been heard and will be looked at. But we are better off with a committee system, and I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Councillor Roberts' comments on that. Thank you. Thank you. I know Councillor Eamon wishes to speak. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Only a short couple of remarks. I mean, I just wanted to say, for all of the green comments picking out, cherry-picking negatives within the existing committee system, is something they're perfectly at liberty to do. I'm disappointed that they haven't also emphasised some of the positives, not least as recently as a few weeks ago, an unusual meeting around line bikes, which this administration took the decision to conduct in a way that was outside the formal structures of any committee or Cabinet system. But that's not where I wanted to focus. The thing I wanted to focus on was that the real idiocy within what's being proposed here is it's being proposed through the prism of a devolution bill. And if you look at the definition of devolution, it's the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level. It's the exact opposite of that. And I think it's important for us to emphasise a point of difference I hope we can reconcile through persuading the present Labour government that their course of action is a folly. But, you know, it was a Liberal Democrat initiative within coalition under Andrew Stunnell to reinvigorate the freedoms that this administration took advantage of by being able to bring the committee system back. So it's Liberal Democrats in government that enable councils around the country to choose a concept I fundamentally as a Liberal believe should exist, choice. And it's the Labour government at the moment that are committed to a course of action that's the opposite of devolution and the opposite of choice, and I think, therefore, we must reject it. Thank you. Councillor Millard, do you wish to speak? And then Councillor Hale. Any other speakers? Thank you, Madam Mayor. It was just a quick one that occurred to me that the committee system is something that's evolved in the Adult Social Services Health and Housing Committee as we've increased our work that Councillor Vardy touched on earlier, and I say we because I'm no longer part of it, but I was part of it for a long time, to increase resident voice. The committee's actually been a really fundamental part of the Social Housing Improvement Plan, enabling residents to come and scrutinise their housing associations and sit at the same table as people who are making decisions about housing in their borough. And that's something that's particularly possible in the committee system. It would be possible under a robust overview and scrutiny model, but I think it's something that has evolved because of the committee system, and it's something that we should be rightly proud of in Richmond. It's something that's been acknowledged nationally at conferences and by national organisations like TPAS, and I think it would suffer if we were forced to go to a Cabinet system. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would just like to say a couple of things in response to Councillor Bennett. You mentioned this idea of there being a front-bench, back-bench divide, but I personally feel, as a back-bencher, and working with a front-bencher on Adult Social Services, that I think it actually brings us together more. I don't think there is such a divide. I think we're much closer together, and we get, especially the two of us, we really do get to get involved in the meeting and give good scrutiny to whoever's there to speak and whatever the report is. So I just feel that there isn't that divide. I think it is actually helping to reduce that kind of divide. I also just want to thank Democratic Services, who do publish the minutes quite promptly after these meetings. They are available on the website, along with decision papers, and I want to thank them for doing that and for doing it with very good accuracy. We all regularly agree that they have been an accurate report of the meeting, so we should be not criticising that. We should be thankful for it and acknowledging the fact that, actually, it's not just a week before that we get those, they are available for you to get on at a much sooner time. Thank you. Thank you. Now, if no one else wishes to speak, Councilor McNulty Howard, you had your seconding. Did you wish to speak now? If I may, briefly. Any system is dependent on the people that run it. And I just let you think, if you had a more autocratic system, which is what the government really are proposing, imagine this chamber full of reformed people. It horrifies me. I think we've got a decent system now. We've got an electorate that wants us to do it in this fashion. We allow conversations all through the system. We also have a community system where we go and speak with people, either jointly or separately. We have our residents' rights into us constantly. There are checks and balances in what's being done. And I think, with our present system, we should continue it. And I commend what my leader has suggested to you all. Thank you. Thank you. Now, do you wish to bring this to a conclusion? Just a couple of points of factual clarification, if I may. I mean, I do take what Councillor Bennet is saying, that four meetings a year for a service committee is too few. And I agree that five would be better, which is why we have six service committee meetings every year, because we want to make sure that as many papers get through as they possibly can. On the point that Councillor Crooktake made, water concerns have always been the prerogative of water councillors, whether it was under the Cabinet system, whether it was when water concerns used to be brought to this chamber, or when we moved water concerns out of this chamber and into the committees, so that more water concerns could be raised. The time was that councillors had about seven opportunities a year for full council, and there would have to be a ballot, because only two water concerns were allowed. Now, water concerns are spread across. I cannot remember, in all honesty, there ever being a time when residents could raise water concerns. Councillor McNulty Howard is quite right, that we also brought in community conversations, which allow residents to come and talk directly to their councillors, to ask the questions that they want to ask in their locale. What we used to have, under the previous system, was a travelling roadshow of just the Cabinet coming along, and it was called Meet the Cabinet, and that happened maybe twice a year, if you were lucky. And on that, there was no opposition representation whatsoever. So, personally, I think that there is a good mix of resident engagement, and don't forget, the much-complained committee about Pencford Field lasted three hours, largely because we were allowing question and answer of residents about a matter which meant a lot to them in that committee. So, I'll take criticism, I certainly will, and I said it in my speech. Is the system that we've got at the moment perfect? No. Can it be revised? No. The Member Governance Working Group, I would also point out, is a cross-party working group. We do these things equitably, and it's with people either of senior rank or with people with long experience of council work. So, yes, there are things to do on this committee system, and 2026 possibly will kick the tyres and see what needs revising still further. Nothing gets set in Aspik. But, having this, or going back to the eight years of Cabinet structure with an autocratic, top-down, Conservative administration, which I sat through, believe me, you have far more rights and responsibilities as opposition councillors than I ever had in eight years. Thank you. So, we are now at the point where we are ending the debate on this motion, and we're now going to vote on the motion. Could I see those in favour, please? Do I see... Thank you. Do I see anyone against? And I don't think we had any abstentions, but let's have a look. No, so that's passed NEMCON. Well done. Thank you. Okay. So, we're now going on to the second motion, which is on parking charges for large vehicles. And I call on Councillor Wren to move this motion, please. You have five minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I'm sure all of you here, residents, complaining that parking is getting tougher. Right? And indeed, you know, it has been for many years. Back in the 90s and 2010s, that was mostly because levels of car ownership were rising. More recently, though, that's not the case. We've actually seen a slight decrease in car ownership, even out here in the outer London boroughs. And that's partly because policy at both the national and local level has been aiming to tackle air pollution, encourage people to be more active, and try to avoid seeing our roads completely clogged with traffic. So, why then is parking still getting more difficult? Well, colleagues, cars are getting bigger and bigger in a phenomenon known as car spreading. On average, an extra centimetre wider every two years with new cars. In fact, over half of new cars sold in the UK are now too large for our typical parking bay widths of 1.8 metres wide. And this is a huge problem for residents, especially those parking in our terraced Victorian streets and for the council officers who are tasked with trying to keep up with residents' expectations. London streets were not designed for car spreading. And our streets are public space, that space that should be shared not only with other cars, but by all the users of our roads and pavements. And that's where we get to the really pernicious issues around larger vehicles, the effect on other people. Firstly, larger cars are more polluting. For example, SUVs burn 20% more fuel than the average medium-sized car. That means they produce more carbon dioxide and other emissions that warm the planet and damage our health. Secondly, larger cars, such as SUVs or 4x4s, are heavier and have higher bonnets. Their weight and shape mean that people in smaller cars, people who are walking or cycling, are all much more at risk when a collision, unfortunately, occurs. In fact, and this stat is really shocking, if a larger car, like an SUV, hits a child, that child is 82% more likely to die than if hit by a smaller car. Put simply, the higher the bonnet, the bigger the blind spot. For example, a driver of a Land Rover Defender cannot even see a 4-year-old child immediately in front of the vehicle. This trend towards larger cars is driving up bonnet height as well, as width, by 0.5 centimetres bonnet height a year. Cars are getting wider, taller and heavier. I want to make it clear, though, that we do understand that some people need bigger vehicles. This motion does not include commercial vehicles, such as vans. And we do understand that many people buy larger personal cars because they have large families to transport or other particular needs. This isn't the fault of the car owners that their large vehicles are more dangerous and more polluting. It's the manufacturers who should know better. And it's our government who should be regulating the size of our cars. In fact, the academic literature now on safety of road and pavement users and on air pollution now overwhelmingly points to the need for society to shift policy towards encouraging smaller cars. And council has levers it can pull. We can raise awareness of the topic by charging differently for parking cars that are larger and more polluting. It is going to be a small change, but it would make the point that larger cars cost us more as a society. They cost air quality, they actually cost lives, and they cost space. So it's not unreasonable to ask that they should cost a little bit more to park as well. We therefore propose that council should follow the lead of Islington, Bath, Paris, Lyon, Cologne, Bordeaux, Koblenz, and others, and charge higher car park fees and parking permit fees for heavier, more polluting vehicles. We actually envisage that the fairest way to do this will be a combination of emissions and size to be worked out by officers using the many inputs available from published literature and other councils. We know that this council has tried an emissions-based scale before, around 20 years ago. At the time, it was groundbreaking. I actually think we were the first borough to introduce emissions-based charging, pioneering. And it was popular, actually, with politicians of all stripes. It was backed by Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, can you believe it? Until suddenly it wasn't because the Tories realised they could use it as a point of differentiation. And now reform have picked up that battle. But we're better than that. This is an idea whose time has now truly come. In June, the London Assembly, including the leader of this council, supported a cross-party motion that called on Sadiq Khan to write to all London councils asking them to explore the feasibility of boroughs charging higher parking fees for larger vehicles, in particular SUVs. Thank you. Please, therefore, support this motion. It simply asks that council officers should prepare a proposal for how we could manage these charges in our borough in time that it could be woven into next year's budget. so I commend this motion to you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Waller, am I correct you're seconding? Do you wish to speak now? Yes. OK, thank you. Thank you. The growth in car size is setting back efforts to reduce emissions. The increase in vehicle size and power has eroded as much as 40% of the improvements in fuel consumption that would otherwise have occurred due to technical advances in vehicles and engines. SUVs are the most visible and popular type of large passenger vehicle on our roads. Collectively, SUVs emit over 900 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. If SUVs were an individual country, they would rank sixth in the world for absolute emissions in 2021 behind China, the US, India, Russia and Japan. The average emissions of new petrol SUVs are around 10% higher than the average emissions of new petrol cars that are not SUVs and they consume about 20% more energy. Globally, SUVs are one of the top causes of energy-related CO2 emissions growth over the last 10 years. This is not a niche problem. There are other emissions than tailpipe emissions, of course. Particulates from diesel and tire wear are linked with increased risks of major health conditions as well as an increased risk of overall mortality. Larger and heavier vehicles on our roads will cause an increase in emissions of PM2.5 particulates unless governments establish a targeted policy response. So let's look at the future that we want to see. We want to see a future where cycling, walking, public transport is hugely increased and is now the default. Car ownership is significantly reduced. No need for SUVs or larger vehicles. Cargo bikes will be incredibly popular and air quality will have drastically improved. That's the vision for the future of this borough. It's one where the average person or family doesn't need these larger, more polluting vehicles because there are better alternatives. but this will only happen through targeted action to promote alternatives and penalise the most polluting vehicles. It's time to act on this issue before the trend becomes so embedded that this size of car becomes the norm. So I urge members to support this motion. Thank you. Now, those who wish to speak on this item, I believe that councillors Bennett and Freeze both wish to speak. Others, councillor Eamon and councillor... Oh, right, okay. Right, in that case, councillor Bennett, would you like to start? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to be brief. I only wanted to add a couple of new facts. One of them is the permitted width in law of a bus and a car is the same. And every year they take advantage of that, the manufacturers, and they creep a little bit closer to the width of a bus. And that's remorseless that's going on. Now, the other fact to note is that there's a lot more profit in an SUV than a small car. The margin for the manufacturers is 40% to 60% better than an normal car. And bear in mind, a lot of the growth in the sale of SUVs has been the leasing deals that have been attractive to people to buy a bigger car than they thought they could afford before. What that means, of course, is those leasing deals end and there's a big release of those second-hand cars onto the market. The manufacturers want to sell new cars. How do you do that? You differentiate the new car from the old model. You're giving them something, better accommodation, some little wiso gimmick, but also you make them bigger. And that's the change that occurs. And it looks quite dramatic over a 10-year period. And that enables them to say we're creating a demand for a new car. And so it carries on remorselessly. And just bear in mind that a two-tonne SUV does 16 more times more damage to the road than a small car, a normal car. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Freese. Okay. Councillor Eamon. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I mean, I think it's worth first starting by saying this council considers every year what the best approach to its fees and charges are, and we'll continue to do that. But as the Green Party knows, the council's present approach is not to complicate parking tariffs, least of all with the dual considerations of emissions and vehicle sizes proposed in this motion. Instead, this council has benchmarked parking against the cost of a return bus journey as a public transport alternative and is increasing all parking tariffs to a new floor level over several years to ensure that car parking is not below the cost of that preferable alternative. This is a clear, fair and focused way to disincentivise unnecessary car use. We need to do much more too by introducing and improving the provision of alternatives, but I won't labour that point here. I want to get into the weeds of what's wrong with this motion. First of all, I think it's muddled thinking. There are references to width, weight, height, emissions, and despite noting the relationship between weight and damage to roads and other road users, the motion ends by asking that parking charges be based on both vehicle size and emissions. If this is meant to include weight, which it does not say, the green proposal would seek to charge more for larger and heavier or polluting vehicles. Easy for those that hit all three criteria, but less polluting heavier EVs or small, more polluting older cars would also need to be treated fairly in such a system, not uncomplicated. The deterrent effect of these proposed measures is very small. A BMW X7 starts at £92,000, an Audi A8 at £85,000. The local authorities that have introduced emissions-based charging don't do more than double the cost of the most polluting to the least polluting vehicles. So what effect would that have on the purchasing choices of a nearly £100,000 vehicle? I would contend practically zero. With higher charges, it's also possible that that may impact on future purchase decisions, but once you bought a car, the evidence shows that the length of ownership is eight and a half years. So that's a lot of time to just be incurring cost with no discernible impact. I'd also highlight that the proposals here are a floor, not a ceiling price. The present levels of charging would, under the green proposals, be the base, and I'm sure that everything would be above it. And in a time of constraint and considerable inflationary pressures, our residents would find that challenging to meet. Fourthly, parking is not driving. On emissions in particular, car parking charges are not the best tool for tackling pollution. While discretionary parking may have some semblance of a relationship, charges for parking with the CPZ are for the static state of the vehicle. So this is just a slab charge on ownership. It's invidious also without 100% coverage of CPZ and the presence of driveways. I think it's critically important to highlight as well that this borough don't have 1.8 metre wide bays. We have 2 metre bays. So a lot of the motion is rendered null and void because of that. As I said before, I think the Greens need to be clearer about what they actually propose, which is a parking charge based on vehicle size and emissions, forcing through a borough-wide CPZ and reducing, as is stated by Councillor Fries and my own committee frequently, year-on-year availability of parking spaces within the borough above all of this. Our approach differs from the Greens, and let us see which offering the electorate prefers. Thank you, Councillor Raymond. Councillor Roberts, you wish to speak? Thank you, Madam Mayor. There are things in here which I support, to be honest. I can't support the motion as a whole, unfortunately, but yes, I did at the London Assembly, with my other hat on, vote for a motion which was far more wide-ranging than this, and that's it, I mean, just selectively quoting the motion, and I thought it might come up, so I've got it here. There are a few things which were asked for. So, Assembly calls on the Mayor to write to the Department of Transport asking that they update vehicle regulations to introduce tighter limits on vehicle size and bonnet height, write to HM Treasury asking that they introduce a progressive tax on passenger vehicle weight into vehicle excise duty, fair enough, and write to, and this is asking the Mayor to write to London Councils asking them to explore the feasibility of boroughs charging higher parking charges to SUVs, again, very narrow there, SUVs, I mean, what about the older, more polluting cars, to account for pressure they put on road space and local parking, which is all fine. So it wasn't entirely as, I mean, I take the gist. So I was happy to support that. I can't support this, and the reason why I really can't support this particular motion is that it feels very much like this should be a manifesto commitment for either party if they want to go down that line. If we were to do this, we would have to necessarily go into a full round of consultation. Consultation will be too late to happen now. It will not be able to happen until September. You will probably need about three months at the minimum to be able to start bringing these things in. And then once you've got the three months after September, you're very nearly into the new year, and then you are into the, pretty much the pre-election period after that, where it becomes very difficult to do anything at all. So I think it's flawed on that count, that if this is something that the Greens wish to put forward to the electorate, to the next election, pop it in your manifesto, you'll have a manifesto, I'm sure. I'm sure that we will have things that we want to put in our manifesto about parking charges. What I would suggest that we should not do at this stage in an electoral cycle is to foist something onto residents without any consultation, without finding out what they think. And the easiest way to find out what they think about measures such as these is through the ballot box. And the one thing which I would suggest is that if you did want to see a reform council or a resurgent Conservative council coming back, the example which you gave right back in 2006 is that the Tories used this as a stick to beat progressive thinking with. They saw an opportunity, they came marching back. As I say, there are things which I can support in here. I can't support the motion, and it is because we need to have a proper conversation with residents, and we should not be giving people the stick with which to beat us. All right, thank you. Councillor Chard. Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, first of all, I've got some sympathy for Councillor Wren's motion, as I recognise the negative impact of larger, heavier vehicles as she sets out and her colleagues have set out. However, there are reasons why I remain unconvinced by the mechanism chosen here. Firstly, car parking permit charges only apply to those who do not enjoy private off-street parking. So, in fairness to those residents who use on-street parking, it's important that permit prices remain, seem to be reflective of the costs of provision of the kerbside space, which would include lines and signs, enforcement, and the opportunity cost of that provision. It would be unfair to those residents who need to pay those permit charges, to treat them very, very differently to those who enjoy off-street parking. Secondly, the correlation between vehicle size or weight and negative impact is less clear-cut than that set out in the motion. Someone changing to an EV, for example, will typically be getting a heavier car, but it's broadly, although not entirely, in a positive move. Further, car ownership is a crude measure of impact more broadly as usage varies so widely between vehicles. Thirdly, there is considerable merit in having clarity of charging across the system. What is proposed here is a highly, highly complex system of discounts and increments, which would be extremely challenging to implement and almost impossible to understand. So, for those reasons, and not because it's not a well-intentioned motion, I will not be supported. Thank you. Councillor Cardi, wish to speak. Thank you, Chair. There have been a few mentions of the scheme back from 2006 to 2010, which I think actually I was kind of, it was my idea in the first place. One of the differences between my original proposal, which was to do it based on vehicle length, and the scheme we wound up introducing, which was based on the CO2 emissions for modern cars and the engine sizes for old cars, was that vehicle length was believed to be a difficult thing to measure and get banded. And we took advice and went to the system that was supposedly easier to implement. The problem we then had was that we were accused of, well, people made the point that cars don't actually produce CO2 when they're parked. And this seems to be quite convincing to a lot of people. Whereas, if you do it on length, and I think we should consider doing that at some point, if you do it on length, well, very clearly parked cars that are longer do take up more space. and I think if either party or both parties want to reconsider and re-raise this issue in the future, having a length-based parking system where there is the most shortage of parking, i.e. in-control parking zones, still has merit. We were pioneers on this nearly 20 years ago, and I think we can learn from the lessons that we, from that system then, we have areas of the borough where there is a great shortage of parking. If you have a nice simple system, which we didn't have when we eventually introduced it before, and I would suggest isn't on the proposal now, but a simple system based purely on vehicle length, I think would have a lot of positives for it, and if you consult by having a long consultation period two, three years before you start implementing the thing, you have the advantage that a lot of people will be changing their car during that lead-in process, and you can make it clear to people, as we did with the system some years ago, that family cars, modest, what we consider to be family cars, ones that can fit poor people, would be, would actually going to be cheaper under that proposal. Chelsea tractors, which some people call SUVs, would tend to be more expensive, and part of the thing is a communication thing to make clear to people that, yeah, a sensible sized car, I happen to drive a 1990s Nissan Micra, and that's shorter and narrower than most cars, and if we... So, I would suggest that this is something we should consider, but we should make it a simple, clear system. It was over-complicated last time. Thank you. Now, Councillor Friese, you previously said you wanted to... Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, it kind of went the way I expected it to go this evening. It is disappointing, I mean, frankly, that a policy that you brought in, previous administration brought in in 2006, that is lauded by other Liberal Democrat groups around London, for example, Lambeth Council proposed bringing it in, the Labour group there, local Lib Dem Party, put out a statement saying, the Lib Dem Council group supports parking charges based on car emissions, which Lib Dem controlled Richmond Council pioneered over a decade ago. How... The fear, the running... The sense that you are running scared after still seven years of being in the administration, and not having the guts to stand up for your principles because you're too scared of what the Conservatives are going to say about this, is really, really quite depressing. You know, thanks to the election advice, I'm sure, as you said, we will all bring our manifestos and we will all see what the local population have to say. I mean, this is very much in the Lib Dem zone of things, which is that it's all about choice. Yes, we live in a society where we have choice. Residents can choose how they travel around the borough, they can choose how many cars they own, they can choose what type of car to verify. But in recognition of those choices, the council has controlled parking zones already. And those parking zones are more expensive around town centres, around train stations, where those sites are more desirable. And if a resident owns more than one car, as 23% of them do in this borough, then the council charges substantially more for each additional permit, acknowledging the extra demand this is placing on both parking space and council services. So the council is already working on the premise that the more space a resident's car takes up, the more a resident has to pay. Therefore, introducing an emissions and size-based approach is simply a continuation of this idea. It's the polluters-pays principles. There are 20 councils in London out of 32 who already have a system of this kind. It cannot be that complicated if that many other councils are doing it. Basically, if you have a bigger, heavier, wider car, you should be paying more for it. Because the more polluting a vehicle, the more a resident should pay for the impact that has on times of public health, poor air quality, and the impact of fossil fuels in creating the man-made climate crisis. If you have the right to choose a more polluting car, or one whose weight is causing more damage to the road surface, then you must take responsibility for the paying of the detrimental impacts it has. If you choose a vehicle that is more likely to kill someone if your car collides with them, as Councillor Wren pointed out, then you should pay for the cost of dealing with that aftermath. In 2023, there were 111 casualties on Richmond's roads. The estimated direct cost to society was £7.3 million, plus a further £25 million in human costs. Thank you, Councillor Freese. You need to draw your remarks to a close now. These cars do not come without costs. Other councils recognise it. This council once did. It's time you did it again. Thank you. Are there others, anyone else wishing to speak on this? Councillor Sarah. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be brief. I mean, some very good points have been made by my Lib Dem colleagues. I just want, whilst I agree with what the concept behind this is, but I just wanted to kind of spot a couple of things I've observed from here. In bullet point number two, where it talks about heavier cars are more likely to kill or injure people walking, wheeling, or cycling, and the third point around serious and fatal road collisions, I think a lot of that is also to do with the way somebody drives their car, regardless of what type of car it is, rather than whether it's electric or not. Councillor Sarah. Thank you. Councillor Carroll, you wish to speak. Thank you, Chair. I'm well known to be the least fan of cars in this chamber, I think. As it's often joked that I would welcome a complete pedestrianisation of the entire borough. But in all seriousness, whilst I understand and respect my colleague on the opposition's aim with this, I think there are some flaws. One, most of which have been brought off. One which, I'm surprised the Green Party haven't taken into account. If people can't park on their road because it's too expensive, they might decide to get rid of their front garden and replace it with a hard standing, which is known to increase flood risks. And I know now it's been made easier for people to get this. And back in the day, when I worked as an officer over at neighbouring councils, we had strict rules on the size of vehicles which could get a crossover. There was a minimum size you needed for it. And these bigger cars, when they got a crossover which was designed for a normal car, now overhang the pavement, sometimes blocking it almost completely, forcing people onto the road. If we force more cars into unsuitable hard standings, we are increasing the risk to pedestrians. So as much as I would love to be able to support anything to reduce the amount of cars on our streets, I'm not sure I can support this motion. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak or are we at the point of summing up? Councillor Wren, I think you would like to sum up now. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, colleagues, for giving this some really serious consideration. There's just a couple of points that have been made here that I'd like to come back on. Firstly, I'd like to thank Councillor Eamon for confirming for us all that you do believe that the owners of most of these cars would be able to afford to pay a bit more in parking. You commented on how much the cars cost, to make that point very ably, which I think probably contradicts a little bit of Councillor O'Carroll there speaking about the concerns that we might push people into paving over their gardens and going with hard standing, which of course is more expensive than a parking permit. So some issues there. Also, a few issues around the parking bays. I have attended resident meetings with officers where we have discussed the bays in front of us, which were only 1.8 metres wide. We do have some of those in our borough, but take your point that many of them are 2 metres. Fair enough. Not all. I'd also like to thank Councillor Roberts. I didn't have time to read the whole London Assembly motion, so thank you very much for doing that. We also don't, we have a lower word count in motions here, so it's harder to, you know, to be quite as multifaceted as that. And it was a motion that went further, and since you've agreed with that motion at London Assembly, which did go a lot further than this one, I think, you know, we're all very excited to see what might come in the manifesto commitment next time around. Because there has been a lot of positive noise made by many of you about some of the intention and some of the contents of the motion here. So I thank you for those noises of support around the intention. It's a shame that if you supported the intention but not every single word of the content, that none of you thought to bring amendments to this, as has happened so many times in this chamber. So it feels as though some of those words of support might not be quite as wholehearted as I wish they were. But let's see what happens in terms of future actions in terms of the climate strategy, which would surely need action on this point of some kind. Now, of course, this motion did not presume to confirm the exact calculations or mechanics by which we were suggesting that new charges would be levied. We simply said, let's ask our officers to make some recommendations to us on that point. So several people have tried to, you know, to undermine the motion by saying that we weren't quite right with the mechanism or that we, you know, we didn't have it quite fair. The motion says let's get officers to look at this and look at a combination of emissions and size of some kind and try to figure out whether that's best done on bonnet height for which is very clear academic literature about what is advisable or on width, ditto, or on weight or on emissions. I imagine a combination is the farthest way to avoid some of the flaws that were mentioned. So we didn't say it was easy. We didn't say it was uncomplicated. Tackling these challenges certainly isn't. I hope that some of you will find it in you to be able to support this motion in this form that asks officers to look at this issue for us. Thank you. Oops, sorry. I didn't have my... So we have... I'm afraid the motion falls. Okay, thank you. Now, we have a motion on the impact of fair funding review. This is item C. And Councillor Millard is going to move this motion and you can speak for up to five minutes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's getting late. A few points to make, though. We are bringing this motion because we're deeply concerned about the impact the government's proposed fair funding reforms could have on borough finances, not only here in Richmond but across London. In the recent spending review, the government trumpeted that councils have... Their core spending power would rise by an average of 2.6% a year over the next three years. But that figure is entirely dependent on councils raising council tax by the maximum 5% allowed each year, a 15% increase across the period, which they are effectively expecting us to do. Let's be clear about what that means. The government is relying on council tax rises to patch the gap, shifting the burden of funding even further on to local taxpayers, while at the same time reducing central support. Even with that assumed increase, demand-led pressures, especially in adult social care, children's services and housing, are forecast to far outstrip available funding. In real terms, councils will continue to be squeezed even harder each year. On top of this, we now face the government's proposed fair funding reforms. While we support the principle that funding should reflect genuine need and that areas of the country left behind should receive greater investment, we are deeply concerned about the methodology being proposed. Redistribution must be based on real need and accurate data. Richmond has received no general revenue support grant for many years now. What we have had are targeted grants for specific high-pressure areas like homelessness prevention. That grant has made a real difference, helping us intervene early on to avoid more people falling into crisis, but now the government is proposing to roll that grant and others like it into a single general funding pot. That change would strip out the visibility of those pressures and undermine the targeted support that has helped us manage some of our most vital service areas. To take away focus prevention funding at this point and then claim it is part of a fairer system is the opposite of fairness. It's a step back and it worsens an already historic imbalance in the way councils like Richmond are funded. The proposed formulae also fail to adequately reflect the real pressures and deprivation in an area like ours. For example, they exclude housing costs, a fundamental driver of poverty and hardship in London. When housing costs are included, London boroughs move from the middle to the top of deprivation rankings. This must be reflected in the final model. The new foundation formula, which encompasses many core services, fails to account for unique and complex service pressures driven by urban density in boroughs like ours. At the same time, it introduces a remoteness factor favouring rural areas based on economic theory, not real data. This kind of modelling might look neat on paper, but we believe public funding should be driven by concrete local cost data, not untested theory. Furthermore, it includes a deprivation top-up. These are core services, things like waste collection, street cleansing and parks, where cost drivers are operational and environmental, not primarily or even largely socio-economic. A bin is a big. It costs the same to collect no matter who it belongs to. To build deprivation into this formula blurs the purpose and introduces further unfairness. And we have a number of concerns about the children's formula that the Council of Cambridge will come on to in a minute. And I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome her to her new position. I'm now a thorn between two juniors, which is rather nice. Since 2018, Richmond has delivered 50 million in efficiencies. We are a well-run council and we continue to work hard to use council taxpayers' money carefully and efficiently, but these proposals risk pushing us closer and closer to the cliff edge, expecting us to do more with less. We already face a growing mid-term funding gap of circa £15 million. The Government clearly takes the view that councils like Richmond are less deprived and so can do with less support. But this conclusion is only reached by excluding the very costs that drive deprivation in London. We will lobby vigorously to make these points. In bringing this motion, we support London councils in their call for adequate protections to ensure no borough is left worse off after these reforms. And we call for a fairer approach that recognises the real pressures facing councils like Richmond upon Thames. I urge colleagues to support it. Thank you, Councillor Millard. Do you have a seconder? Right, Councillor Cambridge is seconding. Councillor Cambridge, do you wish to speak now? I wish. OK. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for that welcome, Councillor Millard. Now, Councillor Millard is absolutely right. Now, we're concerned that the children's formula undervalues early intervention and could perversely penalise councils that have worked hard to invest in prevention. If we only fund reactive crisis work, we disincentivise the very serious services that reduce demand and improve outcomes. Now, many of the proposed new formula metrics will have a negative impact on London funding for children and young people, including, as mentioned, the area cost adjustment. That could misinterpret the cost of supporting needs within London. Now, the relationship between housing costs and deprivation can be clearly measured, and yet the income deprivation affecting children calculation doesn't include the critical high cost of housing in London, and certainly not in Richmond Borough. Now, London faces additional financial pressures that are not accounted for in the model or area cost adjustment. An example is children in care. Now, we have high rates of private placements, some 8% more than non-London, and supported accommodation 3% more than non-London. So, previous funding has been also distributed patchily, Madam Mayor. Some local authorities have received significant funding to maximise the rollout of family hubs, whereas Richmond received no additional funding and has had to fund all that investment from capital budget. So, in conclusion, the government wants change but doesn't want to pay for it and is hiding behind skewed calculations. Children and young people deserve better. Let's support this motion. Thank you, Councillor Cambridge. And could people please check if you have items with you that are going to make strange noises during people's speeches? It really is very unhelpful for when... I apologise. Yeah, thank you. OK, so we have other speakers, other people wishing to speak on this item. I can see Councillor Crook-Dake and Councillor... I forgot who's Bennett, sorry. Any other speakers on this? OK. Oh, hang on. Oh, Councillor Carroll. Righty-ho. OK, on we go then. So, Councillor Crook-Dake, please. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I support Councillor Millar's motion and Julia's call for better funding for young people. It recognises that poor residents who rely on council services the most are disproportionately impacted by funding cuts and, further, that a large number of residents are pushed into poverty when housing costs are taken into account. I would also like to see childcare costs taken into account when calculating indices of deprivation. They are disproportionately higher in Richmond given our reliance on the private sector which provides around 70% to 5% of our early years' childcare. And I would ask Councillor Millar to please include this factor. Thank you. Councillor Bennett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I sort of dipped into this fair funding 2.0 and I quite quickly realised it's quite a task, actually, and I didn't have the time to do it properly. But I've made a few notes of the things it mentions and which I thought I should dip into a bit more. One is, at least, there are going to be multi-year settlements. That was terrible, really, with the Conservatives going on with the one-year settlements. Business rates are going to be reset. I don't know what it means, but it doesn't sound like good news for us. You're going to manage, send deficits. Well, why wouldn't you manage them? Just getting rid of them would be even better. So, temporary accommodation, they were going to do something about funding that. Adult social care was going to get a £4 billion increase from 2020 drive 6 to 2028 9. That didn't sound very much to me. They were going to scrap wasteful bidding pots. I thought we were quite good at bidding for those. And all told, I just thought this was a bit worrying. And then I came across something that really does get my hackles raised. In the interest of simplicity, they have derived, devised, a single formula to assess demand for most services. God, I just don't believe it. I'd like to have a look at that formula. Anything about formula and models in government gets my hackles up. So, I wasn't at all sure how. You've got to reply to this by August the 15th, the consultation. I don't think there's any clearness, clear intentions apparent to me. It's just indications of things they're thinking about. So, a bit of a challenge here. Oh, by the way, I do support the motion. And I am worried about housing costs. That's outrageous. I don't think there's any other questions. Want to speak? Are there any other speakers? Right, Councillor Carroll. Thank you, Chair. I'll try not to make any weird noises that distract the audience. One of the main concerns within Julius in your previous role as an education was the abysmal funding for the ECHP in the sector, in the country in general. One of the things that shocked me when I was going through the motion of getting it sorted for my sons and as a member of the education committee was that apparently it wasn't based on the needs of the children our funding but on the level of deprivation in the borough because middle-class and rich kids don't have special education needs, apparently. This is a folly and it is really disappointing that a government which bangs on about helping the poorest in society is determined to act just like the previous administration by denying rights on funding to those who really need it so that they don't have to make a fair tax system. Thank you, Councillor Carroll. Anybody else who wishes to speak? Right, Councillor Dane. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just very quickly. Something that has been a theme throughout the time that I've been a Councillor is that Richmond is perceived as having no deprivation whatsoever. It also doesn't receive funding that other places get and the only reason I think we stay afloat down here is because we've had great management of our budget and our financials here and that's why we are thinking actually we're not the top on because of that but with that if that is an underpinning idea that comes through for funding for what particular boroughs deserved that especially with this idea of not putting the housing into this into the fair funding thing it's like we will be more deprived than we are and there are great pockets of deprivation in here working on the with RHP closely and the Adult Social Services and Housing Committee that there are people that really suffer here that because of that so having that not being put into it is is is fault is a false economy from here we will become more deprived if we don't if these things are not corrected or that that idea that Richmond Richmond doesn't need the money which doesn't have deprivation and it's a purveying kind of an idea that travels through some of the decisions that are made about Richmond and I just don't think that that's right and I hopefully hopefully I support this this this motion but it you need to really lobby as far as bringing this up to actually being fair thank you Councillor Dane now are we at the point where we're going to pull this together and you're going to okay thank you Councillor Malone thank you all for your contributions I think we're all largely in agreement happy to take that on board what's happened oh there's a spider on me that's good luck it's a money spider everyone that's good luck thank you it's alright we're going to be fine but simplicity is also the reason apparently we can't have a committee system so simplicity is doing a lot of the devil's work for it tonight I think simplicity and the other thing they tout flexibility when consolidating grants is a chimera in practice consolidating grants reduces visibility and accountability flexibility and simplicity are only benefits if there's enough money in the system overall when funding is constrained removing ring fencing often leads to cuts in exactly the areas the original grant was created to protect and we are all rather suspicious that it is a little bit of smoke and mirrors to do just that I will continue with colleagues and under councils to vigorously as I say vigorously lobby on this and I urge you all to support the motion thank you thank you so I think we're at the point now where we can go ahead and vote on this motion could I see those in favour please okay thank you and those against and do we have any abstentions so we have achieved another one at NEMCON which is excellent thank you very much now the the fourth motion which was a motion on personal independence payments has been withdrawn I believe because of the change in the government situation so I think we are now at the point where we will move towards the close of the meeting and we have just beaten the guillotine so well done everybody so we've concluded the business of the meeting I want to thank you all for your participation this evening and for the office of support that we've received including all the amount I've received and the webcast may now be stopped thank you thanks thank you I this one I I I I I I I