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Agenda and decisions
June 24, 2025 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
Hello, and good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Tuesday 24th of June. I'm Councillor Jamie Coakley of St. Mary's, and I'll be chairing the meeting tonight. I'm joined tonight by Councillor Paul White, the Cabinet Member for Environment, and also Paul Chadwick, the Executive Director for Environment and Community Services. I will ask that members of the committee introduce themselves when they first speak or participate in discussions, and as well as invited guest speakers to introduce themselves when they speak too. So, starting, whether there are any apologies for absence, I believe we've got full house. Excellent. So then, starting with the agenda, we've got item one, which is the minutes. So, are there any objections to confirming the minutes of the 13th of February as a correct record? No? So, that's correct. Next, do we have any declarations of interest? So, that's either pecuniary or other registrable or non-registrable interests. Nothing? All good there. So, we can now get straight into the agenda. So, our first item is on the Biodiversity Action Plan. So, that's paper number 25-203. You'll all be aware that this paper is reflective of the recent changes to overview and scrutiny committees. So, they're now going to be – it's going to be a bit of a different discussion. This is new to all of us. So, we're going to be easing our way through it. Councillor White, did you want to make a couple of words before we started? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Yes, it's a very exciting first opportunity to build a policy from the ground up. So, we are getting the biodiversity paper here for strategy. And it can include and highlight the groups and people we feel that we need in the new plan, including – and we have two speakers tonight – will give us a good opportunity to get into the depths of biodiversity. But we have an opportunity to be really collegiate here and build something across the two parties that we can all be proud of. So, as I say, a really exciting moment and I'll hand you back to the Chair. Thank you, Councillor White. So, first we have officers that are going to be saying a few words about biodiversity and then we'll have two guest speakers in which they'll have an opportunity to speak for five minutes and then questions. And then we'll be opening the floor trying to find the key points that we as the committee want to pursue with when writing this action plan. So, first, Mr. Dreyer, would you like to start? Yes, thank you very much. My name is Torsten Dreyer. I'm the Head of Arts, Parks and Events. And we're just going to give you a quick overview of where we are with the Development of Biodiversity Action Plans. Why are we here tonight? And it's really to ask committee to help us with some key lines of inquiry that we should pursue as we develop this action plan. So, we're going to talk a little bit about the development and the stakeholder engagement. And my subject matter experts here will do that. And then we have a couple of guest speakers, one of whom we'll talk about delivering biodiversity improvements in parks. That's Valerie Selby. And then the second speaker will talk about the work of the Wandel Catchment Partnership, which is really about zooming out and thinking about collaboration at kind of larger scale. And that's Petra Sovich-Davis, who will be speaking to that. So, I'm going to hand over to my colleague, Sam. Hello. Sam Morgan, Parks Operations Manager. The Council adopted a biodiversity strategy in 2020. And since then, we've developed an evidence base of what habitats we have, where they are, and what improvements can be made. The citizen science programme continues delivered by our partners at Enable, who run things like the popular On Your Street survey that monitor biodiversity in private gardens and things like that. And we've also carried out cross-council officer workshops in February of this year. We are looking to carry out engagement sessions with green space and amenity groups, run an online survey, and support this with a combination of in-person and online engagement sessions with residents associations, partners, and community groups. We will also promote engagement with larger landowners in the borough and review outcomes to create a robust action plan for delivery. What we already know as emerging themes are promoting employment and skills in the green economy, the health benefits of access to nature, and tie this in with the London Borough of Culture legacy. We want to work towards a stronger partnership approach, including other major landowners, public bodies, and develop cross-borough partnerships. This will improve insight and evidence gathering to monitor progress and guide our future actions. We will work towards creating maintaining habitats in key locations that we are already aware of or subsequently become aware of as part of this engagement process, creating connections between habitats, collecting evidence to monitor the process, and guide future actions. The action plan should promote and encourage local people to take action and connect with nature, and will ensure the Council develops effective systems and policies to make its biodiversity responsibilities. I will now hand over to my colleague, Valerie Sayobi from Enable, to go through some of the improvement works that have happened since the adoption of the strategy in 2020. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. I'm just going to gallop through some of the work that's been delivered over the last four or five years. So, if we want to go to the next slide. So, yeah, I'm just going to talk about really what's happened between the adoption of the biodiversity strategy as we went into 2021, and where we are now, which is with an in-house biodiversity team at the Council, and how we can look at continuing to deliver action and partnership with you as you go forward with your biodiversity action plan from this autumn onwards. So, first of all, as Sam's touched on, it's key that we focus on priority places for biodiversity, and since the original strategy was published, 74% of the borough's designated local wildlife sites are now in positive management for biodiversity, so that's a 13% increase across four years. And that's a reflection, really, of the investment of over £90,000 that's been sought externally and which has supported the delivery of borough-wide habitat creation projects, environmental education work, and work to interpret nature on site for people and aid wider public engagement. And as colleagues at the Council will testify, biodiversity net gain and other biodiversity policies that are now embedded in your local plan and ensure that development sites across the borough have a measurably positive impact on biodiversity, which is particularly crucial to enable us to connect these key wildlife sites across the borough and make sure biodiversity can move around safely and appropriately. Next slide gives us an example of a spotlight of a piece of work in one of these local wildlife sites, which has been Wandsworth Park. We've been working over the last three years in that site to enhance the overall biodiversity value of the site, by creating specifically habitats for pollinators. But that, in turn, also means we've improved forage for bats and small birds. So the photograph, bottom left, was the first summer, where we had flat amenity mowing grass as the usual habitat in that space. And over the time, since about 2021-22, we've both left the seed bank to regenerate naturally and undertaken some overseeding. But perhaps most crucially and most engagingly, we've worked with heavy horses to undertake the maintenance and management work here. It's particularly important to work with different methods like this on the more sensitive sites. Using the horses reduces the carbon footprint of the management work, but the animals themselves also reduce compaction from the management work, meaning that the soil biodiversity is safeguarded and allowed to thrive. And also their hoof prints give space for new seeds to germinate. And as you might understand, that's also been incredibly engaging for the public, and we've had a huge number of schools come out and join in with us in creating this habitat and now moving into the maintenance with hay collecting days and so on. Horses are a great draw for people, and it helps people to engage with the site management. So, across the borough, there have been lots of projects to focus on improving the habitats we have and expanding their footprint, improving their quality and condition, but also to create new habitats across the borough. So, over two hectares of new grassland habitats have been created. Again, this provides forage and nectar for pollinators and bats, which were specifically highlighted in the previous strategy. 2,000 square metres of scrub habitat has been created, which is vital for nesting birds and, again, allows those pollinators that are foraging on grasslands in the summer somewhere to overwinter for the rest of their life cycle. So, we're not just supporting their summer aspects of their life cycle, we're supporting them throughout the year. As I'm sure you'll be aware and will be discussed later on, more than 2,500 trees have been planted, and not only does that provide cooling shade and air quality improvements for us, but also for wildlife, as well as providing direct homes and food for wildlife as well. And campaigns such as No MoMA and Let It Bloom in June, which turn into knee-high in July on some of the better sites, have allowed us to encourage flowering lawns at over 20 sites, and to date we've recorded more than 138 plant species across these sites, and the counts are still ongoing for this June. So, again, to look at one habitat and spotlight project, we created a hedgerow at St Mary's Cemetery of Battersea Rise, which both improves connectivity for wildlife, allowing species that are elsewhere within the cemetery, but also elsewhere on the parcels of Wandsworth Common that sit to the north and the south of this cemetery, improving connectivity for them to move around. And, as you might agree, the biodiversity enhancement there is also beneficial for visitors to the site, aiding the tranquility of the cemetery and ameliorating traffic pollution for people as well. So, quite a dramatic change there in quite a short space of time. I think the thing that often gets people most engaged is the work to do with species recovery, and just some examples here of the kind of work that's happened, focusing on species specifically. So, the Friends of Wandsworth Park have done tremendous work to install over 100 nest boxes for Swift in the locality around Wandsworth Park, and they've undertaken Swift watches and educated a lot of local people, and that photograph there is from the nest box camera on one of their nest boxes. The South West 15 Hedgehorse Group have been working with the council's housing team to encourage the creation of hedgerows across the Doverhouse Road estate and undertake regular surveys so we can understand whether this is proving successful and with its aim of improving connectivity for hedgehogs and giving them a route other than the road to move around the area. And bat species are one of common. We used to have records of four different species. We've now up to seven species following some citizen science work, and that has led directly to habitat improvements as well. It's allowed us to use that evidence base to understand where the bats were foraging, where they were struggling to forage, and that's identified where habitat enhancements such as improved wetland planting have been needed, more scrub, and creating roost opportunities in dead wood. So, again, since this strategy was originally published, there are now 4,202 different species that have been recorded in the borough, and that's a giant leap of over 1,000 species since 2021. Part of that has been as a result of increased community effort in recording, and, again, as Sam touched on, our community science programme has been training local volunteers to use bat detectors so they can help us with regular monitoring of bat populations and bat activity. And, as I say, this in turn is informed where habitat enhancements have been required, so that gives you some indication there of the habitat improvement we've been doing on the stockpond at Wandsworth Common. And there's a full presentation on the Friends of Wandsworth Common website about the entire bat recording project across last year and the habitat improvements that directly led to. So, I think that's it for me, unless there are any questions. Thank you very much for that, Ms. Selby. Okay. So, yeah, that was the five-minute speech, so now we'll open to questions, Ms. Selby. Oh, sorry. Do you want to... Sorry, Chair, there's one more speaker. Oh, I... Yeah, I thought we were going to do questions for Ms. Selby and then questions for the next speaker. Yeah? Yeah, okay. Just for Ms. Selby. To be honest, it's not really a question. It's more of a comment. It's just to say that I think this is absolutely fantastic work. It's so impressive. I just think it's so important for the well-being of the borough, for the education of kids across the borough. I think it's brilliant. So, I look forward to discussing how we can take it further because I think it's great news. Anyone else? Councillor Osborne. Yeah, Councillor Osborne, Tooting Broadway Ward, Deputy Chair of the Committee. One striking and important element of what we're doing, I think, is the survey work. If I can endorse it a bit by talking about one of the world's leading biodiversity experts and conservation experts, Andrew Gonzalez, who's a professor of conservation at McGill University. He says, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And if you can't predict it, you can't protect it. And that second bit, I think, is very important because if I, it's not really a criticism, but if I have a concern of the kind of survey work we're doing at the moment, there is a kind of randomness to it. It's good that it's involving members of the public and that there's citizen science going on, but this basic cataloguing of species is always limited in what it can achieve. And there are other ways of measuring your biodiversity. In particular, I'm very keen to promote something called eDNA surveys, which collect up the residue of DNA in the environment, in the water, in the soil, on the plants, even in the air that's circulating and can identify animals that you would not normally be able to make contact with. Your volunteers will never find them because they're always hiding away, but they will leave some DNA behind of some sort. And an eDNA survey, which is not cost-free, but is nevertheless relatively cheap and certainly can involve that sort of citizen science element, which is so important. The Natural History Museum, who I think we should indeed talk to about this as a borough, is already driving a major eDNA project across the country, but in particular in London, where they get people to send in samples of the pond water in their back gardens. And the Natural History Museum will tell them what that reveals about the local species in the area. The other thing that's important about this is that when you're doing these kind of species surveys, it's not just the number of animals that you're identifying. It's the resilience of the species that you've got to try and measure. And so you need an index of the kind of creatures you've got, but you also need the richness and evenness of the creatures and how they're distributed. And that's another feature of the eDNA type survey. It's much more comprehensive. And in many ways, much easier to do. And if there are organisations around that are helping us to promote it, I think we should be looking at that. And can I say something about the SWIFTS that Valerie mentioned? There are planning directorates across London where one of the requirements of a new build is that there are SWIFT boxes, SWIFT bricks included in the building. I think we do a bit of it here in Wandsworth already. But protecting SWIFTS, which are an... There is a problem with the SWIFT population in Britain at the moment. But protecting the SWIFTS also assists with other birds that can use the SWIFT bricks, in particular house martins that are red-listed at the moment. And we need to be looking at what's happening with house martins, but also wrens and starlings and other kind of creatures. So I'd be keen for the work we're doing on nest boxes for SWIFTS to include the greater promotion, I think, not just in our own new build, but in all kinds of facilities around the borough for SWIFT bricks in the buildings as well. I've probably said enough for the time being. If I may, I'll come back with questions after the next speaker. Yeah, sure. That's fine. Did you want a particular answer for Ms. Selby on that point, or was that more sort of general introduction? Because there were excellent points, and I want to make sure that we come back to that when we get to the main discussion as well. I'm not really looking for answers, comment. It's a comment. It's not a question. And I'm trying to promote some ideas to be included in the investigation. I mean, I understand that what we're doing is looking at what we can and can't do. And I'm trying to throw things into the mix to make sure that they're properly considered. I mean, if one of them is a completely daft idea, of course, I don't mind people saying so. But it's not really a question, it's a comment. So I'm keen to hear what comments people have in response. Okay. I would say, just because we heard Valerie speaking specifically, unless there's a question directly at Ms. Selby and her presentation, which I think there are a couple, but if there are more general comments, then they may be better served when we get to the main discussion because then we can make sure to record and try and get some key points out of it. So, Councillor Cook, I think you were next. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Cook, Lavender Ward. Yeah, a fairly specific question. I mean, loads of tremendous stuff here, of course, very impressive, building on many years' work. Specific question. Do we have any sense of the context, being able to place the 4,200 species figure in context of other inner London boroughs or London generally? Does it stand out as being especially rich? Presumably, it's a function of large open green spaces to some extent. I think we don't have those figures to hand, but I think we can probably get them for you from Green Space Information for Greater London, which is the Biodiversity Record Centre we work with, who collates all that information across London. I think what I would say is in part, it's emblematic of the amount of green space we have, but it's also emblematic of the amount of what we call volunteer or survey effort. So, the more you look for things, the more you're likely to find. So, in some ways, it's hard to compare borough to borough because the amount of survey effort is going to be different across different boroughs as well. So, I think to touch on something Councillor Osborne said, I think what's quite important is to understand where we're finding these species, how regularly we're finding them, and do we have any indication of how stable their populations are and whether they're growing or not. That's a better marker of success in terms of investment in biodiversity than just pure numbers, if I might be so bold. Councillor Apps, did you also have a question? Yeah, hi. Councillor Apps, Shaftesbury and Queenstown ward. I wanted to ask, you mentioned about the 13% increase over four years for biodiversity, which I thought was really interesting because it made me think about the fact we should be thinking about targets as Councillor Osborne has come on to different ways you can look at targets, but what targets we should be setting, and I wanted to know if there was a target set and if we met it or if we exceeded it, and also if we are thinking about measuring it for future, what kind of target you think would be realistic but also ambitious, so just making sure that we set the sites and also I had made a note say, you know, like we should also be looking at how we measure it. Now, Councillor Osborne has come up with some interesting ideas how we might do that, but how have we measured this? Thank you. I think that the 13% increase figure was specifically about local wildlife sites. There are 31 designated across the borough and there is a standard way of identifying whether they are considered to be in positive conservation management, which is what that figure reflected, and that information is laid out by DEFRA and is reported by the Council annually as part of the single data list, so there is quite a clear set of parameters as to what needs to be measured for a site to be considered as being in positive conservation management. I would also flag that those local wildlife sites are a mixture of both council-owned and managed land and privately-owned and managed land, so I think in some ways in terms of meeting targets and continuing to see figures increase in terms of positive work for biodiversity, I think it will go back to action touched on by colleagues earlier about engagement with other landowners and working collaboratively across the borough to get buy-in from other people where the priorities for their land might be many and various and biodiversity might not yet be top of their list, so I would suggest that that figure is to do specifically with designated sites. I think more generally in terms of how we measure, there are a lot of standardised methods for recording habitat quality and condition, and I would urge you to focus on that rather than pure numbers. I think the quality and condition of habitats across the borough is a much better indicator of how resilient your communities of biodiversity species are going to be and will actually ensure that those species that are currently declining or threatened have a much greater chance of success. I think if we look at pure numbers, that can often be misleading, but I think if we look at habitat quality and condition markers, that might be an important thing for colleagues to do, and I'm happy to work with them outside of the meeting to share some more detailed suggestions if that's useful. Yeah, I think it's agreed. That would be very useful to share, so thank you, Ms. Serby. Are there any more questions or should we move on to our next speaker? Okay, so our next speaker is Ms. Petra Sovet-David from the Wundle Catchment Partnership. Hello, good evening, and thank you very much for inviting me to present about the Wundle Catchment Partnership and opportunities for collaborative working for benefit of biodiversity. I work for South Davis Rivers Trust, which is one of the 63 Rivers Trust trusts in UK and Ireland. It's a group of cross-route environmental charities dedicated to restoring and protecting rivers in their local patches. We work across 12 river catchments in the southeast of England from Basin Stowe to Dover, and across our four teams, we work with environment and local communities through engagement, building strong partnerships, using data and evidence, and educating mostly school children. Next slide, please. So in 2007, absolutely devastating pollution incident completely wiped out fish populations in the river Wundle. It is one of the black dots in the Wundle history. But as a result of that event, local communities and statutory authorities agreed that sustainable recovery needed to be based on robust scientific evidence, strong partnerships around the river, and a long-term catchment plan. This event also luckily created the Wundle Trust through voluntary funding, which was part of the southeast rivers trust, but also start of the restoration work on the river Wundle. Next slide, please. So the river Wundle rises in Sutton and Crudon, flows through Merton, and finally joins the river Thames in Wandsworth. The catchment itself, so the area that we are looking at, is much bigger, as you can see on the right-hand side picture. It covers a massive area of chalk geology all the way to the South Downs area. Next slide, please. Following the pollution event, the Wundle Trust started working towards the Wundle Vision and the Wundle Plan. And the catchment plan actually consists of the vision document and also more technical document that outlines challenges faced by the river, but also the series of tangible actions to deal with those challenges. The vision was published in 2012, and more than 500 people and 50 different organizations took part in brainstorming what we would like the Wundle to look like. And surprise, surprise, we all want the river ecosystem, which is healthy, even though it exists in very much urbanized area and faces all the pressures that that urbanized area brings. in 2023, we managed to move that catchment plan onto the online platform called Story Maps, which is an interactive platform that allows us to show data on maps, pull in citizen science data, show real-time information, both from environment agency, but also from the citizen science projects, and at the moment we have continuous water monitoring sensors in the river that show the real-time information online. Next slide, please. So, through the catchment plan, we managed to actually show best practice what should be happening on the river and how in very urbanized areas, river could reach its best potential. This is one of the examples from the Wandsworth area. This is Bram Brewery Quarter. I have to say this is a project that VAL is very familiar with. And it actually shows improvements that can be done in the very, very restricted and probably very uniform river channel by creating terraces with vegetation, creating habitat. The river is a really important corridor for movement of species but also movement of people. We are very lucky that we have Wondell Trail running across pretty much the whole length of the river with some of the gaps. But ensuring that accessibility and also creating corridors around the river that allows connectivity with green open spaces is definitely a way forward to improve biodiversity in the area. These pictures actually show what we would consider a bare minimum that can be achieved through redevelopment and regeneration along the river. It actually shows those terraces. There are other things that can be considered such as planters, used for bank softening, different floating structures including potentially eel tunnels. And that shows that even in the heavily urbanized area, the wildlife and nature can have a place and can create much nicer environment for people and nature. Next slide, please. This is also an example of one of the strategic projects. Again, Valerie will know very well about it. This is a half-tide veer at the very confluence of River Wondel and Thames. It was a barrier for movement of fish and other species from the Thames itself into the upper parts of the Wondel. Because this project was identified as one of the priorities in the Wondel catchment plan, it was possible for one's team to use some of the development money. Next slide, please. And next, to actually remove that absolutely ginormous structure, which didn't serve any practical purpose anymore. Next slide, please. And next, and create this beautiful vista that can be seen now where River Wondel is again connected with the Thames. This is only one of the structures that are blocking a movement of species of the Wondel. Other ones are EDF veer, which is just upstream, and Bell Lane Creek veer, which is again just upstream. But looking at those structures, identifying potential for their removal and identifying opportunities for bank softening and increasing connectivity of Wondel as a corridor is something that Catchman Partnership definitely can achieve. We also work with other four in London. We try to contribute toward local nature recovery strategy plans and upcoming rivers, Mayors, clean and healthy water waste program by ensuring that importance of Wondel as a chalk stream and the wall-love corridor is recognized and included in those plans. And I hope to say, Valerie now reminded me talking about species recovery. Wondel is one of the rivers where mink monitoring and trapping is taking place, including locations in Wandsworth, and we are hoping that we will be able to prove that Wondel is free of mink and with the help of Enable team, there will be soon, we hope, a situation that we can reintroduce water walls to the river Wondel in a very similar way that we just did on the river Hogsmill last year, which will again be followed by some additional introductions this year, actually this July. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your presentation. So, we're just opening the floor now for any questions towards Ms. Service-Davies about the Trust and any... Councillor Osborne. Yeah, the Hogsmill was mentioned and first of all, as with the previous presentations, 100% delighted with what's happening and very, very supportive of it, but if you compare the areas around the mouth of the Wondel, including one of the photographs we were just looking at, with the area around the mouth of the Hogsmill in Kingston, I am delighted with everything, but mildly disappointed that the information which is available at the Hogsmill is not available at the mouth of the Wondel. If you go to Kingston Town Centre and look at the mouth of the Hogsmill, it's smaller actually than what's available at the mouth of the Wondel, but there are lots of information boards explaining what species are there and encouraging the public to take an interest in what's available. We seem not to be doing that, unless I've missed something, we seem not to be doing that at the mouth of the Wondel, at least just yet. And maybe there's a reason, maybe that it's too intrusive or it's dangerous or something like that. So I'd be interested in seeing us do something like that, copying what they do in Kingston, if possible, and I wonder if there's any comment on that from the presenter. I will just add, as a representative from Katchman Partnership, there were historical initiatives run by Wondel Valley Regional Park Trust to create signage and wayfinding around the River Wondel, which was tied with the Wondel path. And that kind of worked in some areas, but at the time, inaccessibility of certain areas meant that it wasn't implemented everywhere. At the moment, Wondel Valley Regional Park Trust is trying to pull together a new initiative with local authorities being involved. I think some people in this room were present in the meeting yesterday to explore how that path finding, community engagement, and information presentation along the whole length of the Wondel can be unified and kind of presented in, I would say, inaccessible and approachable way. can you talk a little bit more, sorry if I interrupt the questions, but can you talk a little bit more about that project and the aims of the Wondel Valley River Partnership Trust as far as green routes is concerned and how boroughs can come together to maybe achieve more together than on their own? information I have at the moment is very much limited. Under the guidance from the National Trust, councillors from Bondsworth, Merit and Sutton and Croydon gathered together with representatives of larger NGOs and community groups under the Wondel Valley Forum umbrella. And formed Wondel Valley Regional Park Trust Organisation, which is trying to create identity through connecting green and blue open spaces and creating that identity of potential regional park in the area. Wondel Kashman Partnership is participating in the work, although we are not part of the committee of the trust. But at the moment we are jointly pulling together a project that could be submitted to the Green Route Fund, which was just announced yesterday, which would allow feasibility studies and public consultation on the ground to see how that identity can be revived and recreated. So that would be a lot of place making some targeted interventions on the ground in all of the boroughs that are taking part, but again it all needs to be tied into local strategies and local aspirations. So it is a lot of kind of juggling, different balls, a lot of different aspirations, but we are all working together for the benefit of green and blue open spaces and communities that use them. Thank you. Are there any more questions for Ms. Service-David? Councillor Cook. Yeah, thank you. Just very briefly, ancient history now, thank heavens, but the pollution event, what was it and where? I hadn't heard about that before. It was released of chemicals, I think it was from Baddicton Seoi Treatment Works, so it was very dramatic, massive fish kill. Fortunately, the funding that was supplied by Thames Water allowed for significant river restoration work, followed by fish restocking, so that fish population and general wildlife in the wandel completely recovered, so much so that in the 2019 classification, it was kind of assessed that parts of the river wandel were actually in good ecological condition. That's not the case anymore for various reasons, but I think the river itself is really suffering from the climate change and levels of obstruction mean that impacts of high temperatures, lower water levels are really having great effect on fish populations and populations of other animals that live in the wandel. We had unfortunately quite recent pollution event, also you probably heard about the diesel spill that happened in February. And as catchment partnership, we are actually trying to work with local stakeholders to pull together more usable on-the-ground practical response plan that would allow environment agency but also other organizations to be able to contact the right people in the right locations. so that action can take place much faster and more efficient than it did happen during that last pollution incident. But in any case, wandel is urban river, everything that is built on our roads, on our impermeable surfaces, does end up in the river eventually. This is how our drainage system is created and designed. it is a river that's facing a lot of challenges. Thank you. Since you mentioned the recent oil spill, would you say that because of the effort of your organization, would you say that the resilience to that oil spill has been a lot better when compared to the original devastating one that was years ago now? The original devastating one was simply a chemical that had ability to literally kill all the wildlife in the area that was impacted. I think it was kind of some, would it even be bleach? I have to double check. I'll get back to you. The diesel itself has very different chemical properties. it floats at the surface, so it will impact much more species that do break the surface of water, either for feeding or for breeding, so it has much less impact on fish. And I would say having more varied habitat, having refugia, backwaters, areas of low flow that's not right in the path of domain flow does increase resilience of the river. So it creates kind of little pockets of habitats when things can get out of the harm's way when they need to. Thank you. Councillor Boswell. Councillor Sheila Boswell tooting backward. Thank you very much. It's extremely interesting and our rivers are so, so important. with reference to what happened in February, I know that it was Croydon council as well as Wandsworth that was affected, but was there anything we could have done better in the response? I can't really comment on response because there is investigation happening at the moment where this response is being reviewed and revalued. I would just say a big thank you probably to National Trust and volunteers on the ground and people who are reporting everything to the Environment Agency who helped tremendously to highlight areas that were not dealt with immediately and highlight areas that need to be protected immediately. so the devastating impacts would be much worse if there weren't local people on the ground who really ranked the correct number and made sure that the Environment Agency is where they should be to take action. So this is something that I would really recommend that it's kind of shared with the general public. It's a pollution incident for numbers for the Environment Agency because that's best way to highlight what's happening and get rapid response. So it's 0800 80 70 60. Yeah. All right. Thank you for that and I think that could also be a potential line of inquiry when we do get the results of that investigation as to like how we as the barrack could have handled the situation better and if there are any learning points. Councillor White, do you want to quickly comment? Yeah, I do have a fact sheet from the Environment Agency about that so if anyone wants to have any more information then please drop me a line and I'll send that back to you. Thank you. Councillor Bookes, thank you very much. It was a similar question to Councillor Boswell's. There's lots of industry along the river. I just wondered what engagement is happening or ought be happening to prevent future incidents like that happening again and undoing all the hard work that people are doing. As a partnership, we would very much like to be able to engage with all businesses and premises that might have impact on the river. Unfortunately, we're not able to do that. what we try to do is give tools and information to individual partners and information so they can use their own network and their own channels to share that information about responsible business practices. I would say the main thing is providing the environment agency with sufficient powers and funding so they can do their job properly to ensure that anything that's been released in the river should be there and treated properly and it's not anything that shouldn't be there. Also local authorities and their environmental health teams need proper funding to be able to do their jobs. I think that's the main way of preventing future disasters. councilor Caddy thank you very much chair is it okay to move on to general key lines of inquiry across that cover both of the presentations that we've seen are there any more specific questions to either of the officers that are given the presentation thank you I just wanted to follow up on councillor Brooks's question which I thought was interesting and ask what it is that holds you back from you said you'd love to be able to talk to businesses but it's not possible and what holds you back from doing that and is there work that we could do with sort of working with partner organisations like the council you know or other trade organisations so we could reach out more to businesses and industry along there so really sort of try and interrogate that a bit more and see if there's anything we can do about it yes of course so we have a ability to put information out there what are different pathways how things can end up in a river whether it's road drainage network which is directly connected to the river whether it's potential misconnections where things that should go into treated network so foul network ends up going straight into the surface network or simply not following best practices when it comes to COSH substances and kind of making sure that anything that's toxic to the environment is properly stored properly used and properly disposed of so we can provide that information put it on our web pages and also share it with our partners however we are funded to host catchment partnerships by the environment agency and for the Wondel our annual funding is if I can say seven and a half thousand pounds which really doesn't provide us with a lot of time to do all that luckily at the moment we have additional funding from Thames Water that tops it up so it actually allows us to develop a new catchment plan to create a new web page and a story map to have a dashboard with citizen science and all the information about the Wondel to have interactive map with existing project and also project opportunities and also to engage with for example local nature recovery network process and make sure that the Wondel is recognized in those strategies but we simply don't have funding that would allow us to go out and speak with businesses and explain if you're having a diesel tank it needs to be constructed in such and such way and if I have to be very very honest there are much better institutions that are better experts in that kind of things how we can work better together I would definitely say sharing information when we work with general public there is program such as yellowfish that actually highlights that road trains and gullies drain into the river so it is something that people need to be aware of and maybe it's something that businesses also need to be much more aware of but I would say if everybody sticks to the rules there would be much less problems but it is basically raising awareness about how network is built and what the consequences are because nobody does those things on purpose thank you thank you very much I think we've heard a lot of questions now and I feel like we should start moving on to the key lines of inquiry did you have one last point to make okay so starting off we might have a lot of different ideas so we've already heard briefly from Councillor Osborne and Councillor Rapps about how we're going to measure improvements in biodiversity and also if we want to include some form of targets so I was thinking maybe we could start off by seeing if there were any more questions or points from any members about those specifically and we can try and get a few key lines of inquiry from that and then we can move on to another subject if people are amenable to that so okay so yeah so moving on to targeting and measuring Councillor Jeffries thank you Chair Councillor James Jeffries Thamesfield Ward and you'll have to forgive me this may be something that's relevant also for the next paper but I just wanted to touch on the annual number of trees that are planted obviously a great number achieved certainly wouldn't suggest getting rid of that target that's really something important to aim for but obviously if we are then losing 200 500 1,000 or however much that might be then that's not the whole picture and it's a great stat for a leaflet whoever's in charge but I think it would be helpful I don't know if there is any way to measure the actual stock number of trees because we obviously want to increase the stock each year the rate is less important as it were that actual stock figure is the most important point I don't know if it's even possible to do that if it's possible to estimate the total or whether there is some form of proxy bulk of trees in a certain area but I think that would be a more from a public policy perspective a more meaningful figure that if we could possibly track it would be great to thank you Councillor Jeffries yeah as you see in our KPIs we have a stat for the amount of trees total planted but then it's also you're in that a fair chunk of them are replanted trees that had been felled and then others were gained trees and we all want to see a higher net gain year on year I don't know if Mr Edie or Mr Dreyer you wanted to comment on that point is it all right if we answer that with my tree expert under the next question would that be all right yes that's absolutely fine okay so trying to get back to the measurements and the eDNA we have mentioned in the point about the National History Museum how they use eDNA which is a different measurement technique so it sounds like one potential avenue could be that we get the National History Museum to make a presentation to officers and have them be involved in the design of the strategy Councillor Caddy did you want to come in a similar point yeah I was just going to say it whether the biology or natural science departments of those universities might be interested in developing programs to monitor biodiversity or look at biodiversity that might be an area to look at as well yeah definitely so yeah it seems pretty unanimous that we'd like to see natural history museum as well as some local universities come in and try and see if there are better more efficient ways to measure it if it's possible for us to use eDNA or another measuring techniques in order to get a good accurate picture so that sounds like a good starting point do we want to see the increase in citizen science as well to help us build up more of a picture which will help us developing what targets are appropriate as well the other thing that I'm very interested in is how we prioritize either perhaps this should come in separately actually I was going to say but how we prioritize native varieties and also look at climate resistant varieties and how we balance the use of the two as well and how we consider that I don't know if that would be under target setting that might be slightly separate yeah that could potentially be under targeting if we if we want to see sort of more specific goals of increase in species then we could also say the increase of native and non-native as well council did you comment on a similar point yeah just to add I think to councillor caddy's point about bringing in a local university for example or something like that there are other organisations I think we could we could draw into the process there's the the various organisations we've already got involved with the council through the open spaces forum and indeed I think that could be expanded I think there are other organisations out there that could be drawn into the kind of discussions that we have with the open spaces forum already I'm particularly interested in what the friends of the different commons are doing at the moment for example trying to we're looking at green corridors but so are they trying to find out ways of connecting up tooting and ones with common and the commons in between and maybe even using people's back gardens and the facilities that are provided by ordinary citizens as a way of extra public engagement to create these green ways through the borough I think there are all sorts of potential elements we might have to negotiate a little bit with Lambeth about their cemeteries in Wandsworth for example because they've got some big open space and cemeteries are a vital and very important source of biodiversity across a borough like Wandsworth but I think it's worth looking at what they're doing and working with them as part of this process so it's citizen science or public engagement and it's the green way targets that we're looking at expanding so there's all sorts of potential there I think okay yeah so so yeah sounds like the use of the academic side and the history museum and the universities and then also the citizen side like our local groups that we want to give more power to and members it'll be helpful I've jotted down a summary of what I think I've captured some of your comments and key lines of inquiry tonight so I'll go through them and any that you don't agree with etc we can come back to so I've got investigate the use of eDNA and potential partnerships with natural history museums and other academic institutions locally consider establishing targets specifically in relation to habitat management and condition promote the use of information board signage and displays on the mouth of the wandle and beyond and consider as we said in the presentation tying this into a local strategy and aspirations investigate the learning points with regards to the February 2025 incident with a view to how the council can help in crisis response in future facilitate the dissemination of advice with regards to responsible business practice where possible promote increase in citizen science and resident and community engagement regarding biodiversity consider the expansion of greenway targets and explore the promotion and balance of both native and climate resistant species thank you thank you as very eloquently put Sam we we have a few comments so can I just add one I do think it's really important that we also think about the benefit to school children and children who are living in the borough and how they can benefit from being out in nature learning about biodiversity and generate a genuine lifelong love of nature so so it it would be good to see some key target on how many school children are engaged how many schools are engaged and I think every school should be getting involved in this yeah absolutely building on that were there any other similar comments on schools or our public institutions that we're running such as schools energy trust social care that we'd want to build on do you want yeah just just around all of that all of those organizations I mean if we create some a map of the area and how these different areas can be connected so that the various different organizations can look at the areas that they're particularly interested in and see how they can be mapped together I think that might be something we could look at yeah yeah that ties with council point about the walkways and how we want continuous paths for species to migrate across the bower okay so do we perhaps let's not forget the tree point which I think is the next item I think yeah yeah yeah yeah we need to councillor lawless hello councillor lawless to broadway just on the crisis response thing can we make sure that covers all areas and doesn't just focus on the rivers because I don't know if we're like a few months away from some wildfire that devastates the local environment or something but just making sure it covers all of it because it would be terrible for all this good work to go to waste with some sort of natural disaster okay councillor Brooks thank you chair I think as we as we build the strategy as well obviously we're at the beginning point now we need to be mindful of how this strategy fits alongside other things the council are doing elsewhere in planning licensing and things like that last committee we were discussing the events policy and we wouldn't want to put ourselves in a situation where we were putting all our ambitions forwards in the biodiversity strategy whilst potentially not recognising how other parts of the council's agenda and priorities might undermine what we're trying to achieve here yeah that's a very good point and also on the point of planning as well we want to be a member of the planning committee we see a target called biodiversity net gain where it's how much new development actually contributes to improving biodiversity and it would be I think it'd be helpful as well if we had some kind of large overarching target for the borough and how much we're gaining in biodiversity approach especially parts of the borough that are a lot grey that have a lot of tall buildings there are some parts in my world as well as one example where it can be a little bit of a concrete jungle and how can we make more inroads into that and get more wildlife into that area so I don't know if maybe Mr. Dreyer or you've got some insight on that back on me Jamie on that I think it's very important to listen to local people and understand the various demands on open spaces but equally we need a balance in our open spaces so that people can enjoy the wide variety of opportunities that a green space gives you sports and recreation and things like that as well but yeah I mean we really enjoy our commons and we don't want you know to a situation our boroughs had to endure some residents enjoyed but certainly we like the way our commons are and our parks are but equally we've got to make sure that everybody is involved in that and they can bring their own satisfaction to the commons as well thank you councillor councillor boswell oh thank you very much chair I just want to make a suggestion with respect and I know it's the first time that we've had a paper where we're looking at lines of inquiry but we're over an hour in now and I think that some of this detail that we're going into now which is very interesting would be better done in outside committee otherwise we're not going to get on to the other papers thank you that's okay unless there's any more closing remarks that we need to add I think we got a very good summary there we'll see in the minutes as well the key lines are inquiring if one of your points you feel hasn't been adequately addressed then we can make sure to get that added in for the future plan so I want to so in that case I will draw this to a close and thank our speakers for their presentations it was really helpful and I feel like we had a really good positive discussion on that okay all right thank you so without that concludes paper number three so now we're on to paper number four which is the tree management and resident engagement paper which is number 25-204 so this will be similar probably probably for a bit shorter than the biodiversity one but Councillor White you wanted to say a couple words before we go on to Mr Dreyer with this presentation yeah yeah just that I think the tree tree policy is really really interesting I think the information and the communication with residents again is really important I think the amount of information that residents can bring forward on biodiversity from the previous paper would be equaled as well by trees but I think that more information needs to be made available to residents so they can understand what is happening with our trees and why some have to be removed and at what point they can be removed and their involvement of keeping those trees healthy as well so I say once again this is really really important and hopefully we can again address it in the way that we've addressed that other paper so we can come up with some really really good ideas thank you Councillor White Mr. Chair would you like to introduce this yes thank you very much chair so this is a similar item but on this occasion we're asking you to help us in identifying key lines of inquiry in relation to service improvement rather than the development of a policy and so really what we wanted to do is just give you an overview of what's happened since we've brought the tree team in-house so what more we've got planned on the improvement journey and then we have a couple of guest speakers who are taking a pan-London perspective and then a local perspective from the Wandsworth tree wardens who are looking after trees and are volunteering their time to look after trees locally and then again at the end there's an opportunity then for development of key lines of inquiry so just a very quick look at some of the things that took place last financial year before the trees team moved in-house that gives you some of the key line stats there but what have we done since April so the team came in-house we migrated the website content across from enable and made a number of initial improvements to make that content stronger and add some bits that we wanted to add and one of the things that's really successful is making joint inspections doing joint inspections with highways which wasn't something that happened before really thinking about how we identify locations for new trees jointly how we think about pavement repairs jointly etc we've started to improve the notices that go on trees just so that people understand a bit more about why we're having to sometimes fail trees because none of us want to do this and then we've started a review of that integration between the highways and the trees process that's from felling to replanting and different people have to do things in between for this year we want the team to settle in and start to do quite a bit of improvement work and there are some of the key areas that we're going to focus on that you can see there and I'll kind of unpack these a little bit so we're going to move we're going to introduce some reports online that give more detail on why we have to remove trees so with pictures that show why and explain what the problem is with the tree we want to link those to the notices on the trees we want to then make sure that stakeholders receive those so as ward councillors people would receive those so that when residents make inquiries councillors can point them to that information and then we've also I understand already made live tree based planting guidance so that's if residents want to plant around the bottom of trees there have been some challenges in the past around sort of erection of little fences and things like that which can lead to trip hazards and we've issued some guidance and developed that jointly with highways colleagues so that's just some of the things there again the website content we're making some more changes to the online form at the moment that's being done from the learning that we've already had in the last few few months and we're going to move on to the same back office system as the highways department to make things much more integrated we've got a couple of major procurements underway which we've we're going out to the market for or are out to the market for and that's for tree works that's the first one and then the second one is then supply and aftercare of trees and then and then one of the other things that we've recently done in partnership with the tree wardens is they help us with and I'm sure I'm sure Susie will talk about this to an extent help us with monitoring the health of young trees and we've we've moved that to an online format for them which which gets the data to us much more quickly but it also reduces the the admin burden for the tree wardens in the process and then the last thing I wanted to touch on is taking much more data informed planting approach so that's using intelligence that's out there such as the climate risk map and then something that the GLA has which is the canopy cover for London which helps us identify locations we've also got our tree stock mapped which kind of gets to a bit on streets not not every single tree in parks but in woodland but but in on streets so but this gives us canopy cover which also covers other people's land so we can really think about where we prioritize investment and at that point I'm going to hand over to our first guest speaker if that's all right chair so we have Andy tipping good evening I'm Andy tipping I manage I'm a trees and woodland service manager at the London Borough Barney where I have been for 29 years it's not only tree time and I remember the guy from Westminster only retired about four years ago and he'd been there since 1974 so we tend to stick around we want to see the fruits of our labour I'll be asked briefly to so I manage Barnet and have done for some time and really I'm here to I'll explain what the LTOA is and why it's so important and then you can ask me any questions that you fancy London Tree Officer Association was formed in 82 all London boroughs and members and what we really are I think is a support network if anyone's writing a tree contract for instance they'll contact me or a policy and they'll contact me and I'll just give it you know give it to them and say I'm in the public realm anyway and we support each other you don't reinvent the wheel every time and there is that and we all face the same difficulties and issues I think every London borough there might be nuances but really that's what happens and if someone's come up with a fix then they'll speak to someone who's just gone through a couple of years of trying to work it out and get the information from them so that's what the LTOA does it's very important I mean nationally we're you know it looks gone as and remember you know 90% of all the trees that impact on people are in are managed by councils really so we manage the biggest tree stock in the country certainly in London and so yeah we just produce lots of documents in the north where I manage I mean building subsidence is the biggest risk that we have so we manage our trees accordingly with regard to building risk yeah the subsidence thing is really important but there within that what you've got there in bullet points your tree stock management so all of our trees are recorded on easy tree which I think Montemouth does have as well which is an excellent database very very helpful people who work there contractors contract management is easily the most difficult part of the job so I heard you're going through a new procurement so best of luck with that and I really hope it works out for you if it doesn't work out for you I did a presentation at the national tree office conference about 10 years ago it's the first one I did and I did it all about contract management and you know my concluding thing was that if you've got good contractors in place then your job's great you love it if you've got bad contracts in place then then your job's hell and you really don't enjoy coming into work every day because all you're doing is fighting with contractors tree planning departments I don't manage tree preservation orders or development sites at Barnett we have a separate planning department who do that both the green spaces department that I work with has some biodiversity officer and so does the planners as well they've got their own biodiversity officer now the tree removal process that you've got there I mean we remove a thousand trees a year in Barnett about 500 sorry 500 trees a year and we plant a thousand so we plant 500 for the trees that have previously been removed and 500 new and we've that's based on data and if you wanted me to share our policy with you I could show you some some data led examples about why we plant in certain parts of Barnett mostly to do with air quality urban heat indexes of multiple deprivation flood risk and public engagement and you've got a picture there of our portal which if you like I'll share and I'll navigate around with you just to give you a little bit because obviously I know what it does is that okay if I share my screen how long do you think it would be to quickly give it a show around just because okay if it's a couple of minutes that's fine yeah all right I'll share my screen so this is our public facing portal that anyone can see and we get about 50 hits a day on this and it has you know a link to our policy it gives you whatever we've got 1.55 billion pounds worth of trees we did an eye tree report which gives you the annual benefits of that our trees provide 2.39 million carbon stored sequestered pollution runoff pollution removal sorry and runoffs but this is the most important bit and I'm sure this is the bit that most people enjoy the most so this is a map of all trees in Barnet and I'll just look at some random just go to some random trees somewhere so yeah all our trees get popped up and then in here yeah we've got horse chestnut tree here it's got a caveat value of 194,000 pounds we inspect it in 2021 so it's due inspection and then it has things like the eco benefits so this tells you exactly what this tree does every year it gives about 100 pounds worth of eco benefits we've got 3.35 tons of carbon stored and all of that stuff and then it has an inquiry button so you can get in contact with us directly upload some photographs if you wish and then submit now I thought this this um that this would be used far more by citizen science like like you've alluded to here you know that people would want to know about these trees and certainly again going back to the eco benefits that they provide um but we haven't really been approached it's only been about 18 months it's been live I think um and most of the work on this was carried out by easy trees um and it wasn't expensive uh because I think we would be the first council that they approached do because this is all our existing data we didn't really need to do a great deal they just took it and put it together and um and then we published it so it's something I'm you know when you're talking about your tree data how do you make it accessible to members of the public this is a really simple way of doing it I think it cost about three and a half grand um to do this and like I say we're getting about 50 hits a day so there you go set up you very quick great thank you that was really interesting um were there any questions for mr tippin before we move on to the next speaker okay um I just wanted to ask one quick question to the officers do we do we have access to that kind of data that we could also if we wanted to move to that online portal would we be able to quickly access that data and get it set up in a similar way so that's the software package we're currently using and we'll be uh looking to migrate so we need to explore whether that sort of functionality exists so we're uh looking to migrate to the same software that is used in richmond and used across highways as well so we'll be exploring that as part of the conversations we're having at the moment with the suppliers okay thank you uh okay uh with them and thank you very much for that presentation and then we'll be on to our next speaker which is susie lloyd good evening um we're really pleased to be invited um i'm the chair of the ones with three wardens um start off with a little bit about us um the moment we have 79 tree warden volunteers which are pretty well spread across the borough uh we are independent of the council the council used to have a tree warden scheme so do would you mind getting a little bit closer to your mic just so members of the public gathering councils can hear you a bit better um the council did have a tree warden scheme but closed it um so myself and someone called andrew wills set up a tree warden scheme so ours is the only truly independent tree warden scheme in the country which is not actually run by the council we are members of the tree council we registered with the tree council we um fundraise and all the money we get is from our volunteer members through donations um we work with the council tree team including monitoring the health of young trees which we're doing at the moment we've just embarked on the 24-25 young tree survey so basically we are monitoring trees really over the first three years um how they're doing um and we report on that on the new online form which thorsten and liam have sent us few teething troubles but it's it's really working well um we also very importantly comment on planning applications the comment earlier from somebody about how many trees do you plant each year and how many trees have you got well we'd like to know exactly how many trees we got and how many trees are planted each year in other words what is the total tree stock um i think the important thing is how many trees do we lose to development every year and um that is something which we've never been given information on which we think is vital and we submit a lot of objections to the removal of trees um where we feel it's unnecessary we also um want to talk about what the developer is planting um and earlier the gentleman before referred to the cabat system i don't know if you know what the cabat method is where you calculate the worth of a tree the value and what you're really calculating is the value to the environment to the local population um so if you cut down a very mature tree with its tree canopy and plant 10 little trees those 10 little trees won't show up on the tree canopy for possibly 30 years so they're not adding anything in terms of carbon capture or things like that so this is i think a really important thing for people to understand about your planting trees but what value are those trees and when are they going to contribute something um so our aim is to promote for public benefit the conservation protection and improvement of the environment through the planting care and nurture and cultivation of trees throughout the borough we very much aim to raise public awareness of the many benefits that trees in the urban environment provide and the unique hardship that city trees are subject to and and that means obviously liam and the tree team are looking at what species are now being planted so this is about the right tree in the right location our principal focus is on street trees those trees which are planted in the public realm mainly residential streets and roads and to a lesser extent trees and parks commons and new public urban spaces so what works well well the thing we're absolutely most delighted about is that the tree team has been brought back in house that is really important because you are now sitting here discussing trees discussing what the strategy will be discussing what your priorities are because before that was part of the outsourcing and it made no sense to us whatsoever so for us this is an incredibly important time and we want to thank you for bringing the trees home um also um obviously the the other thing about bringing the tree team the trees back in house is that counselors are elected directly by residents and so you have an invested and emotional interest in the area because you live here whereas when you appoint a managing agent they don't live here it's a business arrangement it is for us the trees are not just a business arrangement they're where we live they're where you take your children to school they're where you shop and therefore it's about how does your urban environment look how does it feel how do you enjoy it um what we can see is some visible changes starting to take place and that is something we find incredibly uh exciting so what could be improved i think a clear vision for trees that everyone can get behind because people may not be aware of it but actually you're passing trees every day right everywhere you go when you're waiting for the bus when you're driving so the trees are are part of you know your experience whether you like it or not when you live in wandsworth so what is that vision because what we are as the wandsworth tree wardens is we've tried to be for the tree team is the eyes and ears of the trees in wandsworth because we have 79 tree wardens i think there are four tree offices so we have people reporting all the time looking all the time crying when they see a tree chopped down upset when it's dying for lack of water um and therefore the more people across the borough the more you heighten and make people aware they will be looking out for the trees as well and the reason it works is because people are very aware of the trees in their own local streets and that's how you protect them um so we would like to see a long-term measurable strategy which has targets which can actually be measured where there is accountability and uh we also um value very much wider benefits of trees and education and someone spoke earlier about how important it is to educate young people we ran a little tree initiative where we had some tree wardens go out to every primary school and encourage them to plant an orchard so that children could see trees growing and understand that it could provide food so um i just want to say that uh that we we feel now very hopeful that uh things will really start to happen thank you thank you very much for your speech we are now i'm very conscious that we are running a little over so uh if the question directly relates to a key line of inquiry that you want to include then you can ask it but otherwise i think we should get through to establishing the key lines so councillor apps um yeah thank you very much so i get lots of complaints about trees generally because you tend to hear about people when there's an issue but they come from all sorts of directions so sometimes it's because of trees being removed sometimes it's because of um trees overhanging um houses gutters gardens that can be an issue for people too where there's very large um trees in residential streets and i'm also very conscious that um i remember one summer that was particularly dry a bit like this one going around and trying to water all the trees in the shaftsbury estate which is near where i live and sort of really struggling and becoming aware of how few although they had their little bags around them to encourage people to water them how rarely that was done um and really thinking about in terms of inquiries um i love the website and the sort of fact that it gave benefits so encouraging people to know about the benefits of the trees in their area as well as kind of um obviously having some of the um downsides of having like a very large tree in your gutter for example um and that but also um perhaps giving more information to people about empowering them to um to actually sort of help trees in their areas as particularly young trees and with growth and sort of making sure that we're sharing that information more maybe we want to do things like qr codes next to trees so that people can look up the information easily as well but i am i'm concerned i just wanted to um to raise a point that a resident raised with me yesterday which was about the right to light when it comes to when it comes to maintaining trees in the borough and to make sure that we are balancing the needs of residents um in their homes as well as making sure that we're looking after the trees really well thank you thank you councillor haps uh council osborne did you want to come next yes it strikes me that an interesting line of inquiry that we should consider might be how we can use the tree wardens as part of this discussion we've had already about public engagement and citizen science and i think that would be important but i have a question a direct and practical question on that how do you recruit your tree wardens where do they come from some are councillors and it was in fact councillor sarah mcdermott who no longer lives in borough who was very supportive of us when we set up and it really helped our success i just want to say that we do have councillors three wardens at this present time um how do we recruit well the first thing we did was we we needed a website so that is the only time we have got money from the count we bid for a grant and we got a grant 5 000 to 5 000 to build a website which we are upgrading now because the platform is wonky um so once we had the website up then then people i think they're just googling tree wardens stuff saw it and we started to um get people joining then the council actually uh advertised us in their newsletter as sarah speaking to them and then in 2019 the ones with tree wardens uh the council brought in a new civic award which was an environmental civic award and that award went to the once with tree wardens so we were delighted to have it as a result of that award uh the council again advertised our services and that really helped i think one of the other things that really brought us to a lot of people's attention someone mentioned watering there is in the early spring of 2020 just after lockdown you remember it was very hot and trees were in huge distress so we came up with a watering plan and we came up with the watering scheme for our wardens and some of you may have seen these notices on the trees which is what we designed these we printed them we paid for them and then we went out and every tree which looked distressed we hung a sign on saying please water me and the london tree officers were so impressed they did contact us to copy this uh so and that was the way of engaging people and also making people take responsibility for the trees in their street because that's when it works really well because water is so heavy you cannot carry it for long so you have to and what the normal recommendation is eight gallons when you water now you can't trot far with eight gallons of water so if you've got people in your street who are taking care of specific trees then to get watered i mean we were supplementing the watering of uh enables the contractors um um have to say we weren't convinced they were watering the street trees uh because i've literally a very long time i've never seen one single water but so just the thing is that when you have so few tree officers it's very difficult for them to monitor you know where you've got right across the borough so um and we we felt and i think we know that we saved a lot of trees that year so every year we do do watering to boost the watering that the contractors do this year i think i don't know if liam wants to maybe talk about the change in some of the watering practices um but yesterday i got a lot of distressed calls from wardens and we have a google group so all 79 wardens are on the google group going out upset sending me photos of leaves curling um so we we will start to water now because it is so dry and we will start to put the notices out again once i've spoken to you thank you for that um and i think you raised a good point there about decentralizing a bit the sort of water and the maintenance of the trees trying to get more local people who can eat more easily access the trees i think that's a very good point ways um i before i took any more um council jeffrey's made a point in the last paper about biodiversity so did officers want to quickly come back on that hi my name is liam hudson i'm the art manager for wandsworth um in terms of the number of trees we have um and the increase uh in the numbers that we've got um so we know we've got around 60 000 trees recorded on our database um for street trees we can get that number very exact because street trees in a pit so there's either a tree or there's not a tree um in terms of the exact number it starts to get hard on a lot of the green spaces in some of our bigger housing estates in the sort of scrubbing woodland areas um so to record every tree in a woodland is is impossible um so a lot of those are plotted as groups um or areas and where that sort of comes through in the reporting of the felling numbers if there's a say a self-own ash tree that's popped up next to the bins on an estate we've never recorded it before it's not been counted in the 60 000 then we have to remove it um obviously we we wouldn't replant that because it's popped up by itself it's growing between the paving and stuff like that so that counts as a removal but it's not really being accounted for in the tree population um yeah so in terms of getting the exact numbers on the um green spaces and housing it's very difficult on the trees we can do it exactly um there has been an increase in the tree population on the streets um even with these extra tree removals the the number of trees removed is still been less than the number of trees planted so the overall number is going up it's probably going up more than what we think it is but it's very difficult to record the exact yeah thank you for that um one point i wanted to raise and i'm sure a lot of councillors have um got emails about it is when you we have residents getting in touch that are upset because the tree has been filled and they weren't given due notice so i feel like that would also be an important line of inquiry to add that for instance if a tree is found to be um diseased we have information online possibly pictures of the disease that are showing this and then also maybe on the tree if we're saying that you know we're choosing to fell it we have we have a poster on it for a week or two weeks saying that this tree is going to be removed for this reason we have a qr code underneath it so it's not that residents are just waking up to see their tree failed and they have no idea why um i think that's an that's an important line of quite inquiry did anyone else have any comments on that because i know it's one that the councillors get a lot is there anything else that they want to see in terms of the communication with residents when it comes to trees council perhaps if there are issues with mapping our existing trees perhaps we could ask residents to help with that we have a very good way of reporting got you can use three three words or other ways of mapping it with coordinates um you know so i think we could if we do if if our recording is not as good as barnet i think there's ways to bring that up thanks so i think you've got a list of um more key lines of inquiry so maybe we them out and see if there's any more additions that anyone wants to say and then we can move on so yeah so as last time members i've just uh got a summary here um so the key lines of inquiry are to promote the benefits of the uh promote the benefits of of trees on the uh website uh including additional information to empower people to aid and protect trees especially young trees possible uh exploration of um inclusion of qr codes on trees to provide specific information with regards to that tree explore a closer working relationship with the tree wardens and other community groups as part of wider efforts to increase public participation and engagement explore encouraging local residents uh and groups to water and care for trees in their locality enhance information on the website regarding uh tree disease and the reasons a tree might be required to be felled and uh and potential to look at seeking in community engagement to help map the trees in the borough thank you chair so can you use that again thank you we need to make sure as a specific line of inquiry is improved communication about tree felling okay so what you said yeah the point i made with the specifics and also just generally as well are there other ways that we can improve that with any more quick points also i think the chair of the tree wardens um asked for the number of trees that are felled by development or as a result of development and we talked about that yeah no that's a really good one as well because we can then see the impact of our planning policies were there any more points any more key lines of inquiry that we wanted to be at is that something that you could have to do now okay so are there any more for members of the committee no okay all right so with that we can move on to the next item of the paper so again thank you for our speakers for your informative presentations it's really helpful thank you okay we're moving on to item number five now which is the outcome of the women and girls sports task and fitness group work uh paper number 25-205 um with that we have councillor judy gasser the cabinet member for children as well as rebecca towers um who will be leading us into this so take it away okay good evening everybody and thank you very much for allowing me to come and talk it's not my committee anymore it's lovely to see everybody and there's um bits of work that i was so passionate about when and when we started them and i just wanted to continue um so delighted to be here with these wonderful women who have helped write this plan so i've not been involved it's but councillor and angeliana that's been chairing there's been loads of volunteers women i've got a whole long list there's probably not time to go through them all but thank you to all the women that have been involved with this mainly voluntary and some of our offices as well and enable officers but women gave up their time because this is such an important issue so thank you and you're going to meet three amazing women this evening um i think we're on to the next slide so you will remember the onesworth moves together strategy and plan that we presented last year it's going really well there's all sorts of things happening we're working our way through the action plan uh one element of it was um active people so how do we help all of our people get active and we did we were very aware that women and girls in our borough is not are not as active as the men and the boys and it's not unique to onesworth it's everywhere so okay we need to really look into this and the best way to look into it is to ask the people themselves uh so we set up this group juliana's been chairing it and this is the report that they are presenting and rebecca dowers is going to help present um and thank you very much to everybody that's been involved thank you judy um so yes it's been a really lovely process um a co-design plan truly co-design with um all of these the women that we have with us today but many many more um and there's a plethora of excitement about women's sport this year and it it's a really good time to be doing this work so we've got the women's rugby world cup we've got the women's euros we've got the first women's tournament tournament at queens we've just had that for 52 years so we're riding on a wave of excitement about women's sport and the profile of that that is um is really rising and the women and girls in our borough need to be able to take advantages of all of those opportunities that we have in the borough so this ranges from removing no ball game signs on housing estate green spaces making it easier for all children to kick a ball around or throw a ball around and through to um elite sporting pathways for women and girls which is you know so from one end to the other and we um we have people who will have who have a personal experience of of um young women who've done really really well in in sport so um so we came together we've had an amazing journey together um just next slide please harry uh six five sessions and then coming to this meeting being the icing on the cake so presenting our ideas um so it's been a really fabulous journey and then um the themes you have the seven themes in your in your report with all the projects that go alongside those or are within those themes and we're not going to talk about those um except for the ones that our guests want to speak about so i am going to hand straight over to lovely anne-marie who's next to me thank you uh good evening good evening everyone my name is anne-marie ormond and i'm currently serving as the physical education specialist at sacred heart primary school in the heart of battersea prior to this role i worked with wonder sports development of 20 years where i had the privilege of leading several initiatives focused on social inclusion and increasing female participation in sports um as a lifelong resident of ones of myself i'm deeply connected to this community i'm also a proud mother of two children who have started their sporting journeys in local ones of clubs and schools and both of whom have gone on to represent their country in their respective sports and they have joined me in the gallery tonight as adults now i'm truly excited to be part of this group and contribute to shaping this plan having witnessed first hand the immense benefits that sports and physical activity bring to girls i'm equally aware that the significant drop-off rates in participation between primary and secondary pe encouraging lifelong habits of physical activity is vital for all women and i'm committed to ensuring that we help foster these habits early on at sacred heart primary school we are incredibly fortunate to have a group of enthusiastic and dedicated girls in pe we were recently honored to receive the equal access for girls award for the second consecutive year which speaks to the commitment that we've have to providing equal opportunities in sports however i believe there is a substantial gap in the transition to secondary school where girls often face unique challenges such as hormonal changes body image concerns and perceptions of physical weakness through this plan i think we can implement targeted programs that not only support girls in navigating these challenges but also provide them with the access to both female only as well as mixed gendered pe lessons by promoting female role models in sports and leadership positions we can empower girls instilling in them and the understanding that healthy competition is important but the primary focus should always be that we have the joy of being active additionally i strongly believe that this is crucial to introduce girls to the wealth of career opportunities within the sporting industry women are significantly underrepresented in this field and it's imperative that we highlight these opportunities from an early age to inspire the next generation of female leaders in sports like i said i have a personal connection to this cause i attended sacred heart primary school my myself as did my children and i've made it a priority to create a strong foundation for girls pe a foundation built on confidence bravery and motivation i think together i believe we can continue to shape a future where every girl is empowered to thrive in in sport and in life thanks for listening i feel like that deserves a round of applause i have to say i'm sorry um uh thanks amory and uh sorry chair just taking over here but um josephine good evening good evening everyone my name is josephine monte and i'm proud to represent aqua empowerment network a grassroot charity base right here in your gardens library once worth we assist to serve support and uplift women women children youth and family from underprivileged background often overlooked backgrounds at aqua empowerment we believe health and empowerment goes hand in hand especially for women and girls who are often told they are not enough not strong enough not shaped right or simply not seen that is why i am here to speak something very close to my heart physical activity as a health lifestyle for welfare and belonging we run women focus physical health activities not just as exercise classes but a safe space of joy healing and empowerment for instance we offer zumba and chair yoga with music music that gets you moving and lift your spirit women of them sorry many of the women who attend these sessions have been asked by their gps and hospitals to stay active due to upcoming surgeries chronic pain and mental health struggles but often they don't know where to begin or don't feel welcomed anyway we create a space where they feel seen celebrated and capable no matter their age size and background we also organize table tennis and football matches where girls play competitively with boys you should see them and their faces full of courage determination and pride many of our girls also join the park run at buttersea park every sunday with our coach rain or shine and they look forward to it because of them and this is not just running its belonging as a health and social care professional myself i do understand deeply how physical activity is not just the body it touches every part of our being being be it mentally emotionally emotionally spiritually and psychologically and that is why i have joined the women and girls activity group not just to support others but to honor the holistic power of movement i will share my personal story with you regarding one of my daughters who is chubby but beautiful beautiful began to struggle with so low self-esteem and she would redraw or redraw and um her joy started to fade together we explored different activities and eventually she got to join athletic club through the school sacred hearts thank you miss oman and she and she later was invited to join the school athletics team this transformation has increased her confidence happiness and energy that has been life-changing and this is not just for her but for the whole family this is what physical activity can do and it is not just for you and it is not just for you and it is not just fitting in it is about feeling free and that is why tonight i am speaking also on the team that matters so much everybody deserves to be celebrated no matter its shape or ability every girl should know she can belong as in a sport or activity space every woman should feel seen and supported not ashamed or excluded every community will thrive when no one is left behind and when we don't encourage our beautiful women and girls in physical activities that consequences are real and this could start or could begin from declining in mental health and physical health and loss of confidence and identity increase in isolation and disconnection in this case it can even result in suicidal thoughts or self-harm and this is not just about fitness it's about seven lives and saving lives and restoring dignity and in order or in to the wider onesward borough supporting groups like ours means more not more than just funding activities it means that investing in the hearts of the community building a stronger more united cultural heritage and that is what we are looking for a borough where mothers daughters sisters and not just i'm not just striving but thriving it should be a place where we all work um with life full of life and can find joy healing friendship through movement and i believe this is a great thing to support and thank you very much for listening thank you and last but by no means least fozia my name is fozia riaz and i represent happy homes community a grassroot organization dedicated to support supporting women who are culturally mindful due to religious and cultural beliefs i joined the women's and girls group because it arranges activities that are very suitable for the women i work with activities that respect their environment values and cultural needs i felt there i felt this was the right platform where i could express my worries thoughts and the needs of the women's in my community many women's in our community face cultural and religious barriers that prevent them from participating in mixed gender sports or public social spaces without access to safe female-only environments they are left behind in areas that are vital for personal and community well-being such as physical health self-confidence and social connection this often leads to long-term isolation poor mental health and increased risk of conditions like obesity by creating safe inclusive and culturally respectful spaces for women we can give them the opportunity to thrive connect and take control of their well-being i have already helped bring women together to take part in volleyball badminton netball as well as social outings and gatherings these activities have made a visible and powerful impact women's have become more physically active mentally uplifted and socially engaged however we face ongoing challenges due to the high cost of venues and the difficulty of finding and funding qualified female coaches for women in our community having female only coaches and environment is not just a preference it is essential for cultural and religious reasons without this many cannot participate at all in addition to sports and social sessions i am deeply passionate about creating holistic holistic mother and daughter activities particularly for mother and daughters these activities provide a space where women across generations can come together learn from one another build stronger bonds and reduce feelings of isolation when mother and daughters engage side by side in meaningful activities whether physical creative or social it helps strengthen family relationships improves communication and nurtures a sense of shared belonging belonging belonging this session promotes not just individual health but also family harmony and intergenerational well-being this bar is beautifully multi-cultural and very culture and every culture carries its own traditions of health community and support when we take these into account we can build stronger support system that are truly inclusive inclusive i have witnessed firsthand how much these opportunities mean to women how they uplift their spirit improve their health and connect them to one another i believe that by supporting these safe spaces and family focused activities we are not only investing in the health of women but in the strength of our entire community with your support we can continue to grow this beautiful work and ensure no woman or girl is left behind simply because of our cultural needs thank you i want to extend my thanks from the environment committee for all of the hard work for your speeches tonight and especially every member even the ones aren't here or the task and finish group for creating the set of recommendations do do the members of the committee have any any questions or anything or any input on the paper that's been provided tonight councillor laps thank you very much that was really um you really brought that to life in terms of the benefits um for a wide wide range of uh women and girls communities thank you i was really pleased to see in your report that you thought about like the measurements about how you're going to make sure that things have made a difference so i'd be interested to know um how many of those would be um sort of time sort of timed or time limited you know to kind of make them into smart objectives and if we could see sort of some progress of how we're meeting those um as you see your plan put into action um for those for those um targets that are committed to thank you would you like to come on that mr i'm happy to take that question thank you uh so the the whole process has the whole plan has been co-produced so we've gone through a bit of a journey together and we've now come up with these ideas and these project plans but um it doesn't really end there we have to take those to the next stage which would be a level of granular detail that would um require us to establish a baseline for some of them so do some extra research so know what we what we're dealing with now so we can build upon that so i think it would be really helpful if you're interested for us to come back to committee and report on the progress of some of those projects i think the next stage would be to know which are our front runner projects which ones can we you know which are our quick wins i mean there are a number in there in the plan which we think are easy easily deliverable and there are others which which take this work so we're already seeing some green shoots so phosia talked about the women mothers and daughters um activities and the volleyball and badminton's happening on the rohampton but we'd like to see some more of that some happening in latchmere where we are able to establish women only swimming and so there's green shoots on some of them and some of them take a little bit more work so i think things like the um the uh lending of gym equipment um clothing for physical activity um and uh a couple of the others um for example the outreach work might need to have some more development before we can kind of be um very detailed about those projects thanks thank you mr owens councillor caddy you had a point thank you very much chair and thank you very much for fantastic presentation i totally agree with everything that's been said um you know grassroots participation for women in in sport and physical activity is so important one of the things that you did mention was um sort of elite sports and i think perhaps there's a perception that um you know we don't have as much or as wider representation in some of the elite sports from women and girls um from our borough or across the whole of the borough as we might have and i wonder what kind of um what kind of plans in here would sort of i i guess mean that uh really talented athletes from all backgrounds would be able to sort of succeed and and get support to become you know really really serious athletes yeah i'm happy to take that again um so yeah well i think um growing our athletes of the future starts really young so i think the secondary school work is really important so we need girls to think they can do it we need them to stop dropping out of pe when they go from primary school to secondary and then we can nurture their talent but it goes all the way through so one of the really important things we need to do is to have um more um female coaches or at least men um who know how to coach women because it is different and um we need uh we need that i think we need to work on that so um network of female um coaches and role models is going to really help strengthen the females who are in doing this now and encourage more women to become coaches so representation really really matters and um we've got one in there about the viewership of of um you know of sports and actually that's really important we need to keep raising the profile of women's sports and say you can do it look at these women and these women need to look like i are women so we need female coaches coming from all different backgrounds we need um women who are wearing hijab being coaches we need you know because if you can't see her you can't be her so it's at every stage that we need that um so uh this plan has got that i think throughout so we want women to do sport for for pleasure and joy which people talked about we also want them to excel if that's what they want i just i just wondered whether there was an opportunity to sort of encourage um you know sort of elite sports clubs and and sports organizations you know to come to wandsworth and work with the girls and you know chelsea football club i know works with with some of the boys in the area and you know is it possible to sort of get that kind of thing for the for the girls as well um and i i personally am a big women's rugby fan so it'd be great to you know get harlequins or someone down here to sort of look at the girls hello sorry i'd like to answer that one so we do so at my school um i run girls leagues and we bring in local organizations so we work with chelsea afc wimbledon uh battersea ironsides ironsides for rugby um the lta for tennis and platform cricket for cricket as well as spencer and surrey so we tend to do you have a daughter at honeywell did you no sorry i thought okay yeah i thought i think i've met you before i thought you know your daughter but um but um yeah so we we already are trying to do that in our school at the moment so and that like i said with my children it was that we connected local clubs to the schools so that they had that kind of connection already because that's where we're seeing the drop-off i'll have girls that will leave me having been the borough champions and then i see them like when they've gone to secondary school they come back to visit and they say they're not doing anything and it's there's definitely a drop-off which one of our plans is to do a survey with the girls is to find out exactly what their reasons are and how we can help that so yeah um and also just to mention that through all of this work we've been doing and we've got the community sport and physical activity network which is kind of the umbrella over this theme and it will be other themes um in the future we've got the involvement of all of the well i mean they're not necessarily at the table but we know them all and they're offering to support and help us so wimbledon afc have got a really amazing female coaching uh program that they've just launched we're in touch with them we're in touch with harlequins who are a great friend and you know and they will host our activities and and increasingly as our our projects become a reality we'll call them to uh support us and i'm sure they will answer that call thank you uh i think councillor white wants to come in with a close remark yeah thanks um councillor caddy you're doing so well and then you mentioned chelsea fc no i'm really pleased with the hard work that's gone into this uh this report and i'm pleased that also that uh we've looked at people who um you know might find it difficult to get involved in uh group sports because they don't see themselves represented and i think wandsworth is successful because of the diversity in the borough and i think we must really uh encourage that i must declare an interest my uh my son coaches in america he's a football coach in america and i want to get to a situation where wandsworth can produce a team good enough to go over there and beat his and that would make my day so but um but on the serious on the on the serious point he coaches um uh young adult women and um uh in america the sport is absolutely massive um and the success of their national team the success of um of um uh teams and players from america encourages young women to get to get involved in the game so i think uh council academy does make a a good point i think to to make sure that um it's it's everybody we're thinking about here and we're making sure that uh um people can improve to the best that they possibly can uh and then maybe go off uh to to uh um to areas where they can succeed even more and bring back those success stories that uh that other uh women can thrive uh uh can um be encouraged by um i was just wondering whether um uh whether because i i already spoke about the the drop-off between junior and uh and um uh secondary schools but but also um you know around this uh where where does where do uh women go after they they finish school is are there established links are ones worth establishing links with with clubs and with uh other uh you know um areas where where they might be able to uh to move on to um and and continue sport into their adult lives do you want to come in on me yeah um yeah i mean a primary school we definitely do that and the secondary schools do have that option also um one example is the wimbledon junior tennis initiative where the coaches come into your school uh they do a few weeks of coaching with you with your younger children they identify potential uh children and then they offer them free tennis until they're 16 every weekend down in rampton so but we have that with quite a few sports now that come into not just sacred heart but it's offered to all schools in onesworth so it is just about whether the person within that school brings them in and that's something we're trying to promote in our p forums that everybody should be bringing in you know it's always free as well which is you don't turn anything away that's free um but yeah we are trying to do that so that we have links and pathways throughout great thank you so i think quickly add to that i mean obviously we the council is an important sort of system convener so we um through our sports development uh team know the clubs in the borough and we will be continuing to engage them and signposting connecting people so we had a very successful event in march and there's a real desire to keep meeting um so everybody keeps meeting and making these connections and i think that's what's going to help us succeed into the long term so it's the network of connections that we have and the opportunities therefore for our women and girls thank you uh thank you uh i think what we're drawn to a close now we have a few more papers but again thank you so much for your contribution committee do you note the contents of the report okay thank you thank you all right let's move swiftly on because we still have a lot of business together and not a whole lot of time so next we're going to move on to our sixth paper which is the library strategy paper number 25-206 um we have camp we have councillor gasser and uh miss gardner presenting this paper is that okay if i start talking while we're waiting for the presentation speed things up so yes thank you again for allowing me to be here again and thank you this is another piece of work that's very very close to my heart you know after three years working with the library service and we've got the most fantastic libraries we're one of the most successful boroughs in london if not the country aren't we for for visits and and um issues so we're doing really really well we love our libraries but we are aware that not everybody is coming to our libraries so our strategy is all about how do we really make sure that all members of our community are enjoying our libraries making the most of our libraries seeing what we have to offer telling us what more they want us to offer um so we're going to be reaching out to our communities we're going to be offering longer hours increased internet access more classes and study opportunities more activities that interest people and we're working with partners what such as youth services and for the voluntary sector so that they can come in and open up our libraries sometimes when the library staff are not there and the whole aim is this is want everyone all our residents all our officers all our voluntary groups think about our libraries first if you want to put something on if you need some information if you need to get out a book if you need to you know do some studying you think about our libraries first and our libraries that will be at the heart of all of our communities so i'm going to hand over to miss gardner and the team um to talk about the the strategy um thank you very much councillor gasa um i think uh it's my pleasure to introduce you to our uh exciting and ambitious onesworth library strategy which we're calling libraries first uh as councillor gasa said this is a vision for inclusive connected and future ready libraries so i'm just going to quickly set out some context themes and a selection of some of the key deliverables for year one um so i think it's important to mention how much work has already gone into the development of the strategy we've had um specialist uh consultants shared intelligence who worked with us on community needs analysis research and benchmarking that also included research into the department culture media and sport non-user surveys um there was direct engagement with committee counsellors community groups including more non-users there current users of the service other council departments and more people um it's also important to mention how closely we've worked with our delivery partner gll in order to consider how this would be delivered and to ensure that what we're doing is eminently achievable um yet ambitious um so the vision and the guiding principle of this is that we want onesworth libraries to be the first place of connection for our communities so it's all about getting more people into libraries and bringing them to benefit from the services that libraries can provide um one of the most important uh squares on here is our skilled staff um it's long been uh known that library staff and librarians are some of the most trusted professionals um usually only behind like doctors and nurses and people like that so that's a hugely important thing for our residents all our residents but actually also our vulnerable residents um and i don't think that trust in library staff can be over emphasized really it's hugely important um we have distilled um our research and our consultation and so on into nine strategic pillars this is where all of our um services fit obviously some of them bridge more than one pillar um but this is a way of turning this into something that we can then look at as an action plan and as action areas uh we have next one please oh splendid sorry i probably went quicker than you were expecting um we've got some well a smattering of things on here but there's plenty more in the actual strategy and the action plan so um some of the things that we're looking to achieve is universal library membership for children to ensure that all children in the borough actually have a library card and can benefit from that uh we're looking at uh and have funding for the refurbishment of battersea park and balham children's libraries which will be of huge benefit to families balham being one of the busiest in the borough uh we will be extending opening hours um as part of the strategy uh we are looking at an it refresh which will be done in year one introduction of wireless printing supporting of welcome to wandsworth and the london borough of culture with more cultural events in libraries um and we are going for um accreditation for libraries of sanctuary um i kind of won't go through every single blob because that would obviously take a really long time but um i'm really happy to answer any questions on them and if anyone wants to pick anything out then do say so it's all in the strategy and the action plan uh please do give us your input thank you very much for the presentation uh council apps do you want to come in thank you um very much for that presentation it's so um exciting and i have to say as chair of the children's committee i'm so pleased to see universal library membership um for all children i think uh in children's they're going to be launching something called 10 by 10 which the idea is that a child by the time they're 10 in wandsworth will have done 10 things and one of them is visited a library and know how to use a library so i presume that's all uh linked up um very very interesting stat here that 46 use the library as a study space not not um what you would expect which is to borrow books that's still high at 36 but that's the highest i've wondered if you'd got any information on the ages um of the young people and children how young um yes so um that start is from our um snapshot survey that we did very recently which involved um people actually going uh officers actually going out into the libraries catching people and speaking with them um so it does give a slightly different perspective which is good because we want all the perspectives than you would get in some of the other surveys where people scan the qr code or something like that and respond in their own time which we also have so we were very specifically looking to target those people who perhaps are more vulnerable or perhaps wouldn't respond to those other kinds of survey mechanisms um but um i think that we're confident that an awful lot of those people studying in libraries are young people um and certainly from anecdotal experience from myself and my colleagues watching people there are large numbers of young people looking for study space in libraries and who are studying in libraries oh that's that's yeah i think that's probably what we all see being born out i think northcote library particularly uh they're accused of young people wanting to use that for study space um and also it's an absolute lifeline for um our children in poorer communities um to have that a study space and councillor cook will remember the battle royal we had over your closing your gardens library and then we looked at the children's library survey and saw because it was going to be closed because it wasn't used much but that was adults and we looked at the children's library service and it showed that that library was used by more children than anywhere else in the borough for obvious reasons so yeah deprivation so anyway thank you so much thank you councillor laps i was going to ask about the same thing the same issue in my ward that overcrowding leads to a high use of the libraries thank you okay councillor books thank you very much my question is similar but sort of linking it to the um to the commercial to the spaces in the libraries available to be let out commercially um could we get some information on how much income the libraries bring in from businesses or organizations renting out the rooms the reason i'm asking is because of the overcrowding especially during peak times with revision um is that space the best is that the best use of the space space if um people can't find access and is that space otherwise sat empty because if it's not bringing in much income then is is that the right approach um i'll have a go um so um yes we can put together those figures on um income um unfortunately we couldn't do it fast enough for this evening but we will produce that um library by library as soon as possible and share it with everyone interested um i think that it is very variable across the libraries as to what the take up of those spaces is um we also use those spaces for library activities which i think is quite important because some library activities we obviously can't necessarily just hold them easily in the middle of the library so we do use those spaces ourselves as well um we have certainly been discussing um the fact that when there isn't somebody in those higher spaces we could be letting other people into them and we do wherever possible but we will ensure that that is what is happening obviously there's some set up and some take down time when there's booking in there but otherwise that's not a problem we've also been discussing recently how we might look at um expanding provision around particularly around the run-up to exams because that's obviously a huge pinch point in terms of young people trying to get into study spaces um i don't know whether my colleagues have any more to add thank you uh councilor has one yeah three three things about the uh the program the plan the strategy first of all i i'd like to say i'm thrilled to see the reference to the expansion of the mini museums we have a very good one not far from here across the road in wandsworth town um but i'm keen to see that expanded throughout our our libraries and i wonder if you could say a bit about where the mini museums will be expanded to as part of the heritage side of what we do secondly in the uh section on well-being and and the aims that we have on well-being enable pioneered in this borough the uh concept of social prescribing trying to get people to be more active in open spaces to improve their health um but there is of course a cultural aspect to social prescribing as well there's the uh cathartism program that's been piloted in the ballam and tooting libraries for example and i wonder if that can be included uh more specifically uh in in what we're saying in the strategy i mean i'd like to see something that says uh that the the libraries are hosting cultural prescribing programs uh as part of that well-being program if it's not in there already it might be there in some form and i've missed it and finally in the in the section marked at the which is headed up where we reference at the heart of the community i think it's worth saying that the ones with arts and culture strategy which is a 10 year strategy starting in 2021 because it was co-designed with residents that's part of something that's at the heart of the community as well a cultural thing which i think could be added to the list uh of all the things we're we're highlighting um as part of our at the heart of the community activity in our libraries yeah do you know if someone to come back on that um yes i can um answer the question as long as i can remember what they went in um mini museums um yes so um one of the most important things about the mini museums and yes we do have one in the new onesworth town library is um in the design for the new libraries at roehampton and york gardens um this is being designed in so um instead of trying to shoehorn something in we're actually designing it in right from the start so there will be cases for objects and museum objects which will be interspersed with library shelving which is hugely successful in other places in terms of serendipitous discovery of those artifacts so you don't actually have to want to go to the bit that is the mini museum you will discover those things on your way around the library so we're really excited about that um obviously uh that's not going to be quite the same for the libraries that we've already got because we've already got them um we do want to start at putney um which i gather is particularly important one to start with a mini museum and that is going to and is specifically mentioned now in the plan that the music uh libraries we've already got will start work on mini museum in putney um so cathartism is in a different place in the strategy um it's actually in information because um it's about us connecting um programs and people together um it could be put in several places i would say because it's one of those cross-cutting programs um it's definitely there and we're very proud of it and we'd like to do more of that kind of work i think if there's anything really specific then my colleague daniel is here who can probably say something about the specifics of cathartism um and what was the third thing oh social prescribing um do you want me to repeat it at the heart of at the heart of the community i was just suggesting the arts and culture strategy should be uh should should be one of the things that we we have in the list under that heading the um the social prescribing thing was a well-being thing including cathartism um oh yes of course that yeah that's fine i'll check that and make sure it if it's not in it goes in we've been through several revisions and occasionally things accidentally disappear so um we'll ensure that that's there no problem thank you councillor french thank you thank you chair i just had a question it was following on i think well it was a while ago now so i can't remember who made the remark about auditing um how libraries were being used i think whilst that may be useful it needs to be nuanced so that we understand the demand time of when is being asked of the library and also if it is being rented what are they wanting to rent it for because what we obviously we want business to thrive and all of those things but not at the expense necessarily of young people having space to um study so i think if we are going to do numbers let's just go a bit deeper to give us a fuller picture of what exactly is going on and maybe if we're looking at extending hours that may be able to offset some of the demand as it is currently so that we just account for those things so i'll just be keen to see that reflected any in any sort of audit that takes place thank you yes i think that's absolutely what we would want to take into account um there's definitely a balance to be found um we also aside from the more sort of commercial side if you want to look at it like that of maybe a local business or something using our spaces have also got a lot of community groups using our spaces who would pay a reduced rate for example but in order for them to have those spaces that's really important for them to have those spaces in the community near where they are living and working um also we've obviously got the access for all program um which means that we're offering 50 reduction on room higher and hall higher for people who qualify for access for all so that's another important strand that libraries are delivering that we would want to be mindful of when we're looking at this kind of thing so certainly we're all about the balance i think thank you were there any other comments on this paper okay so this paper is for decision by the cabinet uh do the committee support the recommendations in paragraph two of the report agreed great so the the next paper is the revenue budget monitoring for quarter four uh paper number 25-207 um we have mr moylan who is presenting this paper good evening committee uh thank you very much yes my name is alex moylan i'm the assistant director of finance and performance within environmental community services uh so this paper presents the final uh outturn for last year's uh budget for services within the remit of the environment committee um it's largely for the outturned continuation of the position we were reporting um throughout the year so on that basis i don't intend to particularly raise any points i think they're covered in the report but i'm very happy to answer any questions that anyone may have thank you very much thank you mr moylan councillor caddy oh thank you very much chair um it's relating to paragraph 14 on page 93 um and i just wondered what was going on with the inspection enforcement because it talks about there being an overspend because there's additional staffing and related costs then when we look at the um number of enforcements later on in the performance paper it seems to have gone down year on year so i just wondered why that might be and then my second question is on skip and hoarding licenses do we are we sort of checking enough or enforced and getting revenue by sort of taking action against those that aren't because anecdotally i would say and and residents have said to me that there are an awful lot of people who put skips or cones or bins or whatever it might be blocking blocking the road and they're not paying for a sort of parking space to be reserved and i just wondered whether we were trying to crack down on that and that might be a good source of income uh thank you very much um so the the second part if i may address it yeah absolutely right this is something that the um the highways inspectors that's a key part of their role to to go around amongst other things to look for um areas where businesses or or private um users aren't have aren't fully reflecting the the the licenses so it's sort of something that we are trying to address i think we have just a really quick question where can residents report it so if a resident see it because people are always saying to me you know i want to report it and and i'll report it when they tell me but it would almost be better for them to be able to report it themselves is there somewhere so i would have to double check but i believe you could use the online reporting tool on the council's website and on there it would have various uh different categories uh i would need to double check which of the subcategories would be relevant or most relevant for i think obstruction on the highway potentially but i would i would need to double check and i can provide a link to members if that is helpful so council caddy report it will have it that and it would be interesting if you find anything missing on there because it should be very comprehensive okay any more questions uh so that was to do the additional additional staffing uh costs so yeah um i i think um we have recognized and i think the council will continue to recognize that flight is a particular problem and it's one that we need to try and address as much as possible and a key role is taking action against those people that that fly tips we've there's a range of measures that the council is undertaking so i think we would hope that we would see continued level of enforcement um there are challenges associated with it um as to the particular nuances of that i'm not i'm probably not the best uh best place to answer as to why enforcement numbers may well have fallen we do see fluctuations in terms of kind of activity undertaken um there is a higher level of deterrent now with increase in fpns i don't think that's particularly led to the decline we've seen but there are other drivers that may have that may have influenced it any more questions councillor lawless thank you can can i just put a shout out to our extra monitoring officers um we have a monitor officer who me and councillor osborne have been working with a lot in tooting broadway um who's doing fantastic work not only i think looking at where there's fly tipping and how to give out fines but just practical advice for residents who have wheelie bins and don't take their bins out who are putting food waste and recycling bags who aren't putting their garden waste in in the right things and their bags are being are not being collected because they're not putting out properly and uh can i name the officer was that okay hayley um hayley's doing great work thanks hayley if you're watching at 10 o'clock at night um but like that that's also helping making make our bar a cleaner um because it's she's practically going to every house on a street today she delivered letters to every house um and that's going to improve the service in the future so thanks thank you councillor laws are there any other questions on this paper no okay so the the outcome of this is just a note for for information so is that noted i did on to agenda item number 10 corporate plan actions and kpi performance report that's paper number 25-208 uh i believe mr o'connor you are talking on this um yes so um good evening committee i'm claire o'connor director of climate change policy and communications for the council this is the regular report that you receive to june committee every year it gives you a report back on the end of the performance for the key performance indicators within the remit of this committee it also gives a narrative feedback on the actions that fall within the remit of this committee in relation to the corporate plan um i'm happy to take any questions alongside my fellow officers thank you mr governor uh councillor lawless thank you um can i ask a question about the percentage of public streets with acceptably low levels of litter after cleansing and it it looks like a really good number how do we assess that um what's what's the criteria okay all right so that's it oh well in in the broad there is an industry standard approach to it so in the broad uh clearly i'll ask um uh sydney gardner to to do a proper note on this but in the broad there's an industry standard approach to how um our streets are inspected it's a regular inspection uh it's uh a double check of uh inspections undertaken by the contractor in fact uh but i i really will need to ask cindy to provide a detailed answer okay councillor works thank you very much um it's good to see the numbers of missed collections falling and an improvement after the alarming spike last year um however we are still almost three times above target um and i sort of take on board what's written here about all the things we're doing but we are still a long way above target so what more can be done beyond what's described here to try and bring us back down to where we need to be thank you well perhaps uh yes sydney she's literally just joined the call okay so maybe i can start though and uh so you can add some details so sure uh let's keep going for now so we are relentlessly uh pursuing this point uh councillor uh through a range of actions uh most of which we have already received funding approval from that committee uh some months ago now the uh the cleaner borough phase two funding uh uh report um many of the actions relate to uh the work obviously undertaken by circo uh many of the actions are in uh collaboration with circo and i have to say both our officers and and circo's officers have been relentless in trying to improve uh the figures uh much of it involves the reality that we made a massive change to our approach last june unprecedented change uh much of the uh pressure on uh uh that that kpi relates to uh new uh approaches new routes uh that have all had to settle in and we i think i would agree that it's taken uh too long a period of time for them to settle in but um the the changes that we're putting in place some of them are already already just been put in place so we just refer to uh our waste enforcement officers some of whom are brand new some of whom uh have clearly taken some time to recruit so i i guess what i'm trying to say is that we've got a plan we're relentlessly pursuing it uh it includes some things that are only just being put in place uh and something those things that are only just being put in place we're already seeing the benefits of them so perhaps councillor white and then we'll turn to cindy yeah are we talking about specifically what we're talking about the missed collection yeah the missed collections numbers are coming down month by month um the we had a spike as you as you identified um but um over the last few months uh that it has improved uh and we we we're expecting from them a 10 improvement every every month um and uh we are looking to to reach that target um after uh after uh a time but um they are facing uh penalties uh when they're not uh reaching the target so they are being incentivized uh to push down but uh um we it wasn't good as paul was saying but we are actually honing in and and uh and really uh pushing them we have in monthly meetings with them to make sure that they do improve their service thank you uh did we want to also pass on to cindy on the call yeah good evening can you hear me yeah we can hear you yeah thank you um so just uh leading on from councillor white and paul's update there i think the key thing for us is around tighter collection processes and tighter contract management and we are stretching circo to deliver the service that we all want to see in this borough as officers and as residents um some of the key things that we're asking circo to focus on as well as our own contract monitoring officers is uh the repeated missed issues there should never be a repeated miss collection um and we want to focus strongly on that so from time to time um miss collections may happen but there should never be a sequence of missed collection so that's one of the key areas that we're focusing on and circo have heavily invested in uh better monitoring of the crews so they have bought in additional supervisors there are different processes that the supervisors on monitoring crews we're also tracking the performance of each crew and identifying where there is failure for a particular crew trying to understand the reason for that um the supervisors are also following the crews after that crew has been down the road to check on that crew's own performance so there are a number of things that we're focusing on and that and this is a real target for us to reduce the missed collection numbers thank you very much uh councillor cook uh thank you chair just an observation really i mean i i've been uh around here long enough to remember the um the last contract change some quite significant changes in in in that shift over uh balancing of rounds all that sort of thing and it took a matter of a handful of weeks for everything to bed down so i just i'm mystified i'm i'm just astonished really that here we are a year plus in and the same conversations are going on it's absolutely incredible and you clearly from everything we've just heard you clearly don't understand it fully either which i mean i just find extremely alarming um it's an incredible situation we're in so can't help but make that observation got to be realistic about this which um which contract changes that well last uh 2012 okay and were there any new services being brought in on that yeah which ones uh well big uh big element of change there was uh the number of the crews went down from memory to four to three so that's a very big change and all the rounds were changed as a consequence of that so they all needed to be balanced uh so that's a very large change and it took a small number of weeks for that to just work its way through get it all sorted out yeah mr charbert you want to go yeah i appreciate that that was a significant change this this is this june 24 change was by far the greatest ever change though that i've i've witnessed as a um senior officer in london for many years and it involved an entire new fleet at the same time as new routes um new in-cap technologies that needed to be used um and were fresh those crews new route uh new clearly with new routes you have new crews dealing with uh therefore new premises for many of those crew uh crew uh and for us uh in june it was um the first time a full split of waste from recycling and the first time as ever increasing of course the the use of uh um food waste as a collect uh as a collection so i mean that's not to to belittle though the the the fact that we're uh we are um we do know that this is taking longer than ideal and we are therefore as cindy's uh described relentlessly pursuing uh improvements still councillor what you want to add yeah i mean i'd repeat what we just said i mean with the monitoring officers we are seeing improvement and and that the numbers are increased uh improving month by month by the stated amount that we expect them to improve by so these numbers are going down they're going in the right direction uh as uh mr chadwick has just said the uh the the the the type of change that came in from one set of trucks to free search uh set of trucks different going uh for different rounds rather than just taking the one that was a massive change was a really really big change um i don't i don't think they cope particularly well with that i'd agree but uh we are we have got on top of that now i think and uh we're going in the right direction i think that we will see improvements uh and until we reach our target councillor perhaps thank you very much um i share the kind of focus on this it's really important issue i think it's really important we brought in food waste collection it was something that we needed to do and we kind of it's good that we've done it before it's been mandatory and it's something that we promised people that we would and i think many households are really appreciating that um and i look forward to kind of continuing to see that kind of month-on-month improvement and that we're working towards um and you know and if we have any falters that we step it up and and look at where those blockages are and we kind of face those challenges and work through them um but i wanted to come on to a sort of one of the benefits and actually it's really interesting to see with these kpis that often we describe what's gone wrong if something goes wrong you know we describe it in detail whereas where we've seen a real improvement which is something that's gone year on year onesworth has really struggled with its level of recycling it's been a real problem for us um you know we've been like you know um in before 2022 and in fact since 2022 in the early years of our administration there were incredibly low levels of recycling which brought us into the bottom of the league table but we are now starting to see a good shift on that and i wanted to ask officers what they thought had brought that around and what the benefits are financially as well as environmentally thank you councillor apps and and yeah i i shared the enthusiasm at the this increase i think i think when the administration took over it was maybe around 22 percent and now we're approaching 29 percent um miss o'connor did you want to add any comments to that so i think that would be one for cindy to to respond to because she's the expert and she can talk about the impact um the financial impact that cancer talked about okay um thank you so i think the key thing to talk about here is how we've driven an increase in recycling and waste diversion and that key element is bringing in the separate vehicles to collect rubbish and recycling um that predominantly has led to the increase in recycling because we do believe that a lot of um recycling sacks had actual contamination in before and they were being looked at by the crews and being put into the rubbish side of the twin pack vehicles so now that we're seeing the true recycling going through to smugglers way we're able to count all of that as recycling um and then when we get our final figures we obviously do deduct that contamination what i would say is the difference in the pay issue throw rate between rubbish and recycling is significant 165 pounds a tonne to throw rubbish away 30 pound to throw recycling away or have that treated um and it's zero pounds to process food waste um on the food waste element we this week have seen another two tons of food waste collected this week from last week um it's our biggest amount so far uh 81.9 tons of food waste collected in one week this is uh such an impressive figure for this borough quite often when you bring in a new service you see the tonnage drop off but in wandsworth we can see we're seeing that bigger consistently increase um yes we are adding flats to those rounds now so you would expect to see a slight increase but we are really pleased with um with what's happening in the borough with regards to recycling and food waste excellent we've had to hear that uh can we suppose one um we're focused tonight on the problems we're facing on the street at the moment and we're trying to work as a committee collectively consensually to focus on which is a major improvement i think which is the deployment of the uh of the monitoring officers like hayley hansen and so on uh i think that's in part a recognition that other systems we've been using to try and get a grip on this and get it to bed down haven't always been a hundred percent successful although some of them some of them have worked quite well uh but the the uh but the monitoring officer system seems to be working very well uh and you know i'm happy to make a shout out on that i could comment on what happened in 2012 i'm not going to because it wasn't the nirvana which councillor cook is describing um things would i could argue that things never really bedded down after the contractual changes in 2012 it was just as simply the matter that the kpis and the monitoring system didn't pick up the fact that the street sweeping was separated uh by a day from the uh refuse collection and that resulted in an enormous amount of litter in the street but it the system of monitoring it was was poor and therefore it didn't show up as a problem on the kpis it never bedded down so uh you know i i don't really want to go into that debate i want to focus on where we are today um uh and get both sides of the table to do that i wasn't going to prolong it anymore but i i'd be really interested to genuinely understand what the issue is in terms of the non-collections because i mean we've seen it a lot in our street and i and i appreciate there have been changes made to the systems but fundamentally it's a few guys picking up the rubbish and putting them in a lorry and looking at the rubbish and seeing that there's either some left or this or there isn't and i and i don't understand what big change was made that has generated such a a sort of huge increase in these missed collections and i and i appreciate everything and the work that's being done to try and reduce those now and and understand that you know the monitoring of the calves and monitoring of the crews but why are they doing something different from what they used to do why aren't they just putting all the bags in the back of the lorry i think this was there used to be one lorry now there's three lorries so that you you know you can't extrapolate the figures that we had when we just had one lorry to three different types of the collections because the what so if you missed a rubbish collection for instance but you took a recycling you know um that would uh just require that that lorry to to deal with that issue but now you've got three different uh three different vehicles so the the amount of missed collections will you know it will it will be a larger figure because there there are three different things to collect rather than just two that went to one to one to one lorry so it's a difficult a more difficult operation but these things are being worked through at the moment and uh we are seeing improvements and uh i expect that they'll uh they'll get there in the end can we can we keep the conversation going for the mr chad work so what what i think would be useful for and i appreciate the question i what i think would be useful is if i mean there are a range of different different reasons for miscollections and cindy's gardener's team are working through the you know why those those different types of miscollections happen as she's described earlier she's trying to eradicate particularly those that happen time and time again i mean there are probably at least a dozen different categories of miscollection that they're the team are dealing with perhaps it would be useful for the committee if we just literally provide you with a schedule of those those uh you know those types and uh alongside that that type the action we're taking to eradicate yeah yeah that'd be really useful to get a breakdown sorry cindy that's some yeah no that's fine that's fine i can come in just on a couple of points there but i'm conscious of time uh how quickly can you come in on those points literally 30 seconds i think one of the biggest changes for our residents is that they used to put rubbish bags and recycling bags all in one dustbin or all in one wheel bin the crews are whichever crew arrives first are having to rummage through the dustbin to find the relevant bags for that material stream that they're collecting and so on occasion they might miss a bag right at the bottom that is something that we need to address but we do know that that happens um obviously there's things around uh residents have got used to using wheeled bins but from a health and safety perspective we cannot collect directly manually from a wheeled bin because they are designed to be lifted and we don't have the lifting mechanism on the vehicles um and the other thing is that whilst a resident might be reporting that it's um their rubbish has been missed they're actually reporting it as recycling or food waste um so there does need to be some engagement and education around how to report miscollections correctly because some are coming through and they're not the correct material thank you miss gardner and yeah it would definitely be useful to to have that breakdown that was mentioned and we can sort of see these more problem areas are there any more comments on the report okay so is that noted all right we've got one minute left um final item um calum would you like to quickly take it away i will be mercifully brief um the report in front of you sets out the um the the way that the committee will be developing their work program so what goes on the committee's agendas in future the idea is that we we don't discuss those items now we do that at a session between committees where we can have a bit more discourse and it's easier um i'm seeking dates currently from the opposition speaker the chair and deputy chair um to have that and i will then invite the rest of the committee as optional attendees if you can make it that's great if you can't please feedback through your relevant um relevant councillor and we'll um we'll we'll keep everybody updated between committees via email thank you thank you any questions on that no excellent we've got a minute to spare still that concludes the business of tonight's meeting thank you everyone for your attendance and good night
Summary
The Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to discuss a range of issues, including the development of a Biodiversity Action Plan, tree management, women and girls in sport, the library strategy, budget monitoring, and the committee's work programme. The committee agreed to support the recommendations in the Library Strategy.
Biodiversity Action Plan
The committee discussed the development of a Biodiversity Action Plan for Wandsworth. The Biodiversity Action Plan is intended to be a live document that guides concrete action to achieve the priorities of the Biodiversity Strategy, which was adopted in 2020.
The committee agreed to investigate the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) and potential partnerships with the Natural History Museum and other academic institutions locally. They also agreed to consider establishing targets specifically in relation to habitat management and condition, and to promote the use of information board signage and displays on the mouth of the River Wandle.
The committee agreed to investigate learning points with regards to the February 2025 incident of a diesel spill into the River Wandle, with a view to how the council can help in crisis response in future. They also agreed to facilitate the dissemination of advice with regards to responsible business practice where possible, promote an increase in citizen science and resident and community engagement regarding biodiversity, consider the expansion of greenway targets, and explore the promotion and balance of both native and climate-resistant species.
Councillor Rex Osborn, Deputy Chair of the Committee, suggested that the council should talk to the Natural History Museum about eDNA surveys, as they are already driving a major eDNA project across the country. He also suggested that the council should promote the inclusion of swift boxes in new builds.
Councillor Mrs. Kim Caddy (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) suggested that the council should consider how it prioritises native varieties and also look at climate-resistant varieties, and how it balances the use of the two.
Councillor Jonathan Cook suggested that the committee should be mindful of how the biodiversity strategy fits alongside other things the council are doing elsewhere, in planning, licensing and things like that.
Tree Management and Resident Engagement
The committee discussed completed and planned improvements to tree care and tree management. They agreed to promote the benefits of trees on the website, including additional information to empower people to aid and protect trees, especially young trees. They also agreed to explore the inclusion of QR codes on trees to provide specific information with regards to that tree, explore a closer working relationship with the tree wardens and other community groups as part of wider efforts to increase public participation and engagement, explore encouraging local residents and groups to water and care for trees in their locality, enhance information on the website regarding tree disease and the reasons a tree might be required to be felled, and explore seeking community engagement to help map the trees in the borough.
Councillor Sara Apps said that she gets lots of complaints about trees, generally, because you tend to hear about people when there's an issue. She said that the complaints come from all sorts of directions, sometimes it's because of trees being removed, sometimes it's because of trees overhanging houses, gutters, and gardens.
Susie Lloyd, Chair of the Wandsworth Tree Warden Network, said that the tree wardens would like to know exactly how many trees there are in the borough, and how many trees are planted each year. She said that it is important to know how many trees are lost to development every year.
Councillor Sean Lawless said that he felt it was important that if a tree is found to be diseased, the council should have information online, possibly pictures of the disease that are showing this, and then also maybe on the tree if we're saying that you know we're choosing to fell it, we have we have a poster on it for a week or two weeks saying that this tree is going to be removed for this reason we have a QR code underneath it so it's not that residents are just waking up to see their tree failed and they have no idea why.
Women and Girls in Sport and Physical Activity
The committee discussed the outcome of the Women and Girls Sports Task and Finish Group Work. The committee noted the contents of the report.
Councillor Apps said that she was really pleased to see in the report that the task force had thought about the measurements about how they're going to make sure that things have made a difference.
Councillor Caddy said that she wondered what kind of plans in here would sort of i i guess mean that uh really talented athletes from all backgrounds would be able to sort of succeed and and get support to become you know really really serious athletes.
Councillor Paul White, the Cabinet Member for Environment, said that he wanted to get to a situation where Wandsworth can produce a team good enough to go over to America and beat his son's team, and that would make his day.
Library Strategy
The committee discussed the draft Library Strategy and offered comment prior to consideration by the Cabinet. The committee agreed to support the recommendations in paragraph two of the report.
Councillor Apps said she was pleased to see universal library membership for all children. She also said that she was interested in the statistic that 46% use the library as a study space, and wondered if there was any information on the ages of the young people and children.
Councillor Brooks asked if the committee could get some information on how much income the libraries bring in from businesses or organisations renting out the rooms.
Councillor Osborn said that he was keen to see the mini museums expanded throughout our libraries. He also said that he would like to see something that says that the libraries are hosting cultural prescribing programs as part of that well-being program.
Councillor Katrina Ffrench said that if the council are going to do numbers on how libraries are being used, let's just go a bit deeper to give us a fuller picture of what exactly is going on.
Budget Monitoring
The committee discussed the Quarter 4 Budget Monitoring and noted the contents of the report.
Councillor Caddy asked what was going on with the inspection enforcement, because it talks about there being an overspend because there's additional staffing and related costs, then when we look at the number of enforcements later on in the performance paper it seems to have gone down year on year. She also asked if the council are checking enough or enforced and getting revenue by sort of taking action against those that aren't putting skips or cones or bins blocking the road and they're not paying for a sort of parking space to be reserved.
Councillor Lawless put a shout out to one of the extra monitoring officers, Hayley, who's doing fantastic work not only looking at where there's fly tipping and how to give out fines but just practical advice for residents who have wheelie bins and don't take their bins out who are putting food waste and recycling bags who aren't putting their garden waste in in the right things and their bags are being are not being collected because they're not putting out properly.
Corporate Plan Actions and KPIs Performance Report
The committee discussed the Corporate Plan Actions and KPIs Performance Report and noted the contents of the report.
Councillor Lawless asked how the council assesses the percentage of public streets with acceptably low levels of litter after cleansing.
Councillor Cook said that it was good to see the numbers of missed collections falling and an improvement after the alarming spike last year, but that the numbers are still almost three times above target.
Councillor Apps said that she wanted to ask officers what they thought had brought around the good shift in recycling rates, and what the benefits are financially as well as environmentally.
Councillor Osborn said that the deployment of the monitoring officers like Hayley Hansen and so on is a major improvement.
Environment OSC Work Programme
The committee discussed the Environment OSC Work Programme and noted the contents of the report.
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