Transcript

All the content of this meeting is being sent to the third party. Oh, are we live streaming? Yeah, we're live now, Councillor. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to this evening's Women's Scrobs Charitable Trust meeting. My name is Councillor Alex Sanderson, and I am the chair of the Women's Scrobs Charitable Trust. As usual, I'm going to run through the little bit of housekeeping that we've got at the beginning, so please keep your microphones muted unless you are speaking. Please wait until I call on you before speaking, and please could everybody introduce themselves when they first address the committee. Item number one on the agenda is apologies for absence, and we've got apologies for lateness from Councillor Kwan, who will be joining us shortly, but I don't think we've got any other apologies for absence. No, we don't. Great. Thank you. Graduation of interest. I don't think we've got any declarations of interest, but it's anything they'd like to declare now? Nothing from me, Chair. Fine. Thank you very much. Item three, minutes of the previous meeting, Asama, could you report back on matters arising from the last meeting? So I've got the bank account and the local nature reserve. Thank you, Chair. My name is Asama Elamin, I am the manager to the Wormers' Grubs Charitable Trust, and I'll start with the local nature reserve first. So this committee had previously approved the process towards designating a local nature reserve within the wildlife meadow area. And so before beginning that consultation process with Natural England, which is the next stage, offices are just keen to address two outstanding issues. The first of those outstanding issues is the behaviour of professional dog walking companies within the meadow area. And so we've used the dog walking licensing system to try and influence behaviour change by kind of giving dog walkers suggested walking routes, avoiding those areas during ground nesting season. And the idea is that if we can influence people to stay away from those ecologically sensitive areas, then we give ourselves a better chance at maintaining that designation when it is put in place. The second part of kind of getting towards the process of achieving an LNR is also in terms of kind of ensuring that the ground's made in its contractor, who is currently struggling to maintain what is on site with the current tender level and the level of resource, getting them to get up to a point where they're able to maintain what's already on site with the resources that they do have. What we don't want to do is create an additional designation for them to manage and to struggle to do that. So offices are working with them to create a forward work plan and that will encompass all of the different contracted activities that they're currently responsible for doing. And so what we want to do is make sure that that forward work plan takes into consideration all of the scrub and branble management works that are part of the contract, which we're happy to adapt, we're happy to be reactive to what they're able to achieve, but we want to see commitment and demonstration that they're able to manage what they can for what they're being paid for at the moment. So once we've got that confidence, we can proceed with the consultation process with Natural England. Thank you, thank you. Any questions? Thanks. Yeah, what's the kind of estimated timeline for proceeding with the consultation? We've got quite a lot of concern, but it's quite upset about it. Thank you, Chair. So I will get back to the committee on an exact timeline, but I would anticipate after the autumn works. So that's when the next scrub and branble management kind of vegetation management works will take place after my own nesting season. So we'll take a view most likely at the end of autumn as to whether or not the dog walk would have managed to kind of become more compliant with the PSPO and whether ID Verdi have demonstrated that they're able to manage what they can. So I'll report back to the committee in roughly autumn time, but I can give you a little bit closer of an indication once we've got the forward work plan from ID Verdi. So that's probably going to come through in the next month or two. Thank you. Just to be really, really unequivocal, we are very supportive of this work. We do want it to happen. I think we are all aware, those of us who've been on the committee for a while, that there are people who feel very entitled to walk their dogs wherever they want to. And we want to try and influence that behavior change, but we know it's not going to be easy. We've seen direct vandalism on the scrubs for the hedge, for signs that we've put up. So we are trying to positively influence the behavior of some of those dog walkers, not all of them, because some of them have been very good, others less so, before we get to the point of trying to designate it as a nature reserve, because we want us to succeed. We don't want to set it up to fail. And I think that's the really key thing here at the moment. We are not confident that if we designated it as a local nature reserve, it would be a successful one because then we know there are issues that exist at the moment with dog walkers with some of the maintenance, which means that it probably would not be a successful project. This is not a sinister delay. This is just trying to ensure that there is success of the project, not anything else. So thank you. Thanks. That legacy hand or… No, it's not a follow up. So in the situation that the behavior of the professional dog walkers has not changed by the autumn, what would happen then? I think we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I think it's hard, isn't it? Because you want to hope that people are going to be respectful of the space. There are, as I like saying, 200 acres, there is space for everyone, and yet somehow some people cannot move past the idea that it's their own personal backyard and where they can wander, where they want to. I think there are various routes available to us there from enforcement to, again, hoping that soft power works. Asamu, you want to come in on this, but I think we will look at all options available to us at that point. But we would hope that people could be respectful of the beautiful shared space that we have. Asamu. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, that's absolutely right. So using the law enforcement team, as I'll explain later on in meeting, they've had some pretty strong engagement with dog walkers of late. So we're confident that they have the capacity to try and influence that change. We're also going to construct some more signage in the area, and we'll be using the licensing system to communicate with dog walkers, professional dog walkers who we know can be non-compliant to try and influence that change as well. So we're quite confident with the different uses that we've got, but we'll see how that pans out over the next few hours. Thank you. Right, any other questions on the nature observed? Why hand over to the bank account news? Fine. Thank you. Nick, am I coming to you for the bank account or asamu, you reported back on that? Yeah. Thank you, Chair. That's right. It's me. All right, so I'm Nick, Nick Falcone, I'm Senior Corporate Accountant at the Fulham Council. So just on the bank account, so in terms of an update, we submitted a trust letter required by Nat West to them about a month ago, it was signed by the Chair, and so at least that month ago, and we have actually, yesterday, because we haven't heard back, we have logged a full complaint to Nat West, because it's taken far too long, and they have actually come back today acknowledging the complaint and letting us know that a member of the complaints team being contact with us in the next four working days, and also in terms of the bank account itself, they said a new analyst has sent a sent it over to Quality Control, and apparently if this all comes back signed off, they're hopeful the account will be opened by the end of the week. So that's what they've said, but I appreciate it's not all we want is it here, but we are continuing to chase them, so yeah, that's the latest on that. Thank you very much, Nick. That's really helpful, and I appreciate your work in pushing it forward. I should say, with another hat, I am a charity CEO, and I know that there are lots of my colleagues who are really frustrated with the bank opening process for charitable organizations which are much less complex than ours. I know someone who's been waiting for Santander to respond for about eight months, so I'm not totally surprised, but thank you for continuing to push it forward, and please do keep us updated, because we are very keen for it to be open, but thank you. Thank you. Lovely. Any questions on the bank account? Fine. Well, that wouldn't be, but I wanted to give the option anyway. Lovely, okay, on to the minutes, are the minutes approved, any amendments that people would like to make? Stephen, I thought you might have a suggestion for the minutes, please do take it away. They're not amendments, no. We discussed at some length the HS2 request for access to an exclusion zone, and saying we weren't going to be helpful to them, so they were helpful to us on the long-term future of what they've compulsory acquired. I wondered if there was any movement. Who would like to update on that? How much can we update in the public forum? I mean, you will know the limit how much we can share. Thank you, Jack. So there is an item on this on the manager's report, it's item number four, which I will be updating on, but all in all, we're still waiting for a response from HS2. On the future of the UTX land, and so the objective that we put in place to ourselves is that we will not grant any licenses, we won't grant any surveys to take place on the scrubs, on land that isn't vested by HS2, until we come into an agreement on the future of the UTX site, and the position remains the same, that we expect HS2 to hand the land back at nil premium, and that will be in lieu of a compensation claim. So we still await any response from HS2 on that one. Thank you very much, Asana. Great. Other than that, minutes approved. Lovely, unusual that there aren't amendments, but thank you very much. Great. Okay, item four, managers report, an unusually common, we're going to come to you first. So could you talk us through the trust financial performance in quarter four, please, and the 2324 financial year? Thank you, Chair. Good evening everyone. My name is Kamala Moti. I've provided finance support to parks and onwards scrubs. So today, I'm going to be just, the report's already been circulated, but it's covering the out-term, proposed out-term for 2324, but it's also proposing the budget. So just the highlighted figures, compared to quarter three, it's changed quite a bit. It's changed by 507,000, and that's mainly because many of the large items, like the contribution to Lynford-Christie Stadium, Kensington Dragons, which is 100,254, Lynford-Christie Stadium, have now all been delayed, but they do form part of the budget for next, for next, for next year that we're proposing. So the amount, the difference, it's 234,000 compared to budget, because budget, we were expected to have 329,465 surplus, but the surplus is now over 560,000. So the, there's various items that are contributing to this surplus, mainly the parking income, paying display has increased. So we're, compared to budget, it's 46,000 more, the Hammersmith Carpart licence has increased by 5,000, and also the KAA lease renewal, that's 25,000. So overall income, compared to budget, is 82,000, 749 over, and the expenditure is less by 151,000. So what that means is that there's going to be a, a much larger surplus, added to the trust funds, and so I'm not quite sure whether anyone's got any questions so far. Thank you very much, Carmen, and that's helpful to hear, particularly in line with our new reserves policy. I'll throw it over to questions in a moment. I had a question about the impact of the actors strike on our income and expenditure, and what that meant. Yes. I was on impact. Yes. So basically, we were forecasting around 6,000 pounds for the filming and events, right. Before KAA, that, that income was a lot more, but because of the actors strike, it's only around 1,000 pounds, that's being expected by the, by the year end. So basically it's gone down by 5,000 pounds. Fine. Thank you. That makes much sense. Thank you. May I just ask, this is, this is the American actors strike, we're talking about, how do I miss another strike over here? I think it's impacted because of the, the, we're international, so, so the film is, yeah. It was the trick question. Yeah. I'm thinking that it would be, it would, it would, it would impact it, but that's what the filming department has said to me, it's, it's been, it's been impacted, but I didn't know. And I think, unfortunately, we do have a media expert in the room, so could I hand over it? So Stephen, will you come in please? It is the American actors strike, Councillor Stanson, definitely, but that had a big impact on the making of films here as well, and actors and film workers generally have suffered quite significantly, it's over now, so it's onwards, but it, it, it just shows that we are a global world, whether we like it or not. And hopefully it will encourage more productions to move to this country from the state's long term. We can hope, and they can find a home, home on Wayman's Grubs. I did have another question, Chair, since I'm, I'm speaking anyway. May I? Yes. It's about the increased parking revenue. I was wondering if there was a breakdown as to how much of that is due to the weekend charging, how much is just general increase? I have asked the parking section, Chair, for the information, but they haven't actually given me that split yet, but I'm hoping by the end of the year they'll be able to give me that. Thank you. We did mention this last time. Yes, I have, I have requested it from the parking sections. Thank you. And we'll say end of year is that end of this financial year? End of year, so end of March. Thank you. That's great. So that could be circulated. Right, from act of strikes to parking charges. Any other questions on the budget? Chair, that was just, that was just the year end. Sorry, I can't, Chair, go into some detail about the budget, if you wish. Sorry, yes. Any other questions on the year end before we go into the budget? Fine. I think over to you, Carmen, for the, for the budget. Okay. Yes. For, for the budget, so some of those items that were not delivered in 23, 23, 24, I've now been, are now being proposed for the budget. So that includes the Lindford Christie's stadium contribution of 250,000 includes the, the, um, sorry, another 250,000 for the Kensington Dragons. And those are the major, major items of 500,000. The income for the pain display is because of the, we're expecting more income because of the weekend parking. That's the average, um, of the, of this year's out turn and the highest average that was in 20, in 19, 18, 19. So that's 360,000. So, um, we were, we're exceeding that this year, but we're just setting that budget just in case there's just been some anomalies in, in this year. The car park income for, from the hospital is based on the actual signed lease. So that's, that's the main items. You can see them listed there, KAA is still expected to remain on site for the full financial year. So I'm not quite sure if anyone's got any questions on, on those, those items there, too. Thank you so much. Come in. Any questions on the budget? Stephen. Um, there's an item in the small print, as it were, the notes. Yes. The, the talks about the depot and grounds maintenance improvements, 50,000 contribution to the overall costs that will be incurred by the council. Um, I've been asking though, not for some meetings now, but for a couple of years prior to, uh, laying off when, um, a proper analysis might be made of how much of the depot is used for the scrubs and how much is used by the council for other parts of the borough. And therefore, what is the appropriate, uh, payment from the borough to the charitable trust for its use of it. And I know this is a very complicated question, but when capital costs are incurred, it just gets more complicated. Thank you. Thank you. Delighted to know that we spoke about this about two weeks ago with the officer group, and I think work is we're trying to work out how best to approach the complex bit of work given that it is all quite interwoven. So it's something that we are thinking about how best to approach. So thank you for raising it. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Marvellous Carmen, you've answered all of them within the paper and your report. So thank you very much. Thank you. Um, are we happy to approve the 24-25 budget? Good. I'm going to take the nod as approval. Oh, hello, Councillor quand, sorry, I didn't see you there. Welcome. Um, lovely. Great. Well, that is approved. Thank you very much. And Carmen, I think that might be your own item. So you're very welcome to stay with us for the duration of the evening, but I appreciate you may also have other things that you would like to do with your time so we won't hold it against you if you do leave. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Nick, back over to you for the trust financial reserves policy. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So okay, so the reserves policy. You might remember that the trust auditor's MHA recommended in there that all it findings report of the 22-23 statement of accounts that the trust should have a formal reserves policy, which includes justification for why the trust holds reserves as well as a target reserves balance. The full policy is set out in Appendix 1, and it is actually based on a template that the MHA kind of provided. So that's been helpful. So in summary, the trust holds unrestricted reserves, which can be broken down into two categories, so you've got three reserves and then designated funds. So starting with the three reserves, these are there to help the trust cover cooperating expenditure over a six to 12-month period. In the eventuality that the trust were to lose one or more of its sort of three main income streams being the pain display parking, the KAA license, as well as the Agnes Smith Hospital car park license. So having these reserves would give the trust some time to potentially restructure its operations and find ways of either increasing income or reducing its expenditure or combination of two, but as well as these three reserves, the trust can also designate certain amounts of reserves for its future needs. So for example, in the policy, the trust to set aside designated funds for future capital maintenance works, which would go towards a number of upcoming projects, including work on the lymphachristi stadium and access improvement works or other things that are coming up. So it should be made clear, though, that the trust can choose to redesignate or redesignate these reserves at any time, so they don't need to be kept for that purpose. As at the 31st of March, 2023, you won't remember, the trust has total unrestricted reserves of 1.458 million and 700,000 pounds is designated for future capital maintenance works at the moment with the remaining 758,000 as free reserves. And this level of free reserves is within the target range of between 6 and 12 months of the trust's core operating expenditure. So the policy and the target will be reviewed and presented to committee annually as part of the trustees report, so it will be reviewed and the auditors will also review it as part of their work. So that's kind of a summary of the policy, and I'm happy to take any questions on that. Thank you so much, Nick, and for all of your work on this, I think for a long time, we've thought we should have reserves at set, so this is a really positive step. Councillor Stanton. Thank you. And perhaps this is a silly question. I understand the concept of a lower limit to reserve, but what will be the practical effect of us going way past the upper level of reserves, would we effectively be forcing ourselves to spend the money, reallocate it, or would we just simply reassign a different number to the policy? Okay, that's a good question, thank you, thank you. So I think the idea is the upper target, so that's for the sort of the free reserves, this idea of reserves that are used for the sort of the rainy day scenario, and then funds above that upper target would be designated for particular projects. So the capital works that we've got plans for, so exactly it hopefully to discourage the thought that we don't need them, because we know that we do have ways of spending the reserves, the target is more for that sort of free level of reserves that can be used to meet, to meet our almost everyday costs, if our income was a fail, if it's on capacity. Thank you, so that our target is our aim to make sure that we've got 12 months of running costs, but beyond that, are you saying we'd have to have the designation for remaining funds as above the upper limit? Yes, we would, and the designation can be changed, it's not, it can be, so it's designated for a purpose, but it doesn't have to stay as that purpose forever. It's just to give a sort of structure to how we want to use our reserves, sorry how the trust wants to use its reserves. You're very happy to take comments on this, I think in my view it's helpful to have some designation around money that going over and above the reserves to show that we do actually know what we want to do with worms' grubs, with our finances, and to offer that assurance that we're not just sitting, kind of building a dragon's egg of money that we're not going to do anything with, we are going to use it for improvements and maintenance of worms' grubs, but very happy to take comments and thoughts from the Committee. Or not, oh, looks okay, approving thumbs up from Stephen, lovely, brilliant, but in that case, are we happy to approve the reserve's policy? Lovely, thank you very much. Thanks so much Nick, and again Nick, if that's your last item, again, very welcome to stay with us for the evening, also completely understand if you would like to have the rest of your evening back. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much, thank you for your work. Lovely. Asama, can I hand over to the Outdoor Learning Initiative, please? Absolutely, thanks a lot Chair. Just a quick note as well to say thank you to Carmen and Nick for their really hard work in putting together the budget and the reserves' policy, yeah, it's been a pleasure to work with them on that. So Outdoor Learning on the Scrubs, we all know that the Scrubs being a 200 acre open space has a lot to offer in terms of Outdoor Learning. And so I've been working with a couple of qualified local parents, they're Forest School Level 3 trainers, and so they are very, very keen on nature, they're very enthusiastic about the Scrubs, and we've been putting our heads together to think about how we can design an initiative for young people that fits within the kind of local primary school framework of learning that can either be offered as sort of in-school lessons, or it could be offered as a kind of wraparound care after school, after school club. So we're thinking about essentially teaming up with the Old Oak Community Centre as they are kind of rebranding as a family hub in April. That means that access to the centre is going to be a little bit different now. It lends itself nicely to family related activities such as kind of Forest School, being able to make the most of the space. So this committee is asked to approve a 10,000 pound budget to run a pilot outdoor learning initiative throughout the summer and autumn months of 2024. And the idea is that we will run a sort of six to eight week program with local parents, and we will monitor the kind of the success of the program, we'll see how the children enjoy it. We will evaluate all of the learning outcomes related to how the tools are indicating what those outcomes could look like. And we could potentially license a community operator to deliver outdoor learning on the scrubs on behalf of the trust. So yeah, this committee is asked for a 10,000 pound budget in order to kick off with that initiative. Thank you very much, Stephen. Not against this at all, but interested to know where it's intended to be, because I know that Forest Schools need to move about, and it says in dog tree areas, of which I think there are only two. One is the playground area and perhaps the woods immediately adjacent to the pre-book street playground, and the other is the Lintra Christi Stadium. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Stephen, yet the kind of earmarked area for the Forest School at the moment is the back of the older community centre. The reason being proximity to the community centre, if we've got lots of little people walking around, then, you know, access to toilet facilities is quite key, and just general accessibility of getting on and off the scrubs is obviously a very key factor in establishing anything like this. So we have earmarked to that space, and the idea is that we'll work with the grounds maintenance team to cord it off that area, so I've got in mind that we could put kind of rope and post fencing with some signage, and we could kind of enable the area so we might have to wood ship some of the particular routes that people would be walking through, and just to kind of band up certain areas around the perimeter, just to make it a little bit harder for dogs to access the area as well, and we'll do some litter picking beforehand and just prep the area before any of those sessions take place. It will be an iterative program, so if the trainers come to us and say, you know, there's certain locations that we've had an eye on, that they're really keen to use, then, you know, this is a pilot program, so it's part of the reason to identify new locations as well. If they come to us and they say they want to use the central cops, then they'll have to demonstrate how they're going to make that accessible, and how they're going to ensure this safety of the participants in using that particular space, all of that will be considered when we kick off. Thank you very much. Yeah, so just to put it back on the dog-free thing, is it going to be dog-free? So will the area be dog-free for the whole six to eight weeks extended the program? And when you say dog-free, is that more for the risk of small children coming into contact with dog mess, or for the risk of off-leash, lots of dogs coming into contact with small children? And if it's just a rope and post-fence, how is that going to be put in place? So the current PSPO designation notifies that we have a prohibited dog walking areas for when forest calls are in session. So essentially, it would only be restricted when forest calls are open. The central cops area, which we need to talk to the community safety team about, because for some reason they created that as completely prohibited, even when forest calls aren't open, which is something that we need to take a view on. That's a factor that's been played into the fact that it's a borough-wide initiative. The scrubs is obviously quite a different place, so it needs slightly different designations. But the idea is that they would be restricted areas within the session time, and then open back up and sort of surveyed before the sessions, so we'll pick up any dog mess. We'll get rid of any detritus beforehand. Again, this is all part of the learning around how we would manage something like this. And so it's quite key that the partners that we've got are also very aware of the issues that we've got around dog walking. So I suspect that we'd have to take a few different measures, but we'll see once we're ready to kick off with the plan that they've proposed. Thank you. You're muted, Chair. Oh, sorry. Thanks very much. Councillor KWAN. Thank you. On the notes, it says that the initial pilot will be Summer Autumn 2024. Is that because of the weather or if this pilot was successful? Is this something that could actually be going sort of 12 months of the year or is it necessitated because of good weather or British weather that it has to be in this sort of spring/summer time? That's a really, really good question. So it's really just an accident of where we've lined in a calendar. So I, to be honest, I tried to crack on with this earlier, how do I have managed to engage with these parents a little bit sooner? I think, ideally, if we can design the site so that outdoor learning can happen year round, then that would be ideal. But we all know the difficulties of traversing the scrubs during wet periods. And especially, you know, when we think about accessibility, with the lack of kind of hard standing areas, it's quite difficult to manage a session like that without risking quite a lot of different issues arising. So I think it would be nice to evaluate the projects based on having nice weather. We will have to take a view once the master plan works are completed as well, because naturally, you know, if we've got more footpaths in the area, that will lend itself to a different type of usage. And that means we could potentially kind of extend the outdoor learning throughout the wetter season to potentially. And then, technically, if this pilot were to be successful and it were to go forward, where would the funding come from for sort of subsequent future programs? It says community partner, but I've not been involved in a for a school program before, so I wasn't sure what those partners or who they were. That's a really good question as well. So my view on this is that we can take an evaluation of the six to eight week pilot, and then I can go away and do some fundraising to raise some money to have it be something that we can depend on for kind of longer term for the trust. And so that community partner will be someone that we licensed in order to operate the initiative, but we'll write joint bids with the person or with the organisation in order to raise the money to make it more sustainable. Okay, thank you, yeah, it would be interesting to find out once you've done the sort of research into that area, how sustainable it would be, because I think if it was successful, this would be a fantastic sort of local access for urban living children to sort of spend more time outdoors, and if obviously we can provide that without spending some of our own money, that would be even better. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, yeah, a couple of questions, what age would the Forest School participants see? And also, could you circulate a map of the area that you're intending to use that we can circulate to the friends members as well, please? Absolutely, yeah. So we're looking at the moment of sort of supporting children, seven, seven and older kind of between seven and perhaps 1415, and again, you know, because it's a pilot and we're working with a number of different local institutions, we're not necessarily driven by the restriction of one school's timetable. This could be something that we could offer to colleges. It could be something that we offer to private schools, if they want to pay for us, but for the service. There's a lot of different ways that we could go about it, but I guess the thing that matters right now, and I'm really glad that you've highlighted it, is that we pay attention to the right location, and we make sure that that location is accessible, it's clean for the level that it needs to be, and it's kind of cordoned away from where we know that PSBI non-compliance is an issue. So yeah, I will circulate a map of where the locations are being talked about, and it's obviously a little bit difficult to explain it on a live stream, but yeah, I'll send that round after this meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you, and forgive me if I'm asking you again a silly question, I'll be honest, when I saw that it was summer autumn, I had assumed that this was a school holiday project, but from what you're saying, it's not, is the anticipation that the outdoor learning takes place within normal school time, or is it okay? So we have one private school who has said that they would like to offer it as part of their school day, and so when I mentioned summer to autumn in the managers report, it would initially be off the back of the end of the school year, and then going into the summer. So going into this sort of August time, July, August time, and that's where we could test it out with different kind of models of charity delivery, so it wouldn't necessarily have to be through a school, but it would be with the local community centre, and with other groups that are doing something similar elsewhere in West London, but they don't necessarily have the space. So that's kind of, if you like, we're building the school bit at the start of the summer, the additional bit in the autumn, and then we can kind of evaluate everything as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Stephen? Yes, I'm very supportive of Councillor KWAN's idea of this being a community access outdoor initiative. If it's going to be private schools or for profit operators, I think it's important that they're appropriately charged so that the financial benefit doesn't go to them too much and comes to the charitable trust to an appropriate level. I think we're all of the same mind, and to subsidise other schools or communities doing it as well, so very much taken on board. Thank you. Lovely. All right. So that sounds positive. Are we happy to approve this item? Great, lovely. Thank you very much. Slightly less positive, HS2BBVS works within the limit of land to be required and used to catch title item 5, a summer. Thanks again, Chair. So on the 26th and 27th of February, BBVS, HS2 contractors undertook some vegetation clearance works within a parcel of land currently owned by HS2 and subject to the same vesting notice as the UTXI, which sits adjacent to the older common name. So this work is required in order to enable the diversion of UKPN electrical utilities into the UTXI. Before those works took place, officers received an ecological survey of the area which consists of low-line shrub, blackthorn scrub, modified grassland, and a single-line tree. So no evidence of bat roosts or reptiles were found during the survey, and the diversion works are due to be conducted until the end of April 2024. So in order to facilitate these diversions, BBVS have highlighted the potential for two other mature trees that may need to be felled, and so officers have urged BBVS and HS2 to redesign that scheme with a view to retaining those trees. The trust position is maintained that we obviously don't want to see any trees, especially if they're not diseased and they mature be felled at all. So that's been made very clear to BBVS and HS2, and before any action has taken, an additional ecological assessment will be required for those two other trees, and once we've reviewed that, I will get back in touch with the members of this committee and agree that position. It may be that they can completely redesign the scheme so that they avoid the trees altogether. That might mean that they might have to come further into the scrubs. Very hard to say at this point, but yeah, I can come back to you for more information on that one. Thank you very much, Asana. Hey, can you remember which were the two other mature trees, because I know we've got a big willow tree in that area which has got potential bat roosts. So one of the trees is the willow tree that has been identified. And then I think we have a, I think it is a, it's not a lime tree. I think it might be an oak tree potentially. I'll need to have a look at the notes again, but both of them have been identified as potentially needing to be felt. So once we've got them plotted on a map, preferably not a map that's plotted by engineers who are talking to themselves, once we've got it clear in a location, then I can share that with all the committee members. I'll share that with the friends as well. And we can take a view on how to respond to that. And just to have an obvious, I think you can probably imagine how we felt about hearing that news, given that this is on HS2 land, it does make our power somewhat limited, but we will obviously, obviously as much as we can. Any questions on this? Fine. Thank you. Well, looking forward to having the update with me when it's ready. Sticking with HS2, the future of the UTX site, a song sticking with you. Thanks again, Chair, so as mentioned previously, we are still waiting for HS2 to get back to us on the future ownership of that site. And so just to reiterate that it is our position to not grant any licenses or any access for any additional works that is outside of HS2 vested land until we get clarity on the future of the UTX site. And that includes rebuking any ideas to fill any trees which are sitting on trust land. We won't permit that to happen, we won't permit any works to proceed until we've got that clarity. Yeah, that's not to say that we would necessarily permit a tree to be filled, even if we did get clarity on the UTX site. So that's the update there. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. Any questions on this item? Okay. Sorry. Just, I think you said, but I missed what was the date that they were going to revise their plan for whether or not they needed to fill the way they treated potentially? Great question. I'm on to Alex Cobb, so he is one of the BBVST members. I've got a thread with him and Zoey from the friends. He hasn't given me an exact date of when to get back to us with the redesign, but I'll get back onto him ASAP. They can't just go ahead and fill it at that stage. Well if it's within the limit of land, they would obviously have to notify residents beforehand and then have to make that very clear on the communications. If they were to do it in their land, then we would have very little power to do anything about that. However, if it's on the trust land, then we would have to give them permission in order to do so. And we would withhold that permission. So I can definitely get back in touch with him to get a revised timeline of that. There's something interesting. So the willow tree, which is very large, because I remember it came up as an issue when they were originally plotting the alternative access route. And they didn't want to go near the willow tree at the point. I can't remember whether it's fully on HST land or whether it's on trust land because it's sort of on the boundary. So I'd be very interested to have some more specifics on that because that's a very big, very old tree with a lot of, I think battery potential was the main thing from a ecological perspective. Now I ask, is it possible to get a TPO on the tree? A tree preservation order? I was just thinking, if it's on, I think if it's on our land, it's probably more possible. Because the incredible dominance of the HS2 Act is something to behold. I think at every level of the council and surrounding boroughs, we're all slightly struggling to come to terms with how all encompassing it is. I think we can absolutely look into whether we could do a TPO on the willow if it is on trust, on Scrubs land, but as we say, sorry, on HS2 land, but as it says, if it's on trust land, we wouldn't be giving permission for it to be failed anyway. Just one thing to mention on that note, Chair, is the fact that since we have taken the position of not granting any permissions, that has really significantly impacted the whole schedule of works for older consultation. And so while trust, while officers aren't, we're very much aware of the impacts, there is a wider impact for the whole project. And so we need to be quite clear about what it is that we want to see out of this. And to be honest, the future of the UTXI is the thing that we are very clear in needing clarity on. And so if that means delaying construction, so be it, I've been given verbal assurances from HS2, which I don't want sharing, that is their intention to hand back the land after it is deemed surplus to requirements. And so that verbal agreement is great, but we need it written down on paper, so it shouldn't really be too much of an issue. And as they say, the ball's in their court. Yeah. Thank you. And I think, I mean, I will check in with everyone else, but I think that's still very much the view of this committee. All they have to do is put it in writing, and we're happy if the works continue, but as you said, the ball's in their court. But can I just ask, is that hand back or sell back? Or is that the pressure to hand back? So we would submit a compensation claim if we thought that the land wouldn't be surplus to their requirements once the station is open. Since we do think it's going to be surplus to their requirements, and we have offered that we will give the utility companies access to their assets that we can manage, then they won't. They shouldn't need it, essentially. So that means that we won't submit a compensation claim. Essentially, no money changes hands. They give us back the land, everyone's happy. And this is it. It should be a very simple solution, and yet, yeah, it's for those of us who've been involved for longer, even than Osama, this has been the position that the trust has taken from the start. We've had verbal assurances from the start, and they're renewed, but we can't get it out of them in writing. We don't trust them without it in writing. Absolutely. Thank you. Great. Well, given that seems to be the continued view of the committee, I think let's proceed. Okay. Fine. Thank you. Change of subject, Vicki, over to you for an update on the master plan. Thank you, Chair. My name's Vicki Abel. I'm the one with scrubs development manager, and this is to update on progress with the master plan. So this morning, the planning application for the work within the master plan was finally submitted a little bit later, as I was expecting it to be submitted last week, but a few days here or there. So that application includes a number of supporting documents, and these have been reviewed by Hammersmith and Fulham and HS2 prior to being submitted. They include a planning statement, which assesses how the proposals align with national, regional and local policies, and a design and access statement that explains and justifies the proposals. It includes an assessment of the planning context and all the previous consultants that were undertaken as the proposals were being developed. The design and access statement also includes details of the capital works within the master plan and also the longer term management and maintenance of the ecology of the site for the 10 years after the capital works have finished. There are also documents relating to biodiversity net gain, which assess the ecology of the site and measure the impact of the proposals and the extent to which the ecological value will be improved and diversified as the proposals are implemented. So these documents along with the flood risk assessment and construction management plan will be available to view on the OPD's website as part of the public consultation element of the planning process, which is likely to start in approximately three to four weeks time, but the exact time scale of that will be determined by OPDC. At the time of the public consultation, OPDC will display written notices on site and will, obviously, will inform the friends as soon as we know the dates of public consultation. I'll also ask HS2 to publicize this through their community engagement channels. We will also display an A3 poster around the site and in the notice boards to inform people how they can view the documents and make comments, as well as updating the H&F webpage on the scrubs. OPDC will contact several statutory consultees as part of the process, which includes contacting the friends, the nearest neighbours, including local residents, the prison and the hospital, and also organisations such as Natural England and Sport England and Hamsmith and Fulham Planning and High Waste Departments. So the next steps will depend on the outcome of the planning process. A decision on the planning application will be due in approximately 13 weeks time, so we could have a decision in June. If we receive no major objections to the work, then we will be able to go out to tender following the public consultation process and that tendering process will take approximately four to five months to a point, a contractor from the start of the process. So if that is successful, work could be on site in October 2024. Thank you very much. Any questions? The application is not live on the OPD's website yet. Will it only go live when the public consultation opens, or will we be able to view the documents? Yeah, I think it won't be until the public consultation phase, which is 21 days. So now that the application has been submitted, it will take OPDC about 10 days to validate the application and then check all the documents are there, all the ones that they need, that nothing is missing. And then I don't know what happens for a period of about two to three weeks after that, but they've said that the public consultation will start in approximately three to four weeks after it's been submitted. Thank you very much. Steven. Thank you, Chair. I'm looking forward to seeing the documents and I congratulate you on getting them in. It's been a very complicated and long drawn out process. About two or three months ago, I know that the Chair and yourself and some others, not me and some of my colleagues on the Friends Committee, Trustees, did a walk and looked at the wet areas and because, as you know, quite a number of those in the Friends take the pond, which we welcome the idea of a pond is not in the right place, and I wondered whether there had been any adjustment made following the undertaking to review things following that walk. Thank you. Well, the pond is still in the same location that it was in when the Master Plan was approved back in March last year, so that didn't change. The areas that we visited, it was very wet at the time, but a lot of those areas, particularly more to the north, that scenario where we can make scrapes along the bottom of the embankment. So there will be wet areas, informal, seasonal wet areas along that part of the scrubs. And then the SUDs scheme, you know, the reason for doing that is to try and cope with surface water and manage surface water a lot better. So they will be collecting a lot of that water in a way which should make some of the areas drier. Thank you, Enrique. Do you want to say why we made the decision to not move the pond? We did meet to discuss it. And do you want to feedback why in consultation with colleges we decided not to? Yeah, well, so all you see, we're also at that meeting. There are consultants that are working on the project and working on the Master Plan. And some of the SUDs do feed into the pond. So, you know, some of the water that is being collected, particularly to the north of where the pond is located, will be channelled down into the pond. So that's like one of the main reasons that the pond is there, as well as it being a focal point in that location and providing an opportunity for people to come out onto the scrubs and access an area of nature which is accessible by the proposed footpaths as well. Thank you, Fay. Yeah, quick question, I know it's hard to look at without actually seeing the documents, but I know that there's an issue with dog flea and tick treatments in contaminating water sources, which has been happened elsewhere, like on the Hampstead Heath and things. So if the water is feeding into the pond from other locations where dogs are like swimming, does that mean taking into consideration in terms of how that might impact wildlife and then we might end up with like an overgrowth of water and algae and stuff. So yeah, so the SUDs, the swells that are feeding into the pond are really quite shallow. They're only kind of 30 centimetres deep. So it wouldn't, if they're full, they would be 30 centimetre to be, but I mean it'll be draining away all the time and channelling it, channelling into the pond. So the chances of those swells being full of water all the time is quite minimal, really. There'll be quite a lot of dogs swimming in the top of which fuddles and things, the longest grubs at the moment. It's very popular. It's a very interesting and niche question, which I'm not totally sure that we'll have the answer to. Sure. We can come back to you on that. I've certainly never thought about that, but now it sounds like there's going to be some disgusting research looking at too. So thank you very much, interesting question, guys. Stephen. Just to say that the trustees of the Friends have fought the committee, including external experts on such issues, and we're looking forward very much to reviewing the detailed documents and making such commensive NAs, we think, right, thought it only right to say that. Well, as ever, we look forward to the present. Right. Any other questions on the master plan, or are we happy to note that and move on? Okay. Sorry. Yeah. One final point to release a question, is the plant either going to be cordoned off or like will there be a fence? We are thinking extensively about the design to make sure it is safe so that we're not going to have children coming from the Forest School falling into the pond, for example. Thank you. Right. Okay. And thank you so much, Vicki, and that's been a laborious exercise just a bit easy, so thank you so much for putting that together. Right. Sticking with the master plan, do you want to update us on the funding application submitted? Yeah. So, as we know, the budget was for this, for the master plan was decided quite some years ago, and costs have increased, escalated in the number of areas, not only resources, but materials as well. So, obviously, we're trying to bolster the budget as much as possible and applying for any other grants that are available. So, basically, there's three that we've applied for recently, one of them being two, weight just two to their community and environment fund, and the bid was for £244,000 towards the cost of implementing the footpaths and the signage that are included in the master plan, but won't be funded by HS2's AEM master plan budget. But, unfortunately, that's been rejected by HS2 at the moment, and we won't be able to reapply for that until the master plan work has been tended, and we know what the short for, if any, is, but we can go back to them at a future time when we do know that. We do know that we need a budget of around 350,000 to construct the footpaths and install the signage, and also to install some benches and improve the entrance areas in general. So, therefore, we're going to start looking at investigating other sources of funding, including section 106 from OPDC, who I have spoken to about this before, but they wanted some funding from HS2 as well. So, yeah, but we can go back to them on that at a later time when we know the cost, the full cost of the master plan work. But, a fund that we were successful in applying for was for the Urban Tree Challenge Fund, and we secured just over 26,500 pounds, which funded 40 trees to be planted on scrubs, including 17 fruiting trees, which make up the two orchards close to Braybrook play area. These were planted in early February, unfortunately, some of them were planted in the wrong location and are not consistent with the master plan, so we'll have to be transplanted, and that's going to happen next week. And then we also put a bit into the National Flood Management Fund for 125,000 pounds towards the cost of the pond and the suds. We haven't been notified, whether that's been successful or not yet, but I'm kind of thinking that this might not be a priority for them as we have already benefited from the HS2 funds, but it's there and it's open to everyone to apply for, so we have done. Thank you very much, Stephen. And I welcome all this effort to raise extra money, knowing that cost will have gone up since the money was allocated. You mentioned benches, which reminds me that two benches have appeared on the scrubs, of which us crops manager apparently didn't know about in advance with plaques on them, presumably organised by the mother as a parks department, and to urge that any benches should not be plunked on the scrubs without the approval of at least the scrubs manager. And that if there's money accruing as a result of this arrangement, it should come to the charitable trust, I assume to keep saying that, as opposed to the borough. Thank you. Thank you. Any update on the road benches? Do we know where they've come from? A summer. Thank you, Chair. So the bench just to the Olympic Christie Stadium is to commemorate one of the members of the Thames Valley Harriers, passed away recently, but also we have a second bench closer to the scrubs lane entrance, which I think is in quite a good location. And we do have redesigned the system so that I am notified essentially once we get a request like that, and then that will be circulated to the friends when we get a request. Obviously, we don't want to open. And on date our whole park with, well, our open space with lots of benches making it seem like a park, want to ensure that we place bins in the right locations and have signage that reflects the wayfinding that people require on the scrubs. So all of that is being considered as part of the master plan and the reorientation of space. But I take, says Stephen's comments on board and in the future, if we get any requests for benches on the scrubs, then I'll be in time. Thank you. Thank you. One. Thank you, I'll be happy to note item eight, fine. Moving on to item nine, who is Osama, going to you for the coffee ban? Thanks again, Chair, so in 2021, this committee sought to engage a coffee ban operator at Olympic Christie car park, and this was an interim measure to defer the development of a permanent cafe space on the estate. Due to COVID-19 restrictions within the borough, events and concessions were limited, which stored the process of recruiting an operator. Successive consultations undertaken on the scrubs have highlighted the need for this offer to be realized on the estate. With the ongoing capital works across the estate, including at the Olympic Christie stadium, the option for a permanent cafe space is limited at the moment. To demonstrate the trust commitment to ensuring that consultation insights are acted upon, this committee is asked to approve a procurement process to license a coffee ban operator at the Olympic Christie stadium car park. And so that process will involve, excuse me, developing a specification, engaging with local businesses as potential applicants, inviting tender submissions, reviewing those submissions, selecting an operator, awarding a license and then monitoring their performance. After spring to operations, an evaluation will be sent to the committee for further consideration with the potential to extend the licensing period. I would envisage that we would initially give a license for about six months, but we would have to negotiate that with the potential operator. And obviously they'll have to have all of the right conditions, permissions in place beforehand if they plan on serving more than coffee, things like their food handling and food safety certificates will have to be in place. So all of that will be considered as part of the procurement process. So this committee is asked to approve that process to seek an operator. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just to say, we do think that will be very important. We also don't want to disadvantage small businesses or small local businesses from applying as well. So I've asked for this to be mindful. Even a welcomeness very much. I hope that one of the conditions will be related to litter, not increasing literature will. I would like to suggest that you think about a 12 month initial period rather than a six month with intermittent reviews during that period to give the prospective licensee a proper chance to get established and see how it goes across the seasons. Thank you. I would be very open to that. Good suggestion. Thank you. Why don't we take it back and just see if we can make sure we can definitely do it under the procurement regulation. Thank you very much. So that sounds like that's got, that's been met warmly. We're happy to approve. Marvelous. I am looking forward to a coffee on Scrubs. Who knows? Maybe we could have the next meeting next to the coffee then. Lovely. Item 10. Limper Christi capital programme. Can I go to Simon, please? It's a good evening chair. My name is Simon Indian. I'm the assistant director for Parks and Leisure. Simon. It currently looks like you're in witness protection. You're very fuzzy. I may have a problem briefly with my camera or internet connection, but can you hear me clearly? It can hear you very well. I think it's, for some reason, not disaggregated you from your background, so making it fuzzy has made everything fuzzy. I'll turn my video off, hopefully, but yeah, I've seemed to have lost all my pictures at the moment currently time, but if you hear me, I will press on. We can hear you fine. I think it's, if you just turn off the, well, I think it was fine to have your camera back on. But yeah, absolutely up to you. Fine. You can't see every detail of your lovely face, but that is quite all. Okay. Sorry about that internet connection issue. My name is Simon Indian. I'm assistant director of Parks and Leisure at Ham Smith and Fulham Council. I've got two items to update on item 10, refers to two of the three capital schemes we're looking to progress on Limper Christi Stadium. The first is an update on the demolition of the changing rooms. This project is being led by the Council's corporate property team. We were making good progress before Christmas, but unfortunately, due to personal reasons, the colleague who was leading on this, unfortunately, left the Council. The service is working hard to deploy temporary resource to begin the contract tendering process and will hopefully have a more positive update at the next committee meeting in June. With regards to the track resurfacing, we recently delivered a purchase order to a framework contractor, Alliance Leisure, who is working on the first phase of this project for us, working on feasibility studies, further site surveys around the track, in particular looking at developing the new LED flood lighting system for the track system. Once this phase is complete, we'll have a cost certainty in terms of delivering the improvement of the facilities. We're obviously working well with the Thames Valley Harriers Athletics Club to make sure that we can deliver their forthcoming summer season, particularly in light of things like the Olympic Games. Later this summer, construction is set to start after the main part of the athletic season and certainly the key fixture for Thames Valley Harriers and should take between four to six weeks to be delivered. We'll bring back a further or detailed report in June, but happy to answer any further questions in the meantime. Thank you very much, Simon. Any questions? No, my comprehensive report given, so no questions, lovely, well noted, thank you very much. So I'm staying with you for an update on the Kensington Dragons picture resurfacing project. Yes, thank you, Chair. A little bit more detailed item on this one, because Kensington Dragons Football Club have made some significant progress since we last met as a committee. Originally, when these works were indicated in commission back in 2020, there was an outline project total cost of approximately a million pounds. We met recently with Kensington Dragons after they'd been out to tender, where they had received four contractors who submitted bids for this work to deliver the new artificial grass pitches within a designated that the committee had approved previously under development license and lease for the club. The total cost of those bids have come in, as you'd expect, significantly more. We heard earlier in the meeting about the cost increases around the HS2 capital works. The cost to deliver the artificial pitches have significantly increased due to materials, labor, and other reasons in the last four to five years. We, as a committee, have already committed to fund quarter of a million pounds towards the total cost based on the original total cost of one million pounds. This club have worked hard to kind of value engineer or put off some of the less urgent or immediate expenditure, and have come up with a total cost of approximately 1.5 million. This is half a million pounds more than the original total cost, and they've approached the council and the committee following that meeting in February to split that additional cost 50/50 between the club and the council. At the current time, we obviously don't have any additional resources that we can easily lay our hands upon to put towards these additional costs. So following discussion, we are looking at whether we further value engineer part of the scheme, that will benefit the council and the Lymph Christie Stadium and not affecting the delivery requirements for the Kensington Dragons Football Club. We're currently working through that cost reduction and the impact and what that might have on income, and we'll be bringing that back at a further date. But hope to make a decision once we have full cost certainty on the athletics stadium to see if there is any funding left within that project budget at the moment that could be brought forward into this scheme. And there is also an option to look at whether due to timing now of bringing these schemes together, whether there is any cost benefit analysis of working with Kensington Dragons and the council's capital project team to see if there's any efficiencies in scale of lumping all three of these projects together. There is a commonality of some of the framework contractors who have successfully bid for the Kansas and Dragons work, so that is also being explored to see how we can deliver all of these capital programs efficiently at Lymph Christie Stadium. But please to answer any questions, Councillor. Thank you so much, Simon. Stephen. It's not really a question, so much as to say that I know how frustrating it's been for, well, asks as well as Kensington Dragons that this has all taken so such a long time to get even to this stage and to ask whether there might be some way or any point in giving authority to the chair and officers to agree something not necessarily auto-million they're asking for, if you're value engineering and other activities you've just described, come to fruition much quicker than the June meeting. Thank you, Stephen. And obviously, we would be happy to take that decision if that's the committee's wish. You can see Councillor Stanton, I think Councillor Kwan are nodding, so I'm going to take that as agreement. Fine. So we will delegate authority for that. Me and the officers try and move something forward. I think obviously we are supported this game, we've committed to 250k already, so we do want to support it in any way we can, just as we know, costs are sky-high for everything at the moment. So I think they are very much the victims of that, but very happy to get delegated authority on that. Fine, and I think that's just a note anyway, isn't it? Thank you. Right. The priority grounds maintenance task to be completed, a sum of back over to you. Thanks again, Chair. So in response to resident feedback regarding the contracted vegetation management works that took place prior to ground nesting season, this committee is welcome to review a program of site activities set to take place between now and the next committee meeting in March. And so that information is included in the table in the management report. I won't go through every line, but I'll just highlight what we can expect to see on site. So the focus will be on maintaining the daily, weekly and monthly inspections regime, glass cutting, surface cleansing, bin emptying, synthetic pitch brushing, rectification of some performance issues, so things like getting rid of graffiti, installing the green flagpoles that we were supposed to have installed quite a while ago, remarking the lines on the synthetic football pitches and arranging annual slip testing on all the ball courts. The positive news is that our grounds maintenance contractor has shown the commitment to improving levels of service delivery by bringing in and operations manager with a strong prior knowledge of the scrubs and the barra, and he's really hit the ground running. So we're quite confident that we can work together in terms of establishing the forward work plan that I alluded to earlier, hopefully taking off all of the different confirming queries that have been outstanding for quite some time, and thinking about future works beyond June as well. Thank you very much, very straight in there. Yeah, who is the operations manager? So I'd like Liberty to share that if he isn't happy for me to do so, but I'd be happy to introduce you via email if you want to. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Thoughts? Looks good. I hadn't realised that there was lots of onion on north pole open space, but good to know. Thank you. Kate, is that a hand back up? Oh, yes, kind of. It was regarding the, I don't know if you're going to discuss what happened with the flailing of the community hedge earlier in February. Yes, I think let's do that after this item, just discussing the details of Grant's maintenance. Councillor Stanton. Thank you, Chair. So I was actually going to ask, I think you may actually, some have answered it, generally what the performance of the contractor has been like recently, because they have been issues with it, and you're saying that we are hopeful that all of the issues are behind us now, or some of them, or it's too early to say, with the caveat of what you've already said. That's a good question. So I think we're far from being completely out of any difficulty. We have a list of confirming, so confirm is the database that we use to monitor any performance failures, and so the ground's maintenance contractor has a very, very, very high number. Again, I'm not at liberty to say, as that might affect their performance. They have a very high number of confirming queries to tick off in other contract lots. So lots one and lots two are in a very, very, very different place to lot three. Relative to those other contract lots, we're doing, we're doing satisfactory. And so there are a list of confirming queries that I've got my eye on. These things like, let's order the green flag poles that we were successful in acquiring last July, but that haven't been ordered and haven't been installed. And so I think, to be honest, the change of operations manager and his clear, demonstrable knowledge of the scrubs and how to manage the depot has been quite impressive, to be honest. And so that's given me quite a lot of confidence in being able to think that we could be out of the out of the woods, and for the next two years that we've got on the contract, we want to make sure that we, well, they're able to deliver exactly what they're paid for and what they've signed the contract to deliver. And as a result of that, we can then expand any operational kind of ideas that we want to. But it has to be on the basis of what we've already set the KPIs up. Thank you very much. Stephen. I think that's the end of that issue, as lots of people know, that flailing on mechanical means were used where they shouldn't have been in the earlier scrub and bramble clearance. And over the course of a year or two, that will grow out, but it's pretty unsightly meanwhile, and very upsetting to those who are involved in the hedging. I've been asked to ask whether when after the bird nesting season in the autumn, the next round of scrub and bramble clearance takes place, whether that will all be manual or will include non-mechanical and flailing methodology. Thanks very much. We can say the hedge should not have been flailed, we're all upset and annoyed by it. I think we've had the discussion internally and the hedge will not be flailed. We are looking at providing some fruit trees and other things that we can round to improve the site. We know what's happened, but we are very upset and disappointed that it has. I think the reality is some of the bramble is so thick on the scrubs. It would be very, very hard to clear by any method other than mechanical. We know that bramble grows at a rate of like 20% a year. So when we're saying cutting back 20% of bramble, that doesn't mean in five years 100% of it will be cut back. It's about maintenance of it. And if anyone has ever tried to retrieve anything from the brambles or has been stuck on trying to pick blackberries, it is thick and it is really dense. And I think, unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to completely avoid using some mechanical intervention to clear some of the depths of it. As some, I don't know if you want to add anything to that. Thanks a lot, chat. Yeah. So one thing to factor into the forward work plan that we're looking to develop with ID birdie. A lot of the focus will be on the scrub and bramble management work after our nesting season. And so we'll be working with them where they should identify what kind of other means that they have in order to, if they are kind of robot controlled, remote controlled, mechanized vehicles, that's an option. I know that they've done really well in managing the bramble on little worm into scrubs, which I don't think that many people will know that they have their own little master plan going on at the moment, which has required some bramble management works, ID birdie actually used a kind of mechanized system to manage that bramble over there. So that looks really good. This works really well, but it's for ID birdie to come to us and to say what they've got available. And then we can take a view on which areas that would be suitable for. Obviously, we know that the meadow area is very ecologically sensitive, but we also know that the area has not really been touched to the level that they've been paid for. And that's the main thing. So it's not that as kind of contract client and managers that we're not willing to adapt our style and even to adapt the percentage rates and the approach to it, that's very much, you know, it's very not something that we're happy to engage with our contractor on. But the lack of demonstration of their commitment to hitting the target is the thing that's worrying rather than actually not doing the work necessarily. So that's something that we're hopeful that we're going to rectify now. We've got the new operations manager. Thank you. Steven. Yes. Thank you very much. Well, when cutting back brambles in particular, more than scrub, it's only really effective if you get the roots out, which probably does require mechanical means. And I've just been this afternoon, walking on the little scrubs, where there are areas where they've removed the roots, and just to confirm where mechanical means are used, they will be able to remove the roots, which will have the beneficial effect. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Anything else on this? Okay. Noted. Thank you. Right. Safety improvements, rubric street play area, a sauma, I think we're staying with you now until the end. So, I couldn't. Thanks a lot, Chair. So the consultation on safety improvements within Braybrook Street play area, concluded on the seventh of Feb, 68% of respondents support the idea of installing low-level wooden fencing around the play areas. In addition, the majority of respondents would like to see more play equipment installed in the area. And so before commissioning any new installations, the trust will investigate how the play areas can be redesigned to improve accessibility, safety, and the play value of the site. We all know that if we walk across, or in between those two play areas, when it's very wet and boggy, how you would kind of way find yourself between different play equipment is really, really difficult, you know, let's let alone the fact that someone might have a buggy or someone might have different access needs. So I have put a little bit of money in the budget for next year to obtain quotes from some play design companies to see how we can envisage the new area completely. And so that might it might look like we kind of uproot certain installations and we kind of group them all together, and then kind of fence that whole off that area off as a whole, rather than splitting them out as two. But the next steps for me will be to get some quotes from these design firms, get some ideas for how we can envisage the new space, and then I'll come back to committee with a proposal for how we could redesign the space, obviously more than happy to work with the friends in kind of developing ideas as well, most grossly with the children of audit community centre and the primary school. And so then I'll come back to committee with a kind of view of how we could how we could improve the area, make it more accessible and make it more useful for the children who use it. Thank you very much, any questions, thoughts? Fine, good, sounds good, thank you. Item 14, possibly the most exciting one on the agenda, the traffic management system, project completion. Thank you very much Chair, so subsequent to the message that I circulated to the committee last week, just so for everyone that didn't receive that message, the manager's report was published just before I'd received some updated information about the traffic management system, including the cost of constructing it. So in the manager's report, it's stated that we spent just over 85,000 pounds, in reality that's 20,000 pounds more expensive, about 105,000 pounds that we spent, and the increase in those costs were due to two factors, firstly the installation of the feeding pillar, which was incorrectly indicated to us by UKPM, that resulted in an additional 10,000 pounds that needed to be spent to re-excavate a new area to put the new feeding pillar into. When they did the second excavation, they found asbestos, so they needed to treat and remove all the asbestos, which was quite expensive. So that's the kind of reason why it was much higher than budgeted. We've got one step remaining, which is for us to install the metered connection, and then FrontierPits, the company that we commissioned to put the installation in, will program the FOBs on the 18th of March, so it will bring me great joy to be able to take a video of rising and falling bollards and send that to all the committee members, so we can finally put this onto that. Thank you very much, very much, thank you for being operational, and thank you for persevering for such a long time with this medical project. I think lots of lessons learned, but very exciting for it to finally be operational. Thank you, right, community safety update, as some are you talking us through? Thank you very much. That's right, that's right. And just off the back of the last update that I gave in traffic management, I'd just like to say thank you to the Highway team for being really, really supportive in kind of swooping in with their cape and fixing everything when it came to deciphering where the electrical connections were meant to be coming from and how they needed to interact with the new installation. Yeah, without that kind of resource, it would be very, very difficult for us to commission something like this, so just a shout out to that team. So in terms of the law enforcement report, so they've logged 282 interactions in the period between November and February 2024. The highlights of those interactions include five weapon sweeps, thankfully no weapons were found, 20 antisocial behavior patrols were undertaken at peak times, 124 high visibility patrols were undertaken, and 32 engagements with dog walkers resulting in two fixed penalty notices on the breach of public space protection or the rules on responsible dog walking. So two FPNs were issued on that note, and it also supported us with locking up all the gates that we continue to ask them to do as when they find them open, which is obviously a big help in terms of limiting vehicular access. So the let have also benefited from use of a GPS mapping platform that I mentioned last time called Active Exchange. And so I've been using that data to send them information that they can use to inform their patrol planning protocol. So when they, before they go out on to patrol, they have a kind of checklist of all the areas that they deem to be high-end locations, and that data is using, is helping them to kind of be a bit more proactive with how they approach patrolling on the scroll. Thank you very much. Any questions on the update? That's a small question, but I don't think you have the answer. It says that there's no, let me know since there's a flight tipping or no reports of flight tipping, which cannot be accurate because there are have been many instances of flight tipping. Did that just not come to that? That goes to the LVHF reported team or something instead. That's a really good point. It might be that the data that they've used didn't span the period in which the flight had happened, and they might not have recorded it. And so I can follow that up in terms of how they account for the information, but yeah, I can't really give any additional information on that. Thank you. Any other questions? If I may just to say that despite their best efforts and their interactions, there are a number of professional dog walkers who continue to ignore the limit of four dogs, not per person, but in a group, and they come with five or six each and walk two or three together, they appear to know when the LET are not there, and that's when they do it. Just to report that it's disappointing that there are a number of companies who seem to be willing to ignore the rules. Agree is disappointing, and I think unfortunately, unless we want to move to a 24/7 surveillance on the scrubs, which would be a bit more difficult, there's not a lot we can really do other than encouraging those dog walkers to uphold professional standards and asking residents to report it to us if they do have evidence of it. So thank you for raising it. Thank you very much. Any further questions on LET? Fine. Thank you. That comes into the managers report. Agree, I know we don't technically have a mechanism for AOB, but I'm just going to take chairs privilege to say, obviously, there have been a couple of things that we've become aware of in the community recently, we may be talking about the same thing. I don't know if you finish your thing first. Obviously, there is news that's spread like wildfire, although unfortunately, not through any of the proper professional channels, which we would expect about the possible proposed closure of older common lane for up to four years by HS2. Suffice to say, we were somewhat surprised by this, and this is what I was alluding to earlier with the powers of the HS2 Act. Mark Raisbeck is here, I'm going to ask him to introduce myself in a minute just to update on that and also our thoughts around the future of the station, so Mark, I might come to you. Yes, thank you, Jay. As you say, it rather came as a bit of a shock, the proposals and the way that they were communicated, the council, none of the councils involved were notified in advance, so a letter was hurriedly sent out from HS2 following that to try and clarify their position. They've made it clear in their statement, as far as you can get clear at this moment in time, that they are reviewing their options for the works on the common lane, and so they are saying that they haven't made any final decisions yet, but they are clear that they are considering their options, and one of those options could involve the closure of the lane for up to four years, which is obviously what's caused quite a considerable concern, and so we are attempting to engage as much as we possibly can, given that the closure is actually an ealing rather than Hammersmith and Fulham, although there is quite a significant impact clearly on Hammersmith and Fulham by those proposals, so we're seeking to engage and trying to have some input and understand what their option thinking is and how they're going to be working through that appraisal process, and we're engaging with parties, including TFL and as well as neighbouring boroughs, and we'll take legal advice if necessary if that's going to help us to understand what further action measures we could take to encourage them to engage with us, but has been set the powers that come with HS2 are quite significant, so but we will push and do as much as we can in order to find out what lies behind their thinking and what options they are considering, but at the moment there is a very lack of information which has come forward to understand what options they are appraising and why the four-year has appeared in their potential thinking, so that isn't a particularly clear update, but I think as you'll understand there isn't a lot of clarity at the moment, which is what we're trying to find there. And Mark, do you just want to say who you are as well? My apologies, yes. I'm the Director of Public Realm, so my responsibilities include in addition to parks and leisure, include highways and other services, and I'm linking in with my colleagues in the transport area of the Environment Department, which I sit in addition to colleagues in planning which are connected with this as well. Thank you very much. And that's it. We don't have a lot we can really say because it's so fast moving and we don't really have any of the details, rather astonishingly this is brought to our attention by an ealing resident flagging it before any kind of formal notification went out, sounds like OPDC rather taken by a surprise, so I'm not sure any of us are thrilled with the way this information has been disseminated given it is such a significant piece of news. We are, of course, conscious that it will be particularly devastating for residents in the Wellshouse Road, but will inevitably have a major impact in residents in the House of Newfoundland. And so at all levels, officer level, politically, we've been trying to engage with ealing, Brent RBKC. I met with Subdance, who's the Deputy Mayor of Transport for London earlier this week with Andy Slaughter. I'm seeing Peter Galfamich's two tomorrow to try and get somewhere with this because it's obviously a significant piece of news and massive change from where we were expecting things to be a couple of months ago. At the moment, we don't even have any information on when this closure might take place from, so we are extremely concerned about it. Happy to take any questions on this phase, this question related to audit common name. It is, yeah, it's just a quick follow-up. Hand Council officers, I guess this would be you, Mark, investigate the motive behind HST's possible query, which I've heard about removing the vehicular width restrictions into the older Costa State on the corner of the scrubs at Waterton Street, because that's within LBHS. I think it's, yeah, it's LBHF rather than ealing, I believe. I'm just interested to know if that connects to their plans to close the road. Thank you. Mark, are you aware of what I appreciate that it's highways? Those are plans I'm not aware of, so I'd be grateful to get some details of that, Faye, and I will look into that and come back to you. But prior to you mentioned it, no, I wasn't aware of it at all. But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a proposal somewhere with this. It's not meant to say that it's not been a proposal, no, that is possible, but I will look in and try to understand, as you say, what their thinking is behind it, and where there's any connection. I would be surprised if there's a connection, but you never know, but I would look into it. But suffice to say, those are not plans that we would support, given that we would not like to see that traffic transpose. And then secondly, work is ongoing with HS2 to try and get into lobby for a better used and access route that has been an ongoing conversation that we've been having for years. We are still dwelling every lever that we possibly can. And Mark, I mean, just to clear up, the bridge idea is not back on the table. We are still very much lobbying for an eastern route to the station, not a southern route. I can confirm that, Chair, yes, we're very much focusing on the eastern route. There are no plans to pursue anything on the southern route. I think, you know, certainly we would not pursue anything without coming to the trust and seeking their agreement in advance of that. And I've spoken to colleagues in planning today who've confirmed that as well. So there is no, if there has been some misunderstanding, I've sought to try and clarify that with planning colleagues. And I'd say there are no proposals and nothing will be considered without coming back to the trust on that. Thank you very much. Okay. Yeah, just a quick follow up on that. I think Joanne Woodward from LBHF's planning department stated that they have noted the cost benefit and has an outcome from the McDonald report into the viability of the southern access. But she had stated that they remain of the opinion that despite the cost bridging over the rail lines into the proposed development site on the northern side of the scrubs is the only option for providing the required active travel accessibility to HS2. So that's from LBHF's planning department. Also, there is a note on the APDC website stating that LBHF stakeholders had requested the scope of the current study should be extended to test the demand for a southern connection through Walnut scrubs. So there's two statements coming from the APDC, well, one from LBHF's planning department and one from the APDC implying that that is still on the table, that's in the public domain. Yeah. Thank you. And I think that's, it's really helpful to have that clarified because I think we are, we were concerned to hear that this has raised its head again when we have been unequivocal about the fact that it is no longer on the metaphorical table. The decision makers are the ones here. And we are saying that it is not going to be going ahead. Any decision like that given his trust and would be having to be come to the committee. And I think we've, we've had lengthy conversations about how we would not support the game or sorts of reasons. I think it would be, sorry, Mark. Sorry, Chair, I was just going to also confirm that the point I've raised there is following my discussions with Joe Woodward as well, who was confirmed that, you know, nothing would be considered or in any way in terms of planning unless the, the trust was, you know, supportive of, of such an access. So the Council wouldn't be pursuing anything without engaging with the trust and agreement with the truth. And again, I, I hope that we have been unequivocal expressing our view on what the bridge would be. Thank you. Stephen. Can I say it would, I'm very relieved to hear that because Joe Woodward and her deputy Matt Patterson yesterday in a meeting appeared to be giving a contrary views from very glad to hear that LBHF are taking strongly this committee's view and that this committee remains against a certain access route. Thank you very much. I don't want to single any one particular officer who attended a meeting, but Mark followed up on that earlier and it sounds like there was perhaps some confusion in what was expressed there that we are very much pursuing an eastern route, but not a southern route and perhaps it was just a misunderstanding of the directions, but again, being very clear, the southern route is not the one that is being looked at. It's the eastern route that we are very keen on because it makes absolutely no sense to have that station with only one access on the western side, which we have said, OPDC planning have said everyone under the sun seems to have said apart from HS2. So that's what we're pursuing. Well, thank you. Any further questions on that? Hopefully that is clear. Thank you very much. Lovely. In that case, that takes us to, oh, Stephen. Nothing to do with that. From the potentially alarming to the relatively modest, we've received approval for the third annual friend's dog show to take place at the end of July, and I know that after the last one, I believe you chair said that it was appropriate for us to ask whether some support from the trust by before coming and given that it will take place only five weeks after the next meeting, I wonder whether that could also be something that was delegated to yourself and the trust manager. We're talking about relatively modest sums compared with any other numbers that have been mentioned this evening. Not coming to us for $250K from the dog show. That's fine. We don't have a formal mechanism at the moment for grant making, and we'd have to be set up in quite a specific way to do that. But I think we have discussed a mechanism by which community organisations could in conjunction with us find a way of finding some funds for small projects. So Osama is looking into the detail around that, but I think we are supportive of that idea and again welcome the delegated authority to work out the details to take that forward. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I hope for better weather this year. So do I. Thank you very much. Lovely. Faye. Sorry. One more question. It was about the progress of a website, a dedicated website for Scrabs, or like I think it was discussed as like a hub, and I know there were some issues with IT security. I just wondered how that was going. Thank you very much. Osama? Thanks a lot, Chad. Yeah. So in terms of developing our own platform, that is quite a, it's not easier than I thought it was going to be, let's say. It requires integrating with the Council's existing communications network. So as you can imagine, there are lots and lots and lots of checks and lots of different processes that you need to adhere to in order to commission something which is in addition to the Council's website. So I don't suspect that that will happen quickly, although I think the strategic objectives of the Trust should precede any kind of external facing platform. So the next step that we can expect to see is that we have a list of strategic objectives co-design with the community, which should hopefully demonstrate that the need for a platform is something that is key to the organization. If you like, once the community have validated that and have approved a list of strategic objectives, then the kind of operational elements of how to crack on with those objectives and start achieving them, one of which will be becoming more external facing, yeah, the website will be included within that. So if you like, the next thing to anticipate will be the strategic objectives, probably to be presented, if not in summer, probably autumn time, obviously it takes time to build the understanding, the collaboration, the feedback to actually influence something like this so that the community can own it rather than just the Trust Committee. So I'm taking my time with it, but that's the next thing to wait for. Very much, same. What's the likelihood of setting up just a Twitter feed for those grubs so that communications can go directly to users kind of more easily than just through other channels like the friends, so for instance, issues like the hedge thing now and that can be sort of communicated on a simple location where people can be directed to contact rather than ever having to email you or Alex or all the friends or whatever, just a Twitter handle, what's the possibility of that and what are the obstacles? Interesting point, I don't know if X is the platform that we would necessarily want to use, given how it currently is, but perhaps we could look at something like next door. Why don't we have to take a look back and think about it, I guess the challenge about setting up a static platform, not a static platform, but something like a feed, we would just have to be updating it semi-regularly for there to be some use. So let us think about the best way of doing that internally. Councillor Kwan? I retract, I was going to say the comms department can help with that because I know they're working on stuff with others, but you and Asala will, I'm sure, connect with the right people. I was thinking of you. Thank you. And I think it's challenging if we're using council resource, just because obviously we come from a different budget and that kind of increased the aggregation of the council assets and the trust, but we could look at pea backing on some of the systems or utilising some of the systems that we are familiar with within the council to disseminate some of the information. So let's have a conversation about how we can do that in the most effective way. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Any other items that people want to throw in at the end? Fine. Lovely. Well, in that case, the date of the next meeting is the 19th of June. Let's hope that it is gorgeously sunny by that point and we'll be very excited and prepping for the dog show. Thanks so much, everyone.