a)    Councillor Larcombe will ask the following question of Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ascot:

 

The RBWM Corporate Plan refers to investing £10m on flood prevention within Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury, and Old Windsor wards.  Please confirm that where drainage channels have been deliberately blocked, culverted without authorisation or access to land denied - any public money used to rectify these problems will be recovered from the riparian owners?

 

b)   Councillor Larcombe will ask the following question of Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ascot:

 

The RBWM Corporate Plan refers to investing £10m on flood prevention within Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury, and Old Windsor wards.  Please confirm that for this project RBWM as lead local flood authority has requested the partnership funding contribution from the Environment Agency?

 

c)    Councillor Davey will ask the following question of Councillor Cannon, Cabinet Member for Public Protection and Parking:

 

Can Cllr Cannon please explain clearly why there are discrepancies between Windsor & Maidenhead for the Christmas discounted parking offer?

 

d)   Councillor Davey will ask the following question of Councillor Clark, Cabinet Member for Transport, Infrastructure and Digital Connectivity:

 

With regards to the small plots of land that are “adopted highways'', can the lead member explain the liability responsibilities of the owner and RBWM?

 

e)    Councillor Price will ask the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environmental Services and Maidenhead:

 

Since the change to our waste collection, what are the weekly statistics in terms of numbers and response times for residents reporting missed bins, non-delivery of assisted collections and large/new bins?

 

f)     Councillor Tisi will ask the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environmental Services and Maidenhead:

 

Residents and members have been reporting an increase in overflowing public waste bins for months. Litter and dog waste bags are piling up in our streets. What steps has the lead member taken to resolve apparent issues with the contract and would providing more litter bins, for which members were asked to identify locations months ago, have improved the situation?

(The Council will set aside a period of 30 minutes to deal with Member questions, which may be extended at the discretion of the Mayor in exceptional circumstances. The Member who provides the initial response will do so in writing. The written response will be published as a supplement to the agenda by 5pm one working day before the meeting. The questioner shall be allowed up to one minute to put a supplementary question at the meeting. The supplementary question must arise directly out of the reply provided and shall not have the effect of introducing any new subject matter. A Member responding to a supplementary question will have two minutes to respond).

 

 

 

a)    Councillor Larcombe asked the following question of Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ascot:

 

The RBWM Corporate Plan refers to investing £10m on flood prevention within Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury, and Old Windsor wards.  Please confirm that where drainage channels have been deliberately blocked, culverted without authorisation or access to land denied - any public money used to rectify these problems will be recovered from the riparian owners?

 

Written response: Ordinary Watercourses: Riparian owners have a duty to maintain watercourses for which they are responsible. Under the Land Drainage Act 1991 the Council has the powers to serve notice on riparian owners, for the removal of any blockage to an ordinary watercourse. Should the riparian owner fail to do so, the Council has powers to undertake the work themselves and recharge the costs to the riparian owner. The Council will try to resolve problems through discussion with the owners in the first instance and enforcement of legislation will only be used as the last resort.

 

Main River Watercourses: The overall responsibility for maintenance of Main Rivers lies with the riparian owner. The Environment Agency has permissive powers to carry out works of maintenance and improvement on Main Rivers where required. This can include any structure or appliance for controlling or regulating flow of water into or out of the channel.

 

If any joint scheme were to offer an element of funding to riparian owners that would be a matter for those funding the scheme.

 

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Larcombe explained the 200-year-old Wraysbury drain had worked well for many years until recently. After £150,000 of RBWM expenditure, it failed to work at all. The weir had fallen apart; it was then fixed at more expense and a circular was issued to the riparian owners to remind them of their responsibilities. Five years later it was still not working. The Corporate Plan referred to failing to maintain or blocking watercourses could be considered to be anti-social behaviour and subject to zero tolerance. He had not seen any sense of urgency or importance on the matter. The borough was the designated lead local flood authority and it did not do enough. Councillor Larcombe asked if he could offer Councillor Hilton a guided tour.

 

Councillor Hilton responded that he was Cabinet Member for Finance and his knowledge of flooding was limited. Through Democratic Services he had suggested that the question should be answered by Councillor Cannon but this had ben rejected by Councillor Larcombe. In the circumstances he would come out and walk with Councillor Larcombe but if there was anything else, Councillor Cannon would respond.

b) Councillor Larcombe asked the following question of Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ascot:

 

The RBWM Corporate Plan refers to investing £10m on flood prevention within Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury, and Old Windsor wards.  Please confirm that for this project RBWM as lead local flood authority has requested the partnership funding contribution from the Environment Agency?

 

Written response: Members will be aware that earlier this year local stakeholders were invited to submit potential flood risk management schemes for consideration, as part of the partnership project with the Environment Agency.  The project’s initial task will be to assess the feasibility and economic benefit of these schemes. Business cases will then be developed and potential funding sources identified by the council and the Environment Agency on a scheme-by-scheme basis. This will include the council’s £10m contribution, and grant funding from the Environment Agency.

 

The main source of Environment Agency money for flood schemes is Flood & Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) Grant in Aid (GiA) provided by central government (through Defra). The allocation of this money is governed by the Government’s Partnership Funding policy. The Partnership Funding policy was introduced in 2011. The main objectives are to enable schemes that could not be afforded from central government funding alone and ensure all schemes are assessed on a common basis. The Environment Agency has initially put a bid for £550k FCRM Grant In Aid (GiA) funding for 2022/23 for this project. As and when the business cases for specific schemes have been completed, further bids will follow.

 

Councillor Larcombe confirmed he did not wish to ask a supplementary question.

 

c) Councillor Davey asked the following question of Councillor Cannon, Cabinet Member for Public Protection and Parking:

 

Can Cllr Cannon please explain clearly why there are discrepancies between Windsor & Maidenhead for the Christmas discounted parking offer?

 

Written response: Windsor hosts a monthly retailer meeting at which Christmas parking is discussed. As part of these discussions, we consider footfall rates, which have been increasing steadily since September to a point where it is exceeding 2019 figures over the weekends. The retail group understands that the current financial climate is strained and as such that everyday free parking is not sustainable and so felt that the focus of any free parking offered should be on the days which see lower footfall rather than offer free parking at a time when the town is already busy. On that basis Tuesday and Thursdays were submitted along with the Christmas Light Switch on dates, to the Parking team for consideration. Clearly there needs to be a balance and fairness across the whole of the borough and moving forward would suggest that there is a more formal opportunity for businesses to contribute to the discussion on free parking for the council to consider in line with what Maidenhead has been put forward and offered.

 

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Davey commented that he was not sure that the response addressed the question but it appeared that the blame for the discrepancy was now on the retailers. Councillor Cannon had said at the last Council meeting that any parking discounts needed to be financially responsible. Therefore could he confirm that the decision to offer free parking all weekend in Maidenhead during December was only possible because of Windsor’s parking revenue receipts plus European Regional Development Welcome Back Fund subsidising Maidenhead’s parking and celebrations.

 

Councillor Cannon responded that this was incorrect.

d) Councillor Davey asked the following question of Councillor Clark, Cabinet Member for Transport, Infrastructure and Digital Connectivity:

 

With regards to the small plots of land that are “adopted highways'', can the lead member explain the liability responsibilities of the owner and RBWM?

 

Written response: Where land in designated as adopted Highway, RBWM as Highway Authority will be responsible for the surface, it’s maintenance and all other duties under the Highways Act 1980. The land beneath the surface is the responsibility of the owner in all other respects.

 

Link to Highways Act 1980: Highways Act 1980 (legislation.gov.uk)

 

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Davey asked if for example a tree fell on a car would the council be responsible or was it the landowner?

 

Councillor Clark responded that the circumstances would require investigation and the liability would fall on the liable.

e) Councillor Price asked the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environmental Services and Maidenhead:

 

Since the change to our waste collection, what are the weekly statistics in terms of numbers and response times for residents reporting missed bins, non-delivery of assisted collections and large/new bins?

 

Written response: All collection rounds have been completed on the scheduled collection day from day one of the new collection service, except for a small number of access issues, caused by parked cars and roadworks.  Individual ward members were made aware of these on the same day they happened, if it had an impact in their area. This is a really successful start to a new collection service.

 

Over the first four weeks of the new collection service, there have been 1158 missed collections, the aim is to return for all missed collections within two working days of the report being made; this has not been met in a small proportion of cases but missed bin crews have been out on Saturdays to clear any remaining missed collections each week. Although the number of missed collections has been higher than it was before the change, it still remains low in comparison to the total number of collections being completed, and some disruption was expected as both collection staff and residents get used to the new collection schedules and minor issues with the rounds are ironed out.

 

Missed collections in first four weeks.
Garden waste	149
Recycling	414
Food	85
Refuse	509
Textiles	1
Total	1158

 

The split of missed collections is shown below:

 

 

In the first four weeks of the new collection service, there were 106 missed assisted collections, the split across collections is shown below:

 

 

Since the w/c the 27th September, which is when the information about the new collection services started to be received, there have been 1408 requests for new bins, with the largest number of requests being for food waste caddies. Most refuse bin requests have been for bins for those entitled to additional capacity as a result of the collection changes. The split of bins requested is shown below:

 

 

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Price provided her experience as the Clewer and Dedworth East Councillor. She had received no notifications of missed bin collections in her Ward.  She knew of missed bin collections as she had guided residents how to use the report it function, which sadly did not result in the bins being collected.  Only after emails either by residents or herself to officers and the Cabinet Member were bins collected.  He had asked fellow councillors and they had confirmed that she was not alone in not being alerted to missed bins. Her residents had suffered from missed assisted collections, which had been corrected after emails.  Requests for larger bins, despite the involvement of two Cabinet members and herself and four officers one of her residents who requested a larger bin 10 weeks ago was still waiting.  The dossier on Clewer and Dedworth East residents missed bins must be quite full.  She asked if Councillor Coppinger would agree that after three or more months preparing for the change it was disappointing that the recovery system for dealing with missed bins appeared not to have worked efficiently and effectively. A month after implementation, to end up with a higher rate of missed bins than before the change was not the standard of service that residents paid for and deserved.

 

Councillor Coppinger responded that he disagreed as the failure rate was 0.16%. There had been issues but to the best of his knowledge actions had been taken to resolve issues as quickly as possible. He would be happy to follow up specific instances with Councillor Price.

 

f) Councillor Tisi asked the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environmental Services and Maidenhead:

 

Residents and members have been reporting an increase in overflowing public waste bins for months. Litter and dog waste bags are piling up in our streets. What steps has the lead member taken to resolve apparent issues with the contract and would providing more litter bins, for which members were asked to identify locations months ago, have improved the situation?

 

Written response: Depending on the location of litter bins these are either emptied as part of the street cleansing service by Urbaser if they are on the highway network, or by Tivoli if they are litter bins in parks and open spaces or dog waste bins. Members were presented with information about performance on the Tivoli contract and work that is being undertaken to improve this as Communities Overview and Scrutiny and this is ongoing.

 

In terms of dog waste bins, dog ownership in the country has increased by 25% over the period of the pandemic and this is having an impact on usage in some locations, which is being looked at. In terms of litter bins on the public highways, they are being emptied to the regular schedules and additional collections are made where reports are received of them being full in between scheduled collections. In some cases this is due to misuse of litter bins by local businesses and where this is suspected to be the case we are working with District Enforcement to ensure that businesses understand and are complying with their duty of care to responsibly dispose of their waste.

 

The locations members have identified as possibly requiring more bins are being looked at for their suitability and whether there are options to move bins from locations where bins are not well used. We have also put in a capital bid for some additional litter bins.

 

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Tisi commented that she was pleased to hear more bins would be provided but they needed to be emptied more frequently. Residents may have been as surprised as she had that the District Enforcement contract had been renegotiated and renewed by officers. Now the borough would receive some financial benefit from littering fines, Councillor Tisi asked if this gave less of an incentive to ensure street bins were emptied on time.

 

Councillor Coppinger responded that as he was not responsible for the enforcement he was unable to comment. Obviously if the council had the money and it became a priority it would do whatever was necessary.