a)    By Councillor Dudley

This Council:

i)  Is concerned that The Pubs Code Adjudicator is failing to tackle the financial unbalance suffered by tied tenants in its borough and around the country.  

ii) Notes that the case of The Barley Mow demonstrates clearly that, in its current format, the secondary legislation is not fit for purpose, as it is clearly unable to offer tied tenants a simple and easy path to severing their tied terms, as was the intention of Parliament.

iii) Requests the Leader of the Council to write to Richard Harrington MP, urging him to take this issue to the Secretary of State, Greg Clark MP, copied to Theresa May MP, so he can take the necessary steps to make the legislation work, as a matter of urgency

b)   By Councillor Carroll

I would like to thank our partner organisations for the critical work they do in providing access and support to victims, and providing crucial education and awareness on domestic violence and abuse.

This Council:

i)  Continues to robustly adopt a zero tolerance approach to any form  of domestic violence and abuse, and strongly reaffirms our steadfast commitment to tackle domestic violence and abuse through our public health strategy, joint health and well-being strategy, and awareness campaigns;

ii)Encourages anybody from any background who is suffering from the  impact of domestic violence and abuse to come forward and get the help  and support they need from the police, the council, health services or  key partner organisations such as DASH, Victim Support or the 24 hour National Domestic Violence Helpline;

iii)        Resolves to promote awareness across the Borough to ensure residents understand what constitutes domestic violence and abuse and who they can go to locally to access support.

c)    By Councillor Beer

This Council:

i)  Notes that the government has proposed that it confirms its provisional approval of a third Heathrow runway in the coming months.  

ii) Agrees urgent Borough publicity including public presentations to empower residents to inform MPs and Ministers of their objections to the inevitable and irreversible impacts on the housing crisis, infrastructure and the quality of life.

d)   By Councillor Beer

This Council:

i)  Notes that there is evidence that the progression of the River Thames Scheme is in doubt as several riparian Councils cannot commit to its funding. 

ii) Urges the Government to fully fund the essential project as it is totally unjustified to burden a few communities to fund the safe disposal of water from such a vast catchment area.    

Councillor Beerintroduced his motion. There was a perception that the only issue with a third runway was noise. People were either not in an area affected by noise or had got used to it. There was therefore a need to energise the public. He accepted that public presentations were probably out of the question but the council should use traditional and social media to get the message across. The Aviation Forum had hoped to get an article in Around the Royal Borough but this had not been successful. A golden opportunity had been missed. Active promotion was needed because Heathrow’s plans would be a disaster for the borough, for example the housing problems would be exacerbated. Councillor Beer requested to amend the motion by removing the words ‘including public presentations’.

Councillor Dudley agreed that as much communication with residents as possible was needed.  The National Policy Statement (NPS) was due for adoption in the summer. If approved it would open a six week window for a legal challenge.

Councillor Hilton thanked Councillor Beer for bringing the motion to Council and for consistently fighting for residents’ interests on the impact of aircraft noise. He wholeheartedly supported the motion on the third runway and the need to make Members of Parliament, Ministers and residents aware of the consequences of a third runway. The Transport Select Committee had reviewed the NPS and published their findings on 23 March 2018. The Select Committee supported the NPS but this was not a wholehearted endorsement and they had voiced significant reservations that without further work to address concerns raised, there was a risk of successful legal challenge.

On air quality the Select Committee had asked the Government to adopt a more stringent interpretation of air quality compliance with some headroom to manage the uncertainty of predicting future air quality compliance. It said Heathrow should be required to show, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that their scheme could be compliant.

The Select Committee recommended that a condition be included in the NPS to the effect that consent would only be granted if the Secretary of State was satisfied that the proposed scheme would: avoid significant adverse impacts on health and quality of life from air quality; mitigate and minimise adverse impacts on health and quality of life from air quality; and where possible, contribute to improvements to health and quality of life. Given what was known about issues of air quality this was a high hurdle indeed.

On surface access the Select Committee recommended a condition that ensured approval only be granted if the target for no more airport related surface traffic (cars, taxis and trucks travelling to the airport) could be met, or that as a condition of approval capacity be released at the airport after construction, only when the target was met.

The third runway was essentially a cost-plus project with Heathrow being able to recoup costs through Landing Charges, departing passenger charges and aircraft parking charges. All these costs ended up being paid by passengers. Heathrow’s airport charges were already the highest in the world and the Select Committee voiced concern over the lack of clarity on costs for surface access, both rail and road as well as the re-provision of the Colnbrook energy from waste facility. 

The Select Committee went on to say that a 50% increase in airport charges, as was assumed by the Airports Commission, was an unacceptable outcome and would be detrimental to the business case for the scheme. It recommended that, at an appropriate early stage of the planning process, the Government’s preferred scheme be tested by the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure it was both affordable and financeable. Such as test should offer an opportunity to halt the planning process if it was evident that the proposed scheme had no realistic prospect of being built.

On aircraft noise many had been asking for some clarity on proposed flight paths so that communities that would be overflown by more aircraft and those who would be newly overflown had a better understanding of how a third runway could affect them. The Select Committee made a number of recommendations in this area including that the Government should define in the NPS what constituted ‘significant adverse impacts and define an acceptable noise limit that reflected a maximum acceptable number of people newly exposed to noise due to the scheme.

The council needed to make sure that the local MPs were fully conversant with the Select Committee’s recommendations and conditions and insist that they be included in the NPS and if they were not, to reject the NPS.

Councillor Bowden highlighted that thee 380 page document Heathrow published did not include any rail provision. Councillor Bicknell highlighted issues such as rail crossings being closed for 20 minutes in the hour and the need for 45,000 homes to be built. Roads would need infrastructure such as traffic lights and junctions and he questioned how all this would be funded. The airport was already at 98% capacity and had the most expensive landing charges in the world.

It was proposed by Councillor Beer, seconded by Councillor Bicknell and:

RESOLVED UNANINMOUSLY: That this Council:

i)             Notes that the government has proposed that it confirms its provisional approval of a third Heathrow runway in the coming months.  

ii)            Agrees urgent Borough publicity to empower residents to inform MPs and Ministers of their objections to the inevitable and irreversible impacts on the housing crisis, infrastructure and the quality of life.

(Councillors C Rayner and S Rayner left the room for the duration of the discussion and voting on the item).

Councillor Beer agreed that his second motion could be deferred to the June 2018 meeting of Council.