To agree the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 21 January 2016, as a correct record.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 21 January 2016, be approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

Any interests not already registered

No additional declarations of interest were made.

There were none.

There were none.

The Chairman advised he would present his Portfolio Holder update before considering the work plan.

Members considered a report which detailed the wide range of Council’s responsibilities and approach to animal welfare including the stray dog service and animal welfare licencing.  Officers were accompanied by one of the council’s successfully rehomed stray dogs.

Members received a presentation, and the Council’s Environmental Health team answered questions.

Resolved:  That the report be noted.

The Chief Officer Environmental & Operational Services presented an update report on the feasibility of merging the Sevenoaks District Council (SDC) and the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council (TWBC) CCTV Control Rooms and proposed to establish a West Kent CCTV hub, based at the Sevenoaks Office.

The proposal, depending upon the monitoring option taken forward, could provide a return to 24/7 manned monitoring whilst achieving identified savings on monitoring costs and increasing resilience in the control room, particularly for the out of hours service.

The Chief Officer Environmental & Operational Services reported updated figures for Option D, advising that the potential savings were less than those quoted in the report at £18,000 for SDC, £21,000 for T&MBC and £10,000 for TWBC.  However it was likely that this could be even less if the monitoring arrangements were exposed to competitive tendering.

Public Sector Equality Duty

Members noted that consideration had been given to impacts under the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Resolved:  That it be recommended to Cabinet, that

a)   in principle, a joint agreement be entered into with TWBC and T&MBC to establish a West Kent CCTV hub, based at the Sevenoaks offices;

b)   the preferred monitoring arrangements be Option A as set out within the report

‘24 hour CCTV coverage and out of hours service for all 3 Councils.  This model includes a dedicated Supervisor and 12 operators.  This provides, mainly for three operators to be on duty, but at certain less busy times this will be reduced to 2 operators.  Estimated Cost: £104,933 per Council; and

c)   a one-off Capital budget of £37,300 be approved, representing 50% of the cost of enlarging the existing Sevenoaks CCTV control room.

The Portfolio Holder, and Chairman, reported the following:

·         Recruitment was about to commence for the Environment enforcement officer;

·         the Bradbourne car park application had been submitted and the public consultation deadline was 20 April 2016.  It was hoped the application would be considered at the Development Control Committee on 19 May 2016;

·         the waste audit results were due in the second week of April, and would be reported to next meeting;

·         the trading accounts had closed with a favourable variance of £149,000.         The Pest Control service had closed with a surplus of £1600;

·         the Heritage lottery fund bid for Green Sands Way had been successful at the stage 1 bid and received £66k which would help towards  paying for an officer to work on the stage 2 funding bid; and

·         the error in parking meter charges in Blighs Car Park was being rectified, and no members of the public had been served with a penalty charge notice.

The work plan was noted.  It was agreed to move ‘Waste Compositional Analysis’ to the next meeting.