Agenda item

13.1    Urgent Questions (Part 4 - Paragraph 9.2.(b) of Constitution – Page 4-9)

 

With the permission of the Mayor, questions on urgent issues may be tabled with the proviso of a subsequent written response if the issue requires research or is considered by the Mayor to be minor.

 

Please note that the Mayor will decide whether a question is urgent or not.  The definition of an urgent question is “An issue which could not reasonably have been foreseen or anticipated prior to the deadline for the submission of questions and which needs to be considered before the next meeting of the Council.”

 

A supplementary question is not permitted.

 

13.2            Councillors’ Questions (Part 4 – Paragraph 9.2(a) of Constitution – Page 4 - 8)

 

The eighteen questions and responses are attached to the agenda.

1.         Urgent Questions (Part 4 - Paragraph 9.2. (b) of Constitution – Page 4-9)

 

The Mayor advised the Council that having considered the requirements set out in the Constitution he was able to allow the following urgent questions:

                       

Urgent Question 1 from Councillor E Savva to Councillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment and Street Scene:

 

“Can Councillor Neville provide an update to the Council of the current situation concerning the funding of the A406 improvements following the recent announcements by Transport for London?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

"The Bounds Green section of the A406 has been a thorn in the side of this authority for many years during which we have tried to secure major improvements. The Transport for London Board met to discuss the postponement of that scheme yesterday and was minded to do so as reported in the Evening Standard newspaper. The newspaper also correctly reported the concerns of residents and this authority. At the meeting the Board discussed this issue but did not agree to the proposed deferral. The Mayor Boris Johnson argued that it had been long delayed already and it needed to proceed. The scheme is important to the borough in terms of road traffic and housing. Many of the houses have been blighted for more than 20 years and we would not wish there to be further delay. The former Mayor approved a smaller scheme. I am delighted to say that work on the North Circular Road will certainly proceed as planned and this decision shows that Boris Johnson, unlike his predecessor, is a listening Mayor."

 

Urgent Question 2 from Councillor Pipe to Councillor Lavender, Deputy Leader of the Council / Sustainable Communities & Employment & Place Shaping

 

“Can Councillor Lavender provide an update on the situation regarding Broomfield House, following the announcements on Friday of awards from the Mayor for London, Boris Johnson's targeted housing pot?”

 

Reply from Councillor Lavender:

 

My views on Broomfield House are well known. Although there have been previous proposals to restore the house, these have been premised on the need for a level of football which would disturb local residents, undermine the park and require the release of covenants. These are three things I do not support.

 

Before actively progressing steps to persuade English Heritage that the demolition of the House was the most cost effective and reasonable way forward I asked officers to give it one last throw of the dice and seek funding from the Mayor’s targeted housing pot to provide grant funding to assist in the conversion of the building and stables to sheltered accommodation.

 

Such a use would have been a viable use for the site without additional revenue costs, which would not otherwise be incurred, would comply with the covenants and not cause disruption to the park or local residents.

 

I regret to inform the Council that we were notified on Friday by the LDA that Enfield did not receive any funding from the Mayor’s targeted housing pot.

 

I am pleased to be able to inform the Council that on Tuesday we were informed that Enfield had indeed been awarded funding, in fact £6m has been awarded for the restoration of Broomfield House and Stables, by Boris for the year 2010/2011 – three cheers for Boris.

 

The funding is required to deliver 18 sheltered residential units.

 

However all 2010/11 funding allocations are identified as indicative subject to final ministerial clearance. The ability to stop this happening sits in the Labour Government’s hands.

 

Sue Foster’s Heritage and Conservation team will start to put together the Development Team necessary to take Broomfield House forward and identify a Heritage Project Manager to take the client lead. Reports will be forthcoming shortly as to what the £6m can deliver. This is a once in a political lifetime opportunity to resolve this issue and we shall be looking at our capital reserves to supplement this grant.

 

Given our commitment to already spend capital to restore the listed wall, the sensory garden, the conservatory, bandstand and front gates (which will hopefully be commenced this year) this is a marvellous opportunity to restore the park to its former glory.

 

I hasten to add we would not have been able to do this without our policy of saving reserves for good causes and not frittering them away.

 

This follows on some of our other major capital projects elsewhere in the Borough namely the restoration of the QEII stadium in Enfield and the major refurbishment of Millfield Theatre in Edmonton.

 

Urgent Question 3 from Councillor Hurer to Councillor Lavender, Deputy Leader of the Council / Sustainable Communities & Employment & Place Shaping

 

“Can Councillor Lavender provide an update on the announcement received yesterday that one of Enfield's largest employers Visteon has gone into administration?”

 

Reply from Councillor Lavender:

 

We received notification on 31^st March that Visteon UK Limited entered into administration. Visteon is based in Ponders End.

 

Over the past decade there had been substantial multi-million pound investment in plant and equipment for the production of the very sophisticated electronic dashboards-particularly heavy 200-ton plastic presses, and tooling equipment. The company supplies a range of car manufacturers (not just Ford), and is a main supplier for Jaguar.

 

The vehicle industry has been severely hit by the present down-turn and this news does not come as a surprise.

 

Although administration does not inevitably lead to redundancies, I have asked our regeneration team to assume that this will, in fact be the case.

 

The Enfield plant employs about 200 people, the numbers having steadily declined from around 600 [when they were working on a full 3-shift, 24/7 basis] – we do not know how many of these are Enfield residents – a crude estimate is 40%.

 

Mostly blue collar workers – mostly high skilled. No design work was done here- but there will be office workers.

 

Job Centre Plus will be dealing with any staff made redundant – they have a special Rapid Response team. We shall offer our job brokerage services at Enfield Jobsnet. One of our staff was involved in a similar and very successful project at Data Cables in Brimsdown some 10 years ago, which we hope to replicate.

 

John Haslem has spoken to Bill Price [who works for the Meridian Business Park Association]-he will be speaking to the Managing Director of Visteon later today, Walter Thomas, after his meeting with the Administrators. Bill will keep us informed.

 

I have also asked whether there are any local dependencies in the supply chain. So we are better apprised of any knock on effects.

 

Huw Jones from the Chamber of Commerce is looking into the supply chain issue.

 

For some years the instrument clusters have been imported from abroad [India] ready assembled, with the plastic pellets for dashboard pressing being supplied in bulk by companies like Shell. There appear to be few local supply chains, though it is understood that nearby firm on Meridian Business Park [Bolt & Bearings] supplies screws, nuts, bolts etc.

 

The site occupies a particularly prominent position along the waterside in the Ponders End, Place Shaping area, and would present a major opportunity to transform this locality.

 

The site measures some 10 acres in total, including the car park area. Visteon did a sale and leaseback deal with Seegro a couple of years ago to address their financial difficulties. My understanding is that the lease-arrangement is on a one-year rolling basis.

 

I have therefore asked officers to be pro-active in making alternative business aware of the site and for the Council to look at this site for its own needs if possible.

 

Again this is another possible use for the Council’s reserves, which would not have been possible if we had frittered them away.

 

2.            Questions by Councillors

 

NOTED

 

i.          The eighteen questions, on the Council’s agenda, which received a written reply by the relevant Cabinet Member.

 

ii.         The amendment to question 3 which was addressed to Councillor Lavender, Deputy Leader of the Council / Sustainable Communities & Employment & Place Shaping.

 

iii.        The following supplementary questions received for the questions indicated below:

 

Question 1  from Councillor Taylor to Councillor Vince, Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services:

 

“Can you assure the Council that if any other appropriate sites become available prior to June, the Council will look at these opportunities?  With regard to the current preferred site, can you ensure that the Council is made aware of the details of contamination on the site, and the remediation strategy that is proposed.”

 

Reply from Councillor Vince:

 

“I am aware of the concerns of Councillor Taylor and will keep him informed.”

 

Question 5 From Councillor Simon to Councillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment & Street Scene

 

“Will Councillor Neville give a commitment to spend any money allocated for cycling schemes and will he apply his energies to improve cycle lanes, if not on Southbury Road, but in other areas?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

“Yes to both questions, though I am concerned that cycle lanes need to be safe - simply drawing a line down a road does not do this and the routes that I intend to pursue will be the ones that can be safely directed through residential streets and parks. I believe we can learn from countries like Canada who have produced high quality pedestrian and cycle tracks in their parks encouraging a healthy lifestyle. We need to form links across the borough and I will certainly seek to achieve this as soon as possible.”

 

Question 6 from Councillor E Savva toCouncillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment and Street Scene

 

“Can Councillor Neville give details of any help given to salt local hospitals and other key sites?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

“I can confirm that North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust and Barnet and Chase Farm Hospital NHS Trust were both comprehensively gritted during the recent heavy snow and icy weather. Accesses to the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust sites both within the hospital grounds and stand-alone, were also treated during this period.

 

The recent snow and ice was a comparatively rare event and as on previous occasions, Enfield’s Winter Maintenance team together with the Council's contractor Fitzpatrick have worked with bus operators to maintain services wherever this is safe to do so. There have been discussions regarding formalising procedures with respect to treating specific public service facilities when there is severe weather. However there are issues surrounding public and private ownership and it is essential to ensure that the primary highway winter maintenance operation is not jeopardised by any additional burden on the service. For this reason a protocol is currently being formalised. Officers will continue to liaise with bus operators and take the appropriate actions to ensure essential public services are maintained during periods of bad weather.

 

This authority's responsibilities are limited to highways and the level of resources is set to meet those responsibilities.  However it is not appropriate to stop there and we have gritted other key sites.  On the 2^nd of February our assistance was required to keep access open the North Middlesex and Chase Farm Hospitals and the local ambulance stations, which were all, salted.  While this recent bout of bad weather had been a learning curve across London there is a need for a firm protocolto salt bus depots and entrances. The service in Enfield was extremely good and credit must go to our contractor and their workforce.

 

We will be looking to introduce a formal protocol in the future and I hope that other authorities will follow.”

 

Question 7 from Councillor Simon to Councillor Hurer, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources

 

“The performance levels given in the reply are not to the Council’s approved standard, detailing average performance is not satisfactory as many others are dealt with much more slowly.  I am aware that some council tax refunds are being delayed by 2 months.  Will he seek to audit the data more rigorously in the future?”

 

Reply from Councillor Hurer:

 

“The figures provided are averages and this service has been judged to be delivering a 4 star service and I am satisfied with this independent assessment.”

 

Question 8 from Councillor Adams toCouncillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment and Street Scene

 

“Can Councillor Neville advise on the split on the number of trees recently planted between the east and the west of the borough?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

“There are areas of the borough in need of greening and this administration has allocated £1.5m to this as we are aware of the need to further green some parts of the borough. I can confirm that 74% of the trees planted have been in the east of the borough and I hope that this will please the members opposite and residents in those areas. “

 

Question 14 from Councillor Boast to Councillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment and Street Scene

 

“Can Councillor Neville tell the Council if he knows if Joan Ryan MP is in favour of paying for waste disposal and will she be paying any additional disposal costs that she has to meet for her Parliamentary second home allowances?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

“The Climate Change Bill included provisions for Waste Reduction. These elaborately set out what could and could not be done but were essentially for schemes dubbed in the press as "Bin Taxes". They went through Parliament last year and Joan Ryan MP was present at some of the Parliamentary stages and voted for the Bill. She was specifically involved in some amendments, but no amendments were moved on waste reduction proposals. From these actions I assume that she might be in favour of bin taxes on poorer people. Given her apparent previous concerns over waste she should have raised her concerns on this. Under the Act the Secretary of State needed 5 pilot authorities to come forward to pilot the proposals. Not one of the local authorities in England of any political persuasion has volunteered to come forward. The position now is that because of this the Secretary of State can't bring in bin taxes unless the law is amended. This policy and the reaction to it show how arrogant this government has become on this issue. It is plain from press coverage that up and down the country residents are fundamentally opposed to bin taxes and alternate weekly collections.”

 

Question 15 from Councillor Simon to Councillor Kaye, Cabinet Member for Leisure, Culture, Olympics &Voluntary Sector

 

“Will Councillor Kaye provide details of the actual and opportunity costs resulting from the delay in using this space and will he in the meantime consider making it a study space?”

 

Reply from Councillor Kaye:

 

“It is not right to take the first option suggested for this site and we need to consider how best to use this space.  I would welcome any further suggestions from Councillors and the public on how to use it.  So please contact me if you have any ideas.”

 

Question 17 from Councillor Constantinides to Councillor Neville, Cabinet Member for Environment & Street Scene

“Will he ask officers to arrange a meeting with officers at the hospital to enable pressure to be applied to bring about the required improvements?”

 

Reply from Councillor Neville:

 

“I share his concerns, anything we can do to help the residents and patients should be done.  We will look to organise a meeting to try and sort this problem out.”

 

Question 18 from Councillor Rodin to Councillor Lavender, Deputy Leader of the Council/ Sustainable Communities & Employment & Place Shaping

“Is Spencer Craig doing this work?  Does Councillor Lavender remember the emails from Councillor Constantinides dated 11 March, was he prepared to meet him if he does not wish to meet the traders?”

 

Reply from Councillor Lavender:

 

“There are a number of sophisticated issues here, we need to consider and establish the problems in the area which has degenerated over time into secondary frontages.  We now have a different situation resulting in decay into this type of retail establishment.

 

The Council needs to explore this change and why there is a down turn.  We also need to consider where to direct support, possibly shifting support to Edmonton Green.  The issue for us as a landlord is should we prioritise Edmonton Green.”