Agenda item

To receive a report summarising the key areas of work within the Environment and Health Executive Portfolio over the last twelve months.

The Committee considered a report summarising the Council’s work over the past twelve months which were encompassed by the Environment and Heath Executive Portfolio; a portfolio which covered climate change, corporate enforcement, emergency planning and business continuity, Environmental Health, air quality, health and wellbeing and recycling and waste.

Key areas of work over the past twelve months had included: the development of a detailed energy strategy to support the Council’s ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030, the redeployment of the Environmental Health Team from their routine day to day work to deal with an outbreak of food poisoning which cumulated in the serving of a Hygiene Emergency Prohibition Notice and subsequent action in the Magistrates Court, leading on the Surrey Heath Health Alliance project to tackle obesity, the restoration of the garden waste collection service following a period of disruption due to shortages of HGV drivers, the development of targeted intervention to improve the quality of materials put out for recycling, the expansion of the food waste collection service to 2,700 properties in the Borough which had not previously been able to access the service and work to review and map litter bins and improve reporting processes for full or damaged bins.

The work of officers at both Amey and Joint Waste Solutions to bring the recent period of industrial action to a satisfactory conclusion was commended. The Committee was informed that behaviour on picket lines had been exemplary and where police had had to make arrests these had been of union officials and not Amey employees.      

It was acknowledged that there was still work to do in respect of improving the emptying and maintenance of dog fouling bins. In order to make it easier to report problems to the appropriate organisation, work was underway to map all waste bins in the Borough and during the coming months QR Codes would be added to bins to enable problems to be reported even more easily.   A suggestion that What Three Words might be used to register the locations of bins that required attention was noted however its use would be dependent on whether it could be integrated into Amey’s software.  It was stressed that dog waste could now be disposed of in normal street litter bins and over time the standalone dog waste bins would be replaced with normal litter bins.

The Corporate Enforcement Team were making use of deployable CCTV cameras in known flytipping hotspots. To date, no incidences of flytipping had been recorded in those areas monitored.  It was noted that the regulations surrounding the use of CCTV cameras obliged the Council to display signs informing people of the presence of cameras and it was thought that this could be acting as a deterrent.

It was confirmed that detailed costed business plans would be produced in respect of projects to improve the energy efficiency of Council owned buildings before any decisions were made as to which projects were to be prioritised and funded.

The Committee commended the Healthy Wellbeing Events being hosted in Camberley and it was requested that similar events be rolled out in the villages, possibly through the Warm Hub Initiative.

The Committee was informed that there would be opportunities for improvements to be made to the Borough’s cycling and walking infrastructure through Surrey County Council’s plans for the development of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans for each of Surrey’s Districts and boroughs.

The Committee noted the update.