Enforcement Co-Ordination Panel

Minutes of the Meeting held on 25 January 2012

Time Commenced: 10.30am  Time Terminated: 12.30pm

Present:

Councillor Piddington (Chair)
Councillors Roberts, Robinson, Taylor and K Welsh.

Apologies for Absence:

Councillor Whitehead

8. Declaration Of Interest

There were no declarations of interest submitted at this meeting.

9. Minutes

The Minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2011 were approved as a correct record.

10. Enforcement Activities

(a) Planning

The Panel received a report of the Assistant Executive Director (Economic and Technical Services) summarising the enforcement activities which had taken place during the quarter year periods from 2009-2011. The revised figures for quarter two of 2011/12 showed that 105 complaints had been received of which 56 were in breach which represented 53% of the total. In line with previous years the number of complaints in the third quarter had decreased to 74 and the overall crime rate representing the number of breaches was slightly up at 55%. The quarterly figures for the first three quarters of 2011/12 were all up on corresponding quarters in 2010/11. It was also noted that in terms of Building Regulations enforcement complaints there had been 54 contraventions logged from 1 April to 31 December 2011.

During the October to December 2011 period four formal planning contravention notices had been issued. In addition, successful enforcement action had recently taken place on land in Dukinfield, where the storage of a large quantity of tyres was unauthorised and considered to be totally inappropriate in a residential area. An Enforcement Notice was been served on the owners in June 2011 and work had been undertaken throughout the compliance period to remove the tyres and the notice was fully complied with on 10 October 2011.

Following a letter and draft Section 215 Notice being sent to the owner of a former nightclub on Stamford Street Central, Ashton-under-Lyne, the owner was keen to improve the situation and work had been undertaken to remove a large quantity of construction waste and fly tipping from the rear of this empty property. However, the Panel noted that despite co-ordinated action with Building Control, due to the current economic climate several commercial properties that had stood empty for some time in Ashton Town Centre were not being maintained by the owners.

Reference was made to the current enforcement activity where formal notice had been served and the Development Manager responded to queries raised relating to individual cases.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

(b) Environmental Enforcement

The Head of Environmental Protection (Public Services) presented a report which outlined key enforcement activities undertaken by the Environmental Enforcement Team during the period July to September 2011. She commented on the number of routine visits and inspections the service had carried out, which played a vital part of the cost centre income, and in particular:

Business Compliance Unit

• Food Safety – Prohibition Notices / Voluntary Closure Orders – Voluntary closure orders had been agreed with four businesses due to concerns relating to health and safety, poor structure and unsafe appliances. Officers had provided support to the owners to ensure that works had been carried out at all premises to a satisfactory standard and the businesses had since been allowed to reopen.
  
  
  
• Buy with Confidence – This scheme which was proving very successful for both traders and members of the public now had 216 businesses / traders on the list and was very quickly becoming a comprehensive directory of reliable and trusted traders.
  
  
• Operation Alloy – Business Compliance Officers were involved in this operation visiting a number of scrap yards across the Borough in a clamp down on metal theft. The exercise was carried out in conjunction with the Police, officers of the Environment Agency and the Benefit Fraud Team.
  
  
• ISOQAR – An audit which had been carried out by a team from ISOQAR in August 2011 concluded that Environmental Services had established and maintained its management system in line with the requirements of ISO 9001:2008. The next planned surveillance visit would be in February 2012.

Neighbourhood Compliance Team

• Key Statistics – The number of complaints received by the service covering a wide range of environmental and public health issues from statutory nuisances such as noise and vibration through to fly tipping were detailed.
  
  
  
• Chemical Odours in Stalybridge / Dukinfield Area – As a result of continuing odour problems in Dukinfield and Stalybridge the service had continued to work with United Utilities and Stepan UK to resolve this problem. These odours arose from a defective sewer which allowed contaminated groundwater into the system which in turn caused strong solvent smells in houses across Dukinfield and Stalybridge. The repairs to the sewage system had been completed and Stepan UK had undertaken an extensive investigation into the nature and extent of contamination at the site. An environmental consultant had been employed by the company to design and implement a remediation strategy to ensure that the contamination at the site is dealt with appropriately.
  
  
  
• Evenings of Waste Action – The majority of areas within the Borough were using the facilities and services provided by Waste Services without issue. Other areas had required additional assistance and adjustments to the service to enable both the user and the service provider to obtain the best results. Unfortunately, a small number of areas and service users had chosen to operate outside the service provided and this had led to contamination, dumped waste, unsightly pollution and pest issues which have had an adverse effect on all properties, both commercial and domestic surrounding the abused areas. Initial steps to an increased enforcement approach had been taken and two evenings of waste action often involving local councillors were highlighted and following the clean up residents were visited and provided with advice and leaflets to ensure they were fully aware of their responsibilities.

Licensing

• Enforcement Activities – A statistical summary of enforcement activities undertaken during the period July to September 2011 were provided.
  
  
  
• Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Enforcement – The Licensing Manager had presented a report to the Speakers Panel (Licensing) asking the Panel to recommend a series of updates to the conditions for Hackney Carriage vehicles. The Panel heard that the current conditions had last been updated in 1980 and were in need of review. Consultation had taken place during which all current licence holders had been contacted for their views, together with residents, local businesses and user groups. The Panel was happy with the proposed new Hackney Vehicle Conditions which were subsequently adopted following a key decision in November 2011.
  
  
  
• Speakers Panel (Liquor Licensing) – Reference was made to a decision made by the Panel for an expedited review of premises in Stalybridge, an application from a local Councillor for a review of the licence of a public house also in Stalybridge and a variation application from an off licence in Denton.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

(c) Engineering Services

The Head of Technical Services submitted a report detailing enforcement issues collected by the Engineering Services relating to abandoned vehicles, skips, pay and display car parks, private drainage and scaffolding. He reported a marginal change in abandoned vehicles from the previous quarter, a slight upward trend. However, numbers were relatively small and there were no serious issues arising from these occurrences.

The number of permits for scaffolding fell dramatically during quarter one and although the trend had improved over the following two quarters, this was still below normal expected levels. This required further investigation to determine if this was an accurate picture and the findings would be reported back if the trend continued. Skip permit enforcement statistics indicated that the number of permits issued was steady during 2012/11 but had started to fall in the first two quarters of 2011/12 and the situation would continue to be monitored.

Car parking contraventions had increased over this period with the average number of penalty charge notices issued over quarter one was 753 per month and 907 over quarter two.

Following a recent key decision taken by the Executive Member for Transport and Development, additional pay and display car parks would be introduced from January 2012 and the statistics / findings from these additional pay and display car parks would be reported to a future meeting of the Panel. The additional pay and display car parks were detailed as follows:

• Dukinfield Town Hall;
• Waterloo Road, Stalybridge;
• Ward Street, Hyde;
• Grafton Street Hyde (due for completion by February / March 2012); and
• Darnton Road, Ashton-under-Lyne.

Parking Charges for Blue Badge holders would also come into force in January 2012 requiring all cars to purchase a ticket for parking with an additional one hour extra free parking for Blue Badge holders displaying their appropriate permit and Blue Badge card. Further information on the progress of these new arrangements would be reported to a future meeting of the Panel.

New road works associated with the Ashton Northern By Pass had affected Camp Street, Henrietta Street and Wimpole Street car parks reducing the number of bays significantly. The car parks were now being returned to full operational capacity and Wimpole Street should be open to the public in February 2012 after the By Pass opening due at the end of January 2012.

The Chair stated that the current works to install Metrolink had reduced traffic to a single lane on Wellington Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, near to the Aldi Supermarket and she asked if enquiries could be made as to whether this would be a permanent arrangement.

The opening of the new build units at Tameside Hospital had caused problems with staff parking on double yellow lines in the surrounding vicinity. The Hospital had recently made an additional 237 spaces available within their grounds for visitors and staff. There was therefore now sufficient parking capacity but on street parking was still high due to the changes levied by the Hospital for their parking. The Council car park off Darnton Road would become operational (pay and display facilities) in January 2012 offering parking charges considered affordable for both the Hospital and the Stamford Park facility.

Residents’ Permit Parking on County Avenue and Witham Street were due for review in March 2012. They had been very successful in achieving the objective of preventing Hospital staff and visitors taking up spaces all day preventing residents’ access.

The Panel discussed the purpose, advantages and disadvantages of introducing residents parking schemes and the displacement implications or other impacts on neighbouring roads. It was generally felt that there should be a presumption against the introduction of schemes to manage minor sporting events or other occasional community events and that major events must be frequent and / or cause significant disturbance. The Executive Member for Transport and Development advised that he would be developing a policy detailing an approach that could be consistently applied across the Borough for administering residents parking schemes which would be submitted to a future meeting of the Panel.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

(d) Patroller Service

Lisa Lees, Head of Community Safety Services presented a report providing an overview of the service and Patroller activities in relation to enforcement for the period 1 July to 30 September 2011 which covered quarter two of the 2011/12 financial year.

The local and national indicators for the Crime and Reduction Partnership were highlighted. Overall the quarter one trend of decreases in burglary, serious violent crime and percentage of people perceiving anti social behaviour as a problem in their local area had continued into quarter two. Incidents of personal robbery, particularly against young people, had increased and specific work was being undertaken in conjunction with partners to address this issue.

The Patroller Service continued to play an integral role in the early identification of individuals behaving anti-socially and during the last quarter the Anti-Social Behaviour Officer had carried out visits to family homes and children’s care homes to discuss the consequences of anti social behaviour and the support available to families. Ashton Town Centre, although part of St Peter’s ward was reported separately due to the unique issues and demographics of the area. The Town Centre did see an increase compared to the same period last year – from one to five reports – which was still relatively low numbers.

The Head of Community Safety advised that the number of reports and investigations for both dog fouling and littering had decreased slightly during this quarter as compared to last year and was attributed to the proactive approach including a range of initiatives that the Service was taking in bringing offenders to account for their actions. This quarter had also seen a significant decrease in reports of fly tipping and positive action was being taken when offenders were identified including the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices and in some cases preparation of files for prosecution.

Reports of both abandoned vehicles and untaxed vehicles had once again seen a reduction in reports and the Service continued to be pro active in its approach encouraging information and intelligence from the public to support this area of work.

The number of reports to the Patroller Service for fly posting had increased compared to the comparative quarter in 2010/11. The reason for this could be the joint working arrangements in place with the Highway Engineers and since the new standard operating procedure was developed some months ago a weekly update on authorised banners in the Borough was shared between the two service areas.

Discussion ensued on the problems associated with fly posting including damage to the physical environment, impact on the quality of town centres and the often high clean up costs associated with its removal. Although there may be a lack of awareness of the need for advertising consents by some groups or individuals, many fly poster users were fully aware of the illegality of the activity, but the commercial interests and a perception that the users could avoid enforcement suggested that this practice was likely to continue to grow. It was essential that measures in place needed to reflect the scale and nature of the problem including prevention, active discouragement and enforcement and prosecution in the case of some persistent fly poster users.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

(e) District Assemblies

Consideration was given to a report of the Assistant Executive Director (District Assemblies) summarising the street cleansing cleanliness performance as measured by the former National Indicator 195. This was based on three surveys of a minimum of 300 streets in each survey comprising at least five electoral wards per survey which graded the amount of litter, detritus, graffiti and fly posting on each street.

In relation to litter, despite budget and staffing reductions for 2011/12, the Service was striving to meet this year’s target of 7%. As reductions in resources have been applied this has now restricted the ability of the Service in dealing with responsive street cleaning complaints and fly tipping on non Council owned land. Other than priority complaints, street cleansing complaints are now dealt with as part of the normal cleansing cycle. It was agreed that there should be a more co-ordinated approach between different Council services dealing with litter and fly tipping hot spot areas and that District Assemblies would liaise with Environmental Services on this matter and report their findings to the next meeting of the Panel. Discussion also ensued on the Council’s liability in respect of land within the ownership of New Charter Housing Trust.

In recent years the Service had invested in new equipment to improve performance in respect of detritus which was demonstrated in the current performance figure reported although it would be a challenge to maintain this in the light of further budget reductions.

Historically the Service had sought to provide four week spray treatments each year but due to savings requirements for 2011/12 three treatments were carried out in May, July and October / early November 2011.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

11. Date Of Next Meeting

It was noted that the next meeting of the Enforcement Co-ordination Panel would take place on Wednesday 4 April 2012.

Chair