Agenda item

F Jump presented the report and asked Committee for any questions.

Cllr England said that on page 20 there is a £200k variance on garages and asked if that was the identified additional income that we think we get in successive years.  F Williamson replied that this was a reduction from the budgeted income that is forecast for next year, to allow for all of the work that the review will produce, in respect of any investment programme or rationalisation or one of the other options to replace them with modular garages and it was mentioned earlier about the life expectancy of garages  That is down to block by block and them down to the individual components and that’s the information we are lacking at the moment in terms of collecting information.  Whilst all of that is in train we have been conservative in our estimate in respect of whether that will generate any additional income next year.  From the modelling we’ve done in terms of the garages let against the garages returned that is the impact on the budget for next year.

Cllr England said that hopefully with all this activity recently income might be higher but it’s best to assume on the downside.  L Roberts mentioned that there is always what she would call a hockey stick, so you’re always going to have a little bit of a dip before you get your increase, because we are spending on the project itself.

Cllr Johnson mentioned that on page 12 it mentions tree work for housing HRA and wondered if that was planting trees or pruning, pollarding and removing trees.   F Williamson said it was a specific sum for tree  survey for trees on HRA land, so that’s in response to some problems that they’ve been outside of the borough in terms of tree management, so we want to ensure we manage that risk by undertaking a survey of existing trees.

Cllr England said on page 20 that the homelessness income figure seems to have a variance of 53% which he feels is a large variance and asked for an explanation.  F Jump said that it was additional income for temporary accommodation that we are expecting next year as a result of the conversion of estates properties and also garage conversions as well.

Cllr England asked about the Adventure Playgrounds on page 21 is showing a 28% increase in income likely, it seems like a big increase.  L Roberts said when you look at it in black and white it is a big increase but it’s not a large number. Again it comes back to support for marketing, so we are really going to target birthday parties, that type of thing, so far I’ve got no reason to question why we won’t achieve it.

Cllr England said it looks as if there is a cut of about £39k on the community development, residents services and neighbourhood action and that appears to be balanced out in similar in community development in parishes.  Cllr England asked they were related and is that right that we’re choosing to spend more in parished areas than non-parished areas, is there any rationale for that.   F Jump confirmed they were not related, there is a budget realignment but the two areas are not connected.

Cllr England asked what is the rationale behind spending less on residents services and neighbourhood action.  L Roberts advised that we’ve changed how that side of things are managed, so some of them are being managed in housing and some is coming through her area.  F Williamson confirmed that we have taken on the ASB team based on the fact that the majority of cases were related to housing.  L Roberts said we are not stopping doing anything it’s a realignment of budget.

The Chairman asked for a detailed explanation as she was aware of the restructuring but we were never really given a brief on what that looked like.  F Williamson advised it is the transfer of two officers from the ASB team into the Housing Service.  There was a review of the service requirements and as a result of that review it was determined that it would be better if the ASB was managed within the Housing Service because of the higher proportion of housing cases, so it’s been a question of transferring those staff from Linda’s area into Housing.

The Chairman mentioned that she understood that we have one less member of staff now due to the restructure.  L Roberts confirmed that was the case, it wasn’t just her area, there was also Environmental Services which is Emma’s area and that’s where the reduction in staff occurred but we don’t have her budget in these numbers, it’s just the impact on ours.

The Chairman asked about the seven further garage sites identified and the figures on here that show we’ve been very proactive and there are sometimes concerns about infrastructure, parking etc. which comes up with every development and thought it would be interesting for Members to know where those sites are.  In the past Officers have been quite good at informing Councillors if they are in their specific areas but it would be interesting for the Committee to have an understanding which of the seven sites that have been highlighted and what potential infrastructure problems have you addressed.  F Williamson confirmed she didn’t have that detail, we are just in the process of working up the feasibility studies, so I can provide the details of the sites in terms of their locations, but in respect of the disposals programme, there was a number of key factors that were taken into account when identifying sites that would be suitable for potential development.  The first of which was displacement of vehicles from one site, trying to find adjacent sites that had available garages, so that people then could move to an adjacent site.  That was one of the key criteria’s identified during that process, when sites were considered for disposal.  M Gaynor advised that the person who might have the answers are in Finance at the moment so we can provide an answer for you and the rest of the Committee after the meeting.  Cllr Griffiths confirmed that the relative Councillors are consulted before anything further is done, so you will know if you are the Ward Councillor because they come to you as part of the process.

Cllr England asked for clarification on the 800 blocks we have in the whole Borough and of those does that include the sites which were identified and signed off in 2014 as being for disposal.  L Roberts said that it does include those that have been identified, but it doesn’t include the ones that we’ve sold, but it does include those that have been identified because at the moment we’ve not sold them.  Cllr England queried if we are still letting them until they are sold.  L Roberts advised that we were and as well as the ability to conveniently transfer, occupancy levels was another thing that we were considering, when that disposal review was done they were looking at the occupancy levels were like then, so we’ll look at the occupancy levels again to see how that factors into what is done.  Cllr England said that the 2014 cohort of garages was quite a large number of blocks.  L Roberts advised it was all of them.  Cllr England said that we are not getting through them very much. 

Cllr England asked if when the decision were made in 2014 to dispose of certain blocks that was done without any up to date stock condition on those blocks.  F Williamson confirmed they did have the stock information from the 2009 survey so they did have some stock data and each site was reviewed prior to it going on the list so they actually had valuers going out to site because one of the other criteria is around developability of the site, so things like access can cause problems and then render a site not suitable for any large scale development which means that the market value for an alternative use is lower.  Cllr England asked if Councillors will get an opportunity to review that 2014 list in the light of the information we now know and possibly the side that that needs to be done differently.  The Chairman asked for what purpose.  Cllr England said to make the best decision about the assets that we have.  F Williamson replied that until we have that information we can’t make any decisions in respect of the longer term use of those sites, but they obviously fulfil the criteria that we assessed them for in terms occupancy of other sites and current occupancy developability, so those are unlikely to have changed but it may be that once we’ve actually obtained all of the stock information and allowing for the passage of time, the occupancy rates may have changed so we may need to relook at them.  One of these supplementary pieces of work that is falling out of the sites that have been identified and also from the high level stock information that we have collected, is just the presence of unauthorised use or wayleaves that have been created that then obviously can cause some ongoing problems, so that’s another thing that’s being picked up as part of the garage project.  We need to ensure that we have clean sites for disposal. 

Cllr England asked for an explanation of the term wayleave.  F Williamson said that a wayleave is a legal access across a piece of land that’s not owned by individuals, some people have been driving across the garage forecourt to get to their rear garden to park a car.  Cllr England said if they have been doing that for long enough then they have a right to do it.  F Williamson said they could put an adverse possession claim in, but they would have to provide sufficient evidence to support their claim, so each case would have to be dealt with on an individual basis.  Cllr England asked how many of those have arisen.  F Williamson said hopefully not too many but part of this process is identifying any use that obviously means that we need to regularise. 

The Chairman asked what the length of time they needed to have been doing that to be able to put a claim in, it’s quite a long time.  F Williamson said that it was a minimum of 12 years depending on whether there is any covenant or statutory limitations sometimes its 21 years.

Cllr Adeleke wanted to know how long is the refurbishment programme of garages going to be.  L Roberts advised we don’t have a set period of time, it’s about the programme that we’re currently underway to facilitate the 300 people that we’ve identified who say they want one, we are actually getting those ready so that we can move quickly, our occupancy level has gone down and we are trying to protect that income, so we match a customer with a garage as quickly as we can.  Going forward there needs to be an investment proposal which will be mapped onto an ongoing maintenance plan.

The Chairman confirmed that the Budget report had been scrutinised by the Committee and feedback has been provided for Cabinet.