i) Chairman of Council
ii) Leader of the Council
iii) Head of Paid Service
Minutes:
i) Chairman
The Chairman addressed Council and advised that in the run up to her final couple of months as Chairman of the Council, she had had the pleasure of hosting some West Lindsey civic functions including:
• Commonwealth Day, where she was honoured to raise the Commonwealth flag outside the Guildhall to celebrate with others around the world this special day; and
• just last week, she had hosted a school council, for seven primary schools in the area. Nearly 30 children had presented, in the Chamber, their findings into waste and recycling and it had been a joy to hear how passionate they were and how much they had put into researching the topic.
Out of the area the Chairman had been delighted to be invited to:
• A South Holland District Council dedication service for the Spalding WWII memorial, which was unveiled by His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent;
• A North Lincolnshire Council hosted Civic Dinner at Normanby Hall and a Civic Dinner hosted by North Kesteven District Council. Both events had raised lots of money for their chosen charities.
The Chairman had also had the pleasure of attending a meeting of a large Chinese delegation including the Governor of Hunan Province, along with the Chairman of Lincolnshire County Council and people from the ‘Midlands Engine’.
This had included a visit to RAF Scampton, where delegates had met the Red Arrows Team. This was a return visit as the Red Arrows had visited Hunan Province last year. The whole day, including dinner in the evening, had been quite an experience as everything had to be interpreted. It was however a day not to be forgotten and it had certainly been an honour to take part in.
Back in Gainsborough, the Chairman had attended an evening of music from Gilbert & Sullivan operettas performed by the Choral Society, as always, this was very enjoyable.
With still a few weeks as Chairman, the Chairman advised she was looking forward to her final few engagements.
ii) Leader of Council
The Leader addressed Council and advised that he too had attended the Choral Society evening. The quality of the musicians and singers was breathtaking and he highly recommended anyone who had not seen one of their performances to go along.
The Leader had also recently attended a Lincolnshire Waste Partnership meeting. One of the most important facts he had taken away from the meeting was that for every tonne of food waste delivered to an Anaerobic Digestion Plant this saved the County Council approximately £70.00.
Last week he had attended a key note seminar in London entitled Next Steps for Waste. There had been 18 speakers, on a range of subjects associated with the production of packaging, re-use, handling, and the disposal and recycling of waste of all types.
Chris Preston of DEFRA spoke about Government resources, priorities and a waste strategy.
Their main objectives were to
1. Maximise the value of resource used and minimise adverse environmental impacts.
2. Create a 25 year environmental plan to minimise waste and its impact on the environment.
3. Extend producer responsibility for packaging.
4. Polluter pays approach.
5. Create a deposit return scheme.
6. Create consistent recycling
7. Potential to create a plastics tax on packaging.
Chris Preston had also spoken about further policy initiatives, including: -
1. Invoking the polluter pays.
2. Ensuring weekly collection of food waste
3. Exploring mandatory guarantees and extended guarantees on products.
4. Introducing annual reporting of food waste by food businesses
5. A clampdown on illegal waste
6. More re-use.
Martin Bowman, had spoken about introducing binding statutory targets to reduce UK food waste by 50% from farm to fork by 2030.
Andy Rees, from the Welsh Government had boasted about Wales being the 3rd best recycler in the World!
Lucy Frankel, from Vegware had spoken about, in vessel composting; wet anaerobic digestion; dry anaerobic digestion; open window composting; on site composters and mechanical plant processing.
Peter Andrews, from the British Retail Consortium had expressed the need to improve the purity of collections and the need to introduce deposit return systems.
The Leader was of the view that there were strong messages emanating for West Lindsey to consider going forward, namely: -
1. Separate food waste collections would be coming.
2. Changes in the law should also be expected
3. Council’s could not afford to establish collection without financial assistance.
4. The Council should not do anything until the Government declared what support would be forthcoming, else he feared no support would be offered.
The Leader concluded his announcements by referring to the retirement of Councillors. Tonight would be the last Council for Councillor Allison having served 2 years; Councillor Mewis having served 6 years; Councillor Shore having served 20 years; Councillor Marfleet having served 4 years, and Councillor Bardsley having served 16 years.
The Leader took the opportunity to thank them all for the work which they had done over the years, making particular mention of the impeccable style and considered, pragmatic view displayed by his good friend and colleague, Councillor Bardsley, during her 16 years as Councillor for the North Ward of Gainsborough.
A round of applause was given to all those retiring Councillors.
iii) Head of Paid Service
The Head of Paid Service addressed Council on behalf of the Management Team during which the following points were made: -
The Management Team of West Lindsey had met with the Management Team of East Lindsey District Council, as part of the regular liaison meetings with Neighbouring Councils, to explore whether there was an opportunity for joint working or sharing services. Whilst these were just initial discussions about areas where joint working could be considered, it was recognised there were areas where joint working could be beneficial for both Councils. The Management Team would keep Members informed as this work progressed.
The Head of Paid Service was pleased to confirm that all Council Tax Bills had been issued on time in accordance with normal practice.
There was an update in respect of the green garden waste service. This was the second year of a subscription based service. The advertising of the service had commenced early in the New Year and indications were, from take up rates, that the service was on target to be just as popular as it had been the previous year. The service was on track to meet its income target and at least match last year’s performance.
Finally the Management Team had been going through the Annual Review of performance measures. This work was completed with Officers, Team Managers and a Working Group of Members. The Head of Paid Service was pleased to advise that the raft of measures to be used in 19/20 had now been finalised and these were first due to be reported against in the Performance and Delivery reports in July 2019.