I have to begin my position statement for this meeting with a reflection on the sad loss of life at Grenfell Tower, and the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. During the terrorist attacks people of all faiths and nationalities came together to support the victims and their families of a few individual attackers. These innocent victims were not all British and it is a credit to our emergency services and the local communities who came to their aid.
In Grenfell, the causes of the tragedy which led to the loss of so many lives will be debated for years to come, but in the immediate aftermath it was the community who responded fastest to the needs of victims and their families. A community who once again came together regardless of race, religion or background. This is what strong communities do, not through any direction but through a common sense of doing what is right.
For the most part our communities are law abiding and respectful of peoples’ differences, most recognise that we have more in common to bring us together than the things that divide us, and we see that as people get on with their daily lives. We see the support that our officers give day after day to our communities, officers supporting people in need and enriching lives, be that through the great work delivered by our community houses, keeping our places clean, or providing leisure activities.
When we become Councillors we hope that we can support our communities through good times and bad, but we never expect things to get quite as bad as they have done for those communities, and we hope that they never will.
For our part this Council has been undertaking a review of our properties and our fire risk assessment. As part of that review a report will be sent to scrutiny to brief members on our current levels of fire safety. I should state that officers have already complied with information requests to central government and identified that we have no high rise and high risk properties needing any immediate action. If we do identify that we need to make changes to other properties then they will be implemented.
On our agenda this evening we will be seeking member approval to procure a new fleet of vehicles to support changes to refuse and recycling, groundcare and housing maintenance. Executive has authorised changes to the service of refuse collection, which will see an additional round included from next year. We will also modify the dry recycling system from next year so that households will not need to use the separate card and paper caddy, but will simply be able to co-mingle dry recycling in the blue lidded bin. Both of these changes will improve the collection service to our customers and address some capacity issues experienced with card and paper collection.
We also have the financial outturn report for 2016-17 and members will see the council’s financial position has continued to improve and puts us in a better position to deal with any future challenges.
We also have an updated constitution for members to agree. Rebecca Owen has worked with a cross party group to simplify and update the constitution, which has received the endorsement of the Scrutiny Commission and it is now a much easier document to read, as well as one that reflects recent changes in legislation.
Minutes:
In his position statement, the Leader referred to the sad loss of life at Grenfell Tower and recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. Members echoed these sentiments and supported the proposal for a report to the Scrutiny Commission on implications for this council.