Agenda item

a period of up to 15 minutes is available to deal with questions submitted to the Council in accordance with the Executive Procedure Rules;

E.34/21           

It was noted that six public questions had been received in accordance with the Executive Procedure Rules for consideration at this meeting.

Question 1 from Caroline Snow:

“South Hams Council agreed in passing a recent motion to write to local MPs asking them to support the CEE Bill, and to the CEE Bill Alliance expressing its support and to inform the local media. Have these communications been sent and what did you write?”

In reply, the Leader advised that, following the meeting of Full Council on 15 July 2021 at which a Motion was passed to send letters of support for the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill to our local MPs and to the CEE Alliance, letters were duly sent on 23 July 2021 to Sir Gary Streeter MP and Anthony Mangnall MP outlining the debate held at Council and requesting their support for the Bill in Parliament.  In addition, a letter registering the Council’s support was sent by email, also on 23 July 2021, to the CEE Alliance.

In response, a message of thanks was received on 28 July 2021 from the CEE Alliance.

Question 2 from Julia Ford

“What financial penalties are written into the contract with FCC and have they been applied yet; if not, why not?

In response, the lead Executive Member stated that the deductions were set out in Schedule 5 (the performance standards and remedies) of the waste and cleansing contract.  In addition, the Council had been rigorous in calculating the financial deductions and these were being deducted from the invoices from FCC.

Question 3 from Julia Sanders

“Will the Waste Collection Service run smaller vehicles on a permanent basis, to collect waste from small rural lanes?”

The lead Executive Member replied by stating that larger vehicles were used for efficiency wherever possible.  However, owing to the rural nature of the South Hams, there would always be a need for a number of smaller collection vehicles on the service.

Question 4 from Julia Sanders

‘Will the service run smaller vehicles to access drives for ASSISTED COLLECTIONS.  These are often long private drives (which are accessible by the smaller oil tankers for instance)?  These are the people who need help the most.’

In his response, the lead Executive Member informed that there were many long private drives in the district and, in most instances, waste was presented at the kerbside at the end of the drives.  This was to ensure that vehicles did not cause damage to residents’ drives as most were not to a standard suitable for heavy waste vehicles.  In some instances, smaller vehicles were used to access the lanes, or a part of them, for efficiency or if there was nowhere suitable to leave the waste near the highway.

The Member also responded that assisted collections were assessed on an individual basis in consultation with the resident, contractor and Council to make sure that the solution was appropriate for the particular circumstances.

Question 5 from Julia Sanders

‘If the answer to Question 4 is negative, will they collect on foot and return bins to same?  Bearing in mind elderly and infirm and disabled cannot possible carry all these bins any distance.’

The lead Executive Member replied by referring the questioner to his response to Question 4.

Question 6 from Sue Burkill

‘Many Shaugh Prior residents live on private lanes and are experiencing frequent missed collections.  Is it true that private roads cannot be collected by FCC as they are not insured and, if so, as a SHDC vehicle has recently collected and co-mingled their waste, should they stop sorting it?

In his response, the lead Member advised that there were many long private drives in the district and, in most instances, waste was presented at the kerbside at the end of the drives.  This was to ensure that vehicles did not cause damage to residents’ drives as most were not to a standard suitable for heavy waste vehicles.

There were however a number of private lanes that had been traditionally collected from and unless the resident had been notified by the Council in advance, these should continue to be collected from.

Due to a number of reasons, including making sure collections take place on scheduled days and congestion at the sorting facility, the Contractor has changed the type of some of the collection vehicles and was now collecting recycling in a co-mingled manner from around 15,000 households in the district.  This waste was then taken to a more sophisticated sorting facility before being hauled to reprocessing facilities.

Finally, the Member added that whilst it may not currently seem useful for residents to sort their waste between the recycling containers provided, it would ensure a quick and smooth transition back once the kerbside sort vehicles were operating in these areas again.  The Council therefore required residents to continue to sort their waste into appropriate containers.