Agenda and minutes

INFORMATION FAIR

The following information stands were sited in the room. Members of the public visited the stands and were given an opportunity to meet Councillors, Council staff and the local Police and to bring enquiries and raise and issues.

          Ward Councillors and General Enquiries

          School Attendance

Details were provided of the work being undertaken to ensure good school attendance.

          Housing and Housing Repairs

Officers were present who were able to provide advice with regard to local Council housing matters.

          Community and Healthy Living Centres

Details were available with regard to the facilities / services available in Community and Healthy Living Centres.

          Housing Benefits

Advice was available on housing benefits matters.

          Police

Local Police Officers were available to discuss any matters of concern.

          Special Olympics

Information was available with regard to volunteering opportunities at the Special Olympics.

          Youth Council

Youth Council members were present to give information about the activities they undertook.

          Beaumont Leys Sports Consortium

Representatives were available from the Consortium to provide details of the facilities it was intended to provide in the area.

At the conclusion of this informal session members of the public were invited to take their seats and take part in the formal session of the meeting.

FORMAL SESSION

Councillors will elect a Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Dempster was Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Paul Westley submitted his apologies for the meeting.

Apologies for absence were also received from local resident Peter Naylor. He asked that his thanks be passed on for the ‘Telly Talk’ facility in Beaumont Leys Library which he felt was very useful for being able to talk to the Council’s Customer Services staff.

The first main item on the programme is Declaration of Interest where Councillors have to say if there is anything in the programme they have a personal interest in. For example if a meeting wanted to talk about digging up a road and one of the Councillors lived on that road, he or she would have to say they have a personal interest in that.

Councillors are asked to declare any interest they may have in the business on the agenda, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

Councillors were asked to declare any interests they might have in the business on the agenda and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1972 applied to them.

There were no declarations.

The minutes of the meeting held on June 10 are attached to these agenda papers and Councillors will be asked to confirm them as a correct record following any comments that people may have.

The minutes of the meeting held on June 10 were attached to the agenda papers. The Councillors on the Committee were asked to approve them as a correct record. They were confirmed.

Malcolm Grange, Head of Street Scene Enforcement will give a presentation of the Environmental Services work carried out in the Beaumont Leys Ward.

The meeting received a presentation from Malcolm Grange, Head of Street Scene Enforcement about the Environmental Services which were provided in the Beaumont Leys Ward.

He gave details on the following areas of work undertaken in the ward:-

- Waste and Recycling – There was still a weekly collection of waste in Leicester, also free collection of 5 bulky items and the city achieved a 33% recycling rate.

- Street Cleaning – the Council undertook area based street cleaning. As part of this matters such as fly tipping, abandoned vehicles, discarded needles and graffiti were also dealt with. The Beaumont Leys ward had much higher than average incidents of discarded needles and graffiti problems.

- Other Street Scene Matters – these included graffiti removal from Virgin Media equipment boxes and the responsible rubbish disposal initiative, where there was a display at the Beaumont Leys Shopping Centre for a week.

- City Wardens - Malcolm informed the meeting that the Beaumont Leys Ward would be having a City Warden working in the ward from October, looking at tackling a range of enviro crime issues and improve the local environment.

- Pest Control Services - it was noted that there were generally lower levels, than the city average, of call outs to deal with most types of pest problems (rats, mice, cockroaches, fleas) in the Beaumont Leys Ward.

- Dog Control Orders – A range of new powers were being introduced. For example, dogs would be restricted from certain areas such as children’s play areas and fines could be levied against irresponsible owners for not cleaning up mess.

- Noisy Neighbours – information was provided on the services provided by the Noise Control Team, who provided a call-out service until 2.00am seven days a week. This team was called out in the ward to deal with a number of complaints mostly relating to loud music played at night.

- Smile Safe Scheme – this was where businesses selling food and drink were inspected and given a rating of their hygiene. He outlined premises which were rated as good eg, Barley Croft Primary School and John Calvert Court.

- Licensing – the Licensing Team was responsible for granting of alcohol and other licenses. New rules had recently been brought in to restrict food vans outside schools to prevent bad eating habits from developing. They also oversaw the ‘Best Bar None’ scheme which promoted good practices amongst the city’s licensees.

- Building Control – Officers had been responsible for checking the safety of building projects, in Beaumont Leys however there was an occasion where officers had to check a building which a vehicle had crashed into on Thornholm Close. Officers had also undertaken a great deal of work checking buildings in the aftermath of the earth tremor in February.

-  Parks – Malcolm gave details of the restoration to Castle Hill Country Park, the improvements made to Bennion Pools Nature Area and the Beaumont Lodge Heritage Trail.

- 10,000 Trees Project – Malcolm provided  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

Steve Letten, Member Support Officer will present the findings from the Priority Cards that people were invited to fill in at the first meeting and will explain the next steps in producing the Ward Action Plan.

INFORMATION FAIR

6.00pm – 6.30pm

PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS OF SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES YOU CAN TALK TO AT THIS MEETING.

You can raise matters of concern, give any opinions and find out information which may be of use.

TABLE 1

Ward Councillors and General Information

Talk to your local Councillors or raise general queries.

TABLE 2

Street Cleaning

Ask about any Street Cleaning issues that you may have.

TABLE 3

Domestic Violence Campaign

To promote awareness in domestic violence.

TABLE 4

School Attendance

Find out about school admissions in the area.

TABLE 5

Health Issue

Find out about the work of the Local Involvement Network, which seeks to have more public involvement in the development of local health services.

TABLE 6

Customer Services

Raise general queries with Customer Services Officers.

TABLE 7

Community Safety and Police Issues

Talk to your Local Police and Community Safety Officers

FORMAL SESSION

6.30pm – 8.00pm

Steve Letten, Member Support Officer will introduce and explain the different funds available to the Community Meeting.

Councillors are reminded that they will need to declare any interest they may have in the budget applications, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

Steve Letten, Member Support Officer gave the meeting a brief presentation outlining the budgets available to the Community Meeting.

Ward Priority Fund - £6700 in 2008/09 (£10,000 in 2009/10) – to fund projects to support the Ward Action Plan being developed by the meeting. This funding was meant to be used to divert mainstream resources to meeting needs in the ward.

Community Fund - £3300 in 2008/09 (£5000 in 2009/10) – to fund projects to help the community at large or individual groups for example, older people’s trip to the seaside.

Community Cohesion Fund - £2000 in 2008/09 – to fund projects to; support or reinforce community integration eg. build links involving young people; and build confidence and a sense of belonging.

Steve also noted that there was an urgency procedure which could be utilised. This meant amounts of up to £500, could be agreed for funding outside of a meeting. Councillor Dempster however commented that it would be extremely rare that this facility would be used and that funding would normally come to the Community Meeting for consideration.

One application for funding had been received and was circulated at the meeting. It was a proposal to set up a community library at Barleycroft Healthy Living Centre. The request was for £3000 for specialist books. These were children’s books, large print and English for Speakers of an Overseas Language. Carlym Sandringham from the Healthy Living Centre spoke in support of the application.

The Chair proposed that £750 be provided for the library, and that officers contact the Children and Young People’s Services and the Adults and Housing Departments to see if any further funding could be provided.

The Chair thanked everyone for attending. She asked that people spread the message about the Community Meeting as it was designed to be for the benefit of residents.

The meeting closed at 8.50pm.