Agenda Item 4
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REPORT PACK FOR HORNCASTLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING ON 17TH MARCH 2020 Agenda item 4. Title: Guest Speakers from Lincolnshire County Council Highways 1. The guest speakers will be: Richard Fenwick – County Highways Manager Russel Crockford – Area Highways Manager 2. They have been asked to explain the new Highways Community Gangs & the terminology used in FixMyStreet, speak about the new Highways contracts, and answer questions from councillors and members of the public. Agenda item 6. NOTES Please be advised that these are notes of the meeting taken by the Clerk and cannot in any way be regarded as the official minutes of Council proceedings until they are approved and signed at the next meeting MINUTES OF THE HORNCASTLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON 11 FEBRUARY 2020 AT 7.00PM IN THE STANHOPE HALL In the chair: Councillor A Birchall (Vice Chairman) Present: Councillors Aron, Barker, Everton, Hinkins, Lockwood, Macarthy, J Martin, Moore and Wilkinson In attendance: • A Bushell - Town Clerk • John Fieldhouse – Horncastle News • Councillor Campbell-Wardman - ELDC Councillor for Horncastle • Carol Ripping – ELDC Rough Sleeping Prevention Co-ordinator • Ellie Rutherford – ELDC Inreach and Resettlement Worker • Sgt Lee Willoughby – Lincolnshire Police • PC Richard Precious – Lincolnshire Police Public participation: There were no members of the public in attendance. 162. CHAIRMAN’S REMARKS AND MAYOR’S REPORT Councillor Birchall welcomed everyone to the meeting and reported that the Mayor was having a well-deserved break. 163. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND REASONS GIVEN Apologies with reasons given were received and accepted from Councillor Burbidge and Cllr F Martin. PCSO Wass and ELD Cllr Avison had also sent their apologies. 164. DECLARATION OF INTERESTS AND DISPENSATIONS There were no declarations of interests or any requests for dispensations received. RESOLVED to order the order of the agenda to allow the Police to give their report first as they were on duty. 165. REPORT FROM THE POLICE Sgt Willoughby and PC Precious explained their roles and apologised that Inspector Constantine was unable to attend the meeting. They reported that a person had been interviewed for the recent incidents of anti-social behaviour and vandalism carried out in the town and they had been released under investigation. They were currently looking at the most suitable way of dealing with this person to ensure that further incidents didn’t occur. Sgt Willoughby commented that Horncastle was a safe part of the world to live and was much safer than other parts of the county. He spoke about funding cuts to the Police force, and explained that the additional funding pledged by the new Government had provided 50 additional officers, but due to changes in staffing the uplift would be minus 8. The Officers were thanked for being candid about the cuts being experienced, and they also explained that changes in types of crime, such as more internet & cybercrime meant that they had to react and set up Cybercrime Units, but they didn’t get additional Officers to man them. Residents were encouraged to be vigilant and sign up to the Police’s social media to receive warnings and advice. There had been some issues with 101 so residents were asked to persevere. Sgt Willoughby spoke about the importance of reporting crimes to the Police even if it seemed like only a small crime it might turn out to be part of a bigger crime, and if the Police didn’t know about it then they couldn’t do anything, so people shouldn’t think they were wasting the Police’s time by reporting incidents. The Officers were informed that PCSO Wass was a great asset in the town and the Officers answered questions from councillors and spoke in detail about Community Resolution which was a way for an offender to make good and assist a victim following a crime, and it also avoided clogging the courts up. The meeting was informed that the Police were looking to recruit Special Constables and Voluntary PCSO’s if anyone knew of someone who may be interested. Sgt Willoughby and PC Precious were thanked for attending the meeting and they agreed to feedback comments that had been made. 166. GUEST SPEAKERS FROM EAST LINDSEY DISTRICT COUNCIL (ELDC) TO SPEAK ABOUT THE SERVICE TO ERADICATE ROUGH SLEEPING IN THE DISTRICT Carol & Ellie explained that the ELDC Rough Sleeping Prevention team set up in 2019 was funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), there were four in their office and they gave details of their individual roles. When the service was first started there was thought to be 18 people sleeping rough in the district, but when they went out they found 54, but since in post they had managed to reduce rough sleeping significantly, so now they were only aware of 3 people who were classed as sleeping rough, but there hadn’t actually been anyone sleeping on the streets for quite some time. Since June 2019 the team have received 259 referrals with 112 of those being directly supported into a new way of life off the streets. The area that the team covered was much larger than what they were first told, they covered the whole district which was a massive job for a team of 4. Carol explained that when they received a referral, they had to verify that the person was sleeping rough and the reason they had to be so strict was to ensure that they weren’t overrun with holidaymakers during the summer months. Once a person had been verified then they were passed to Ellie to find them accommodation but her main role was to stop people returning to the streets which was difficult at times, and she explained the type of things they did to help people which had proven successful because nobody had returned to the streets so far. Carol and Ellie spoke about the successful cases. Carol and Ellie were congratulated for doing such a good job to keep numbers low and they answered questions about the incident of rough sleeping in Horncastle which happened last month, and this had been a shock to Councillors as thankfully rough sleeping was rare in the town. Carol and Ellie spoke about the partners they worked with which included the Police and P3 which was not an emergency organisation, they were street outreach. They mentioned that a lot of effort was put into finding people sleeping rough, but they couldn’t help people if they didn’t know who they were or where they were. Also, the legislation stated that if a person was no more vulnerable than any other person on the street then they had no duty to deal with them. Often the people they dealt with were known to them, and as East Lindsey was such a large area they often had to assess over the phone. The ELDC website had recently been updated to make it clearer what people had to do to report rough sleeping. Funding for the service was in place until March 2021, and it was hoped to recruit another Outreach Worker soon. Councillors asked what the Town Council could do to help, and Carol explained that they were hoping to identify a venue in the town that could be used and she would be speaking to Youth Centre Working Group about the possibility of having a facility there in the future. The guest speakers and Police Officers left the meeting at 7.46pm. 167. REPORTS FROM DISTRICT COUNCILLORS AND COUNTY COUNCILLOR District Cllr Campbell-Wardman reported that she was on the Scrutiny Panel looking into reasons people were rough sleeping in the district, and the panel was also looking at the lack of information for people who found themselves in that situation. ELDC would be looking at engaging better with organisations that supported the homeless. Cllr Campbell-Wardman agreed to share the findings of the Scrutiny Panel’s work with the Town Council. The next District Council meeting would take place in early March and the main item would be to set the budget for 2020/21. County Cllr Aron reported that LCC had set its budget for 2020/21 and increased its share of the Council tax by 3.5%. Cllr Aron commented that LCC still set one of the lowest Council Taxes in the country and continues to push for fairer funding. Cllr Aron also reported that LCC was aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050, it was looking at expanding the Boston Road Industrial Estate, and carrying out a review on Household Waste Recycling Centres which may result in Kirby-on-Bain landfill site closing. Cllr Aron was asked to provide the Town Council with more information on the expansion on the Industrial Estate and the closure of the Kirkby-on-Bain landfill site. 168. MINUTES OF THE COUNCIL MEETINGS HELD ON 14 JANUARY 2020 PROPOSED, SECONDED AND RESOLVED (unanimously) that subject to a change to minute reference 153 to note that Cllr F Martin also declared a personal interest in the Citizens Advice Lindsey application, the notes of the Council meeting held on 14th January would be approved as a true record of the meeting. 169. REPORTS FROM THE CLERK AND COUNCILLORS ON MATTERS OUTSTANDING The Clerk ran through the action list and reported that she was meeting with the Monitoring Officer to discuss Code of Conduct training and she asked councillors what they wanted from the training. It was established that it was information that was required rather than training, so the Clerk would get some written information from the Monitoring Officer and circulate this to Councillors. It was suggested that the Standing Orders be changed to say that Councillors will attend new Councillor training within 6 months of taking office rather than Code of Conduct training.