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T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L Q U A I Y L T I N V A A L P R O C E E D I N G S D A A L T Y N S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D O N E N V I R O N M E N T A N D I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P O L I C Y R E V I E W B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L M Y C H I O N E A A S C R U T A G H E Y P O L A S E E Y N E R C O O I S H Y N C H Y M M Y L T A G H T A S B U N – T R O G G A L Y S DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE HANSARD Douglas, Wednesday, 1st May 2013 PP89/13 EIPRC-E, No. 1/12-13 All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website www.tynwald.org.im/Official Papers/Hansards/Please select a year: Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2013 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013 Members Present: Acting Chairman: Mr A F Downie OBE MLC Mr Z Hall MHK Clerk: Mrs E M Lambden Apologies: Mr D M W Butt MLC Business Transacted Page Procedural ................................................................................................................................... 3 Evidence of Hon. P A Gawne MHK, Minister and Mr R Lole, Chief Executive, Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture................................................................. 3 The Committee adjourned at 4.09 p.m. ________________________________________________________________ 2 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013 Standing Committee of Tynwald on Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture The Committee sat in public at 2.30 p.m. in the Legislative Council Chamber, Legislative Buildings, Douglas [MR DOWNIE in the Chair] Procedural 5 The Acting Chairman (Mr A F Downie MLC): Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this public meeting of the Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee, which is a Standing Committee of Tynwald. Could I, first of all, put on record the apologies from our Chairman, Mr Dudley Butt MLC. My name is Alex Downie MLC and I will be chairing the Committee today in his absence. I also have 10 with me Zac Hall MHK, who is part of the Committee, and our secretary here is Mrs Marie Lambden – she is our Clerk. Just one or two housekeeping issues. If there is a fire in the building, an alarm will sound and all of the exits are quite clearly illustrated. I would suggest that we assemble outside and nobody wanders off, and if there is a headcount or a roll call, we will know exactly who has been in the 15 building with us. I would ask you to ensure your mobile phones are switched off – not just on silent, as it does interfere with Hansard. Also for the purposes of Hansard, I will be ensuring that we do not have two people speaking at once. The Environmental and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee is one of three Standing 20 Committees of Tynwald established in October 2011 with a wide scrutiny remit. We have three Departments to cover, which are the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure; the Department of Food and Agriculture; and the Department of Infrastructure. Today’s session is the second of our routine scrutiny sessions with the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture, and to that end our Clerk has written to your Department, 25 Minister, and given you an indication of some of the areas we would like to cover today. I am not saying that what we have sent to you is written in tablets of stone, but there have been other opportunities to develop questions, and of course recently the agricultural community has suffered a very difficult time, so we might want to ask a few questions in that area. There will be one at the end of the session, which has just been brought to our notice today, 30 with regard to houses in multiple occupancy, which is an Environmental Health question that Mr Hall will raise with you, probably as a final item. 35 EVIDENCE OF HON. P A GAWNE MHK AND MR R LOLE Q1. The Acting Chairman: If I can start then by just asking the two of you to introduce yourselves to us for purpose of the record, and then we will get on with the session. 40 The Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture (Mr Gawne): Phil Gawne, Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture. Mr Lole: Richard Lole, Chief Executive of the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture. 45 Q2. The Acting Chairman: Thank you. ________________________________________________________________ 3 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013 The first issue we would like to raise is related to the Food Park in Peel. This Committee has had some fairly extensive dialogue and correspondence from Mr Davison regarding the Food Park. There are two issues here. The first issue is do you accept that Mr 50 Davison has a valid point in respect of the gates and fences around the Food Park? Also, has the proximity of the Food Park to the proposed sewage works been considered, and has any liaison with other Government Departments been taken to discuss this subject? The Minister: Yes, I am more than happy to answer that. 55 I think it is fair to say that Mr Davison has a point in that we, as a Department, could have done a little bit better in terms of our discussions with the tenants, and I think, subsequent to a lot of Mr Davison’s concerns becoming made more public – and I have to say he did not contact the Department directly; he went straight to the press with some of these comments, which I think… Everyone is entitled to their own way of doing things, but I would have thought it would have 60 been easier to have talked to us first. However, I do acknowledge that the Department could have done better in terms of our discussions with tenants. We did have a meeting – I think it was in early March, would it be? – with the tenants and had a very thorough exploration of all the issues that had been raised, both by Mr Davison and some of the other tenants as well. As a result of that meeting, I think the 65 relationships between the Department, as landlord, and the tenants have have improved quite dramatically. Certainly I have not heard of any further significant concerns from tenants in terms of the issues that Mr Davison was raising. As far as the issue in relation to the gates and the security fencing, it is fair to say that you could get British retail accreditation by having other mechanisms in place other than a security 70 fence, but the purpose of the security fence was not just about BRC accreditation – it was also about tidying up the yard and making the place look presentable. I think we have had concerns for many years – certainly as long as I have been involved with the Department – about the state of the yard, that people were using it to dump vehicles and fly tip, effectively, as well. I think it was really important to tidy up the yard and the BRC accreditation is part of that and is achieved 75 through the fence. Added to that, we have got a much tidier-looking yard, a much more presentable-looking yard when we are bringing international buyers over, visiting and hopefully purchasing the Manx food that is produced there. So I think we have come up with the right solution. There were concerns about the position of the gate, how it was situated, and again, whilst the 80 evidence on the ground would suggest that the fact that the gate was hit by a vehicle must imply that indeed the gates were in the wrong place, actually the vehicle that hit the gates was not manned and seemed to automatically click itself into reverse gear and back into the gate. We have actually got CCTV evidence that shows that happening. It was a bizarre circumstance that resulted in the gate getting wrecked. 85 Other than that, yes indeed, there have been some drivers complaining that the gateway was a bit narrow, but this is an EU-recognised standard. The designers of the whole scheme have followed the standards as well as they can and there appears to be no reason why the drivers are having difficulty, according to the standards that have been set. So, in terms of the positioning of the gateway, we do not see a significant problem with that. 90 The other issue… I did answer a Question on this in the House of Keys – I think it was the House of Keys; it might have been Tynwald, but certainly in the last three or four weeks, so there will be a full version of that.