Venue: Committee Room 1 - Civic Centre, Swansea. View directions
Contact: Scrutiny 636292
Items
No. |
Item |
1. |
Apologies for Absence
Minutes:
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2. |
Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests
Minutes:
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3. |
Notes PDF 123 KB
To approve & sign the Notes of the previous meeting(s)
as a correct record.
Minutes:
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4. |
Public Questions
Questions must relate to matters on the open part of the
Agenda of the meeting, and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period
Minutes:
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5. |
Question and Answer Session - Corporate Property Services and Corporate Building Services PDF 120 KB
·
Geoff Bacon – Head Corporate Property Services
·
Nigel Williams - Interim Head of Corporate
Building Services
Minutes:
- Outlined the aim and
objectives of the inquiry
- Brief overview of the
meeting with the planning department
Head of Corporate Property
Services – Q&A
- There are occasions when
land is not disposed of due to ecological reasons
- Due diligence means that land
has ecology surveys done at the start and this will establish how
marketable it is or whether to retain it
- Only then will the land go
on the disposal list
- Land is given a value
differently depending on whether that land is for sale or for lease
- Tree Protection Orders
don’t tend to be put on Council land
- Environmental factors are
considered and then a financial estimate is developed by the team
- There is a direct conflict
between income maximisation and environmental issues which is a
fundamental issue
- Policy determines this
conflict and an outcome comes from negotiation
- Any statutory restriction
will override any Council policy
- Debates arise over
environmental mitigation
- There isn’t a lot of
contact with external agencies such as NRW unless necessary. Generally any
issues go through the Nature Conservation Team
- External ecology surveys
are sometimes undertaken on potential sites but the cost of undertaking
these investigations needs to be offset by any income – it has to be
financially viable
- There is emerging work
which has a greater emphasis on ecosystems and the benefits of land such
as flood and carbon alleviation – this means that land may be much more
valuable than first thought
- Could there be potential
for long term income rather than selling assets and only having one lot of
money from the land
- The external data and
surveys which are done are shared with ecology
- The land availability for
development is very small – most of the land in Swansea will never be
developed
- Generating income from a
piece of land would be great but it takes staff to manage it and
departments do not have the resources
- Someone needs to manage
land with income generating projects and all land needs a co-ordinated
approach
- Corporate Property
Services do not manage any enforcement on the land. Enforcement is only
monitored through other departments such a planning (if subject to
planning) and other ecological enforcement
- People are prepared to
take the risk and financial penalty for damaging land and species if it
makes profit/ensures land development
- There are not enough
resources for legitimate enforcement
- Local Councillors have a
big role to play in reporting issues which require enforcement, if there
is enough publicity it should deter people from doing them
- There is potential overage
(clawback of money) if a developer expands the site they are issued and
builds more properties making the land more valuable retrospectively
- Is the pre-application
process fit for purpose and considering connectivity and other
environmental issues – there may be potential to tighten this process up
- The right people need to
be involved early on to ensure that the everyone is engaged in the process
properly
- There could be potential to
invest in the land which has value (the land which is marked for sale) and
create long term income from it
- There are resource issues
in all teams to manage problems and create opportunities
- Promotion and management
of land costs money and this is at the other end of the aims of the
service – to increase immediate income
Corporate Building Services
- The team link in with the
Nature Conservation where they need to
- No building/premise
manager is able to circumvent laws and link in with ecologists regarding bats
etc when they need to
- The team are very keen on
recycling and maintaining the natural environment
- The apprentices (in
particular) are showing great initiative with recycling and reusing and
are looking for opportunities to increase benefits to nature
- Would like to see a ‘top
down’ approach to the issue of biodiversity and ensure the message is
really filtered through the organisation in the same way that other
important messages have
- The service would like
‘tool box’ talks on the issues and would welcome training and information
which allows them to contribute to the issue
- Ecology surveys are done
at ‘trigger points’ e.g. roof work not for example annually
- Each premise manager would
welcome opportunities to enhance the wildlife of their premise and there
could be training/top tips issued to each one
- There is no lack of desire
to contribute to this important issue and ensure that the environment is
maintained for future generations
- Again a lack of
enforcement and deterrent is a big issue as people know there is no
negative impact on them
- It would be really
beneficial to have this as a corporate objective so that the status of the
issue can be raised and the message stronger throughout the organisation
Discussion
- There can be confusion
around over who manages pieces of land both for the public and internally
- There is a piece of work
being undertaken at the moment to try and make this easier and the
responsibility and management of the land is clearer
- There is no lack of will
to pay regard and contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity
- Much of the restrictions
come from a lack of resources
- There are also success
stories and a lot of positive work
- The Council cannot police
all sites and they rely on ward members and householders to contact the
Council with any issues they see
- The council lease 50+
fields for grazing mainly via short term Farm Business Tenancies that are
often based on old guidelines/legislation that could bring the council and
the tenant into conflict with current WG legislation.
- There is no baseline data
of what habitats and species are present which is needed to ensure the
correct grazing regime is set up and inappropriate works e.g. over/under
grazing, re seeding, turf removal are prevented.
- The grazing sites need to
be surveyed to ensure the correct grazing and management regime is set up.
- Grazing is a valuable site
management tool as it is an income generator, reduces costs of contractors
and machinery and stops the need for use of herbicides.
- Income from existing grazing
agreements can be used to pay for the surveys
- Looking at adding
biodiversity as a Corporate objective
- Biodiversity and
environmental issues needs to be embedded in all services and employees
- This starts from the top
down and it is starting to happen
- The issue has substantial
public support
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