Agenda and minutes

Cllr Azad Choudhry  -  personal reasons

Cllr Georgina Culley  -  other Council business

Cllr Gul Khan  -  personal reasons

Cllr Neghat Khan  -  personal reasons

Beverley Frost  -  other business

None.

To confirm the following:

The minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 9 May 2016;

The minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Call-in Sub-Committee held on 15 June 2016.

The following minutes were agreed and signed by the Chair:

Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 9 May 2016;

Overview and Scrutiny Call-in Panel on 15 June 2016.

Report of the Head of Legal Services

Councillor Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture and Hugh White, Director of Sports, Culture and Parks, delivered a presentation updating the Committee on the key objectives within the portfolio.

Cllr Trimble set out his top three pledges for the next four years as being:

1.  Help families get on in life by providing a good range of leisure activities, free and cheap events and excellent public services, as well as creating a development plan for the new Central Library;

2.  Attract more visitors to our city, for example, by investing in making

Nottingham Castle a world-class visitor attraction;

3.  Provide more opportunities for participation and excellence in disability

sport. Of the three, Cllr Trimble is proudest of improving opportunities for disability sport.

During the discussion with the Portfolio Holder, the following points were highlighted:

(a)  not all of the money needed to rejuvenate Nottingham Castle has been secured. The bulk of the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) is secured through a round of bids.

  £5.5 million of money from Nottingham City Council has been secured; however the Council needs to find another £2.5 million from other sources. There is currently a bid into the Local Growth Fund for this money, with funding for repairs on top of the request;

(b)  Nottingham City Council has received a CredAble access mark for disability access to their Leisure Centres;

(c)  there are now 22 existing Green Flag awards in the City. All of the university campuses in the City are in possession of an award. The number of Community Green Flag awards is high. Both London and Edinburgh have a comparable number of Green Flag awards in total but do not have the same level of Community awards;

(d)  the ‘Good to Great’ money is in the last year of funding – part of the new program of events is about getting these new schemes running;

(e)  The Portfolio Holder would like firm plans in place following the Council Plan commitment for a new Central Library in Nottingham at either the Guildhall, or on Angel Row;

(f)  there is currently a wholescale review of libraries – opening hours are being looked at. All libraries now have WIFI. ICT learning sessions that have been provided by libraries are mostly attended by the over 50’s age group;

(g)  one of the hardest objectives to achieve is protecting leisure centres from cuts;

Following questions from Councillors, further information was provided:

(h)  when trying to achieve HLF funding, you are asked to provide a conservation plan. This is a very competitive field – when Nottingham City Council failed in their bid for funding in 2015, it was established that other organisations were including stage 2 requirements as part of their stage 1 submission;

(i)  parks within the City boundaries are looked at daily and weekly, depending on the rotation of staff. In terms of being looked at for a Green Flag award, representatives will come on an annual basis;

(j)  before unitary status came in for Nottingham City, the library service in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire was run by Nottinghamshire County Council. Central Library was the most costly library to run – a deal was struck whereby the County managed the archives, and the City managed the Central Library.

  The storage of the archives is in Nottingham City but run by Nottinghamshire County Council. Nottinghamshire County Council came to Nottingham City Council in 2015 asking for part funding for expansion of the Archives, but this was politely declined;

(k)  early usage figures for the Performing Arts Library are promising. It was originally losing money, but has since been consolidated. When Leicestershire County Council closed their own Performing Arts Library Nottingham’s stock was enhanced. There is a possibility that the IT product used in the library could be sold as a package to other interested organisations;

(l)  Nottingham Prison on Perry Road in Sherwood has a library and pays Nottingham City Council for this service;

(m)  funding could help Nottingham Castle’s outside space be transformed, along with the possibility of adding a visitor centre with a shop and café. There are also plans to put a new building at the basement of the castle.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the content of the presentation and thank the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture for the informative presentation;

(2)  review the progress being made to increase participation in disability sports in the City within the next 12 months.

Report of the Head of Legal Services

Richard Taylor, Environmental Health and Safer Places Manager at Nottingham City Council updated the Committee on the Council’s work on improving air quality in Nottingham.

The following points were highlighted:

(a)  Nottingham is starting to see a gradual decrease in annual mean nitrogen dioxide concentrations. Targets in Nottingham are being met, but these still needs to be lowered to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) targets;

(b)  there are concentrations of PM 2.5 that exceed WHO guidelines.  Nottinghamshire is one of the highest outliers for air pollution particles affecting residents;

(c)  Clean Air Zones are a method to try and reduce no2 emissions. This is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) terminology for zones where special measures are to be taken. The proposal to the EU was to take action to reduce levels to the recommended level by 2020-2025;

(d)  DEFRA recommended looking at buses, taxis and lorries.  However, there are very few taxis and buses on the ring road near Crown Island in Nottingham. There are ongoing discussions with DEFRA over problems – it might be considered unfair that Nottingham City gets penalised for people travelling through the City from other boroughs;

(e)  in urban areas pollution produced by humans could be up to 99% of the total pollution in those areas;

(f)  over the last 15 years Nottingham City Council have targeted transport emissions. Travel plans, trams, walking and cycling have all been promoted. Energy efficiency is key – one method of this is insulating properties;

(g)  if you live next to a main road, 75% of the air pollution is coming from the road outside;

(h)  there are effectively 18 months to get the new measures in place;

(i)  DEFRA will require the Local Authority to adopt the lowest standard of measures, but the Local Authority can go further;

(j)  Diesel vehicles require a higher operating temperature which leads to a higher level of no2. There are diesel particulate filters on higher value cars, but not on lower engine diesels. DEFRA do not think it to be financially viable to offer another scrappage scheme for diesel cars that are not environmentally friendly;

(k)  buses in Nottingham are seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem – more focus is needed on individual action and bringing down the reliance on cars;

(l)  the 800 metre problem stretch on the A52 ring road in Nottingham does not have a residential property close enough to the road to trigger an AQA (Air Quality Assessment);

(m)  whilst the UK remains a member of the EU, the government could be fined for breaches of harmful fumes levels, and these fines could be passed onto local authorities;

(n)  DEFRA has said that they will meet the costs in the setting up and declaring of a clean air zone. These costs should be recouped by whatever process is in place by the declaring of a clean air zone.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the content of the report and thank the contributors, including Nottingham Friends of the Earth for their submissions to the Committee;

(2)  review progress on implementing Clean Air Zones in the City in 6 months.

Report of the Head of Legal Services

Rav Kalsi, Senior Governance Officer introduced the report setting out the programme of activity for this Committee and the Overview and Scrutiny Review Panels for 2016/17.

RESOLVED to

(1)  agree the work programme for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Review Panels for 2016/17, as summarised in the report;

(2)  include the following topics to the Work Programme for 2016/17:

·  Participation in disability sports;

·  Implementing Clean Air Zones.