Place Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 17 March 2026, 7:00pm - Epping Forest District Council webcasts

Place Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 17th March 2026 at 7:00pm 

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  1. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Laura Kirman
  2. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Cllr Clive Amos
  2. Cllr Tom Bromwich
  3. Cllr Mary Dadd
  4. Cllr Martin Morris
  5. Cllr Richard Bassett
  6. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  7. Cllr Paul Keska
  8. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Matt Winslow
  2. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  3. Cllr Mary Dadd
  4. Matt Winslow
  5. Cllr Mary Dadd
  6. Matt Winslow
  7. Cllr Martin Morris
  8. Matt Winslow
  9. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  10. Matt Winslow
  11. Cllr Ian Allgood
  12. Matt Winslow
  13. Cllr Clive Amos
  14. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  15. Cllr Mary Dadd
  16. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  17. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  18. Cllr Will Kauffman
  19. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  20. Cllr Graham Wiskin
  21. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  22. Cllr Sue Jones
  23. Cllr Paul Keska
  24. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  25. Cllr Graham Wiskin
  26. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  27. Cllr Rose Brookes
  28. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  29. Matt Winslow
  30. Cllr Mary Dadd
  31. Matt Winslow
  32. Cllr Tom Bromwich
  33. Matt Winslow
  34. Cllr Sue Jones
  35. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  36. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  37. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Fabrizio Ferrari
  2. Wendy Cockbill
  3. Fabrizio Ferrari
  4. Cllr Mary Dadd
  5. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  6. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  7. Fabrizio Ferrari
  8. Wendy Cockbill
  9. Fabrizio Ferrari
  10. Wendy Cockbill
  11. Cllr Richard Bassett
  12. Wendy Cockbill
  13. Fabrizio Ferrari
  14. Cllr Mary Dadd
  15. Fabrizio Ferrari
  16. Cllr Mary Dadd
  17. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  18. Cllr Tom Bromwich
  19. Fabrizio Ferrari
  20. Cllr Martin Morris
  21. Fabrizio Ferrari
  22. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  23. Cllr Mary Dadd
  24. Fabrizio Ferrari
  25. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  26. Cllr Rose Brookes
  27. Wendy Cockbill
  28. Cllr Will Kauffman
  29. Fabrizio Ferrari
  30. Wendy Cockbill
  31. Cllr Will Kauffman
  32. Wendy Cockbill
  33. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Brian Ellick
  2. Rosa Tanfield
  3. Brian Ellick
  4. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  5. Brian Ellick
  6. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  7. Cllr Ian Allgood
  8. Brian Ellick
  9. Cllr Ian Allgood
  10. Brian Ellick
  11. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  12. Brian Ellick
  13. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  14. Brian Ellick
  15. Cllr Tom Bromwich
  16. Brian Ellick
  17. Cllr Tom Bromwich
  18. Brian Ellick
  19. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  20. Cllr Mary Dadd
  21. Brian Ellick
  22. Christopher Smith
  23. Rosa Tanfield
  24. Cllr Mary Dadd
  25. Cllr Maria Markham
  26. Cllr Martin Morris
  27. Brian Ellick
  28. Christopher Smith
  29. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  30. Cllr Craig McCann
  31. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  32. Cllr Will Kauffman
  33. Brian Ellick
  34. Cllr Lisa Morgan
  35. Cllr Paul Keska
  36. Cllr Joseph Parsons
  37. Cllr Paul Keska
  38. Cllr Graham Wiskin
  39. Brian Ellick
  40. Cllr Lisa Morgan
  41. Cllr Darshan Sunger
  42. Cllr Joseph Parsons
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  1. Webcast Finished

1 WEBCASTING INTRODUCTION

Okay, so before we start the meeting, I'll just read the following announcement.
I would like to remind everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live to the
internet and will be capable of repeated viewing.
Therefore, by entering the council chamber and using the seating area, you are consenting
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:00:46
to being filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound recordings for webcasting
and or training purposes.
So, welcome to tonight's meeting of Place Scrutiny Committee on the 17th of March.
I'm the chairman, Councillor Joseph Parsons, and I'll just introduce you to some of my
panel.
To my right is my vice chairman, Councillor Darshan Sunger.
And to my left, I've got the service director
for regulatory services, Mandy Thompson.
And then to my vice chairs rights,
we've got Laura Kerman, our democratic services officer.
Also online, we've got Nicola Sayers,
the council's deputy monitoring officer.
And we're also joined by a number of other officers
in the chamber who can provide support
throughout the evening.
So agenda item number two, apologies for absence.

2 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

We received apologies for absence from Councillor John at Whitehouse and to preempt
Laura Kirman - 0:01:32
Councillor Clive Amos is substituted for. Thank you. I've also had apologies from Councillors
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:01:38
Holly and Chris Whitbread. They're at another meeting but otherwise would have been here as

3 SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

cabinet members. So item three is done. Items number four. Do any members have any declarations

4 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Cllr Clive Amos - 0:01:52
of interest? Councillor Amos. Thank you Chairman. In regard to item seven I'm a member of the
Cllr Tom Bromwich - 0:02:02
Cllr Mary Dadd - 0:02:06
Cllr Martin Morris - 0:02:08
Councillor Bromwich. Like Clive, I'm Planning Committee A. Planning B. Planning A and Planning B.
Cllr Richard Bassett - 0:02:10
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:02:14
Okay, Councillor Keska. Thank you Chairman. This is not a declaration of interest but just to say
Cllr Paul Keska - 0:02:17
I'm not in either of those planning committees. But I am here tonight as there's two items from
my portfolio on the agenda. Number seven, the planning advisory service and number
nine, district -wide update on fly tipping but in both cases we have senior
officers here who are much more experienced than I am and will be able
to answer any of your questions and we'll go through the reports. Thank you.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:02:42
Okay item number five we've got the notes of the previous meeting that was
the TFL meeting and members happy to note that? Agreed. Thank you. Okay so item six

5 NOTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

6 WORK PROGRAMME

is the work programme. I know it's our last meeting so difficult to propose anything else
for the current year but do any members have any notes for the or anything to say on the

7 Planning Advisory Service - Planning Committee Progress Review

work programme? No, thank you. Okay, so we'll move on to item number seven which is the
Planning Advisory Service Planning Committee Progress Review. I'll pass over to Matt Winslow
Matt Winslow - 0:03:14
for the report. Thank you, Chair. So pages 10 to 12 of the agenda pack is the officer
a report on the planning advisory service review
of planning committees.
And just to set the scene of this,
Epping Forest District Council remains under threat
of designation by MHCLG due to underperformance
of the quality of major planning application decisions.
So the council engaged the planning advisory service
in early 2024 to review whether it could,
to review its practises to determine if there was any improvements or changes that could
be made to help improve that performance concern. Those changes, including the review of planning
committees were brought in, I understand, in 2024. As part of the wider service, the
Planning Advisory Service offered to do a review to determine how far along those recommendations
appear to be working. The officer report offers some updated commentary on
further actions that the PAS report has identified of those original
recommendations and I'm happy to take any questions chair. Thanks for the
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:04:38
report I'll pass over to members. Councillor Dadd. Thank You chairman I've
Cllr Mary Dadd - 0:04:41
I've got quite a few questions really, so I hope you'll bear with me.
I was first elected in 2024 and was Vice Chairman of Plans East.
I went on a planning advisory service weekend course to Chairman and Vice Chairman, at my
own cost I might say, which I found very useful.
There were 40 other local planning authorities there.
And I do think that this new one that has come in, the new system has come in, has been
a big improvement.
And one reason why I do think it's a big improvement is, as some of you will know, before I came
on the Council, I was editor and chairman of the Onge Neighbourhood Plan Community Group,
which produced the Neighbourhood Plan, and I had to sit down with the then director of
planning and Graham Courtney and the legal people to make sure I wasn't compromised in
any decision making. My stance has always been to speak to developers prior to their
final application and tweak things that might still be policy compliant but more in keeping
with a particular area. Now what I feel is that there has been a lot of miscommunication
communication about how this works, whether an award
Councillor cannot be a voting member of the committee.
And I would say that by and large, most of the applications
that come to committee are contentious, and any planning
a committee member would normally do a lot of background work to look at the pros and
cons etc. And I would think that because it's their area they know very well, very few will
come to committee without having a predetermination or predetermined view. And I think that this
having the situation where you don't actually vote safeguards that, but not only that, it
gives you the opportunity as a ward counsellor to state your case and to state the case of
your residence. It also gives you the opportunity and it's working well to talk to the planning
officer before about any queries, to talk to the developers without fear of having to
have an officer there and being compromised, to try and even if it's policy compliant to
be able to actually tweak it more in characteristic.
And it has been working well, but there are people who,
the general public don't understand the advantages of that,
and I think that is a big shame.
And there's certainly one council on this council
who keeps saying how bad it is.
And I hear that sometimes in my community.
So I would say that one of the contentions on here
is about making, considering, allowing committee members
to decide applications in the ward, this is number two,
they represent giving councillors the choice
to make predetermined positions or not as they see fit
would be a sign of political maturity.
I think that is putting them in an undue
and unreasonable situation for their integrity
because all planning things, they're not politically biassed,
You don't vote by a party situation.
You've got to do it completely unbiased
on the planning considerations only on that particular site.
And it has worked well.
We've even had one that I was actually in Onge.
You can always question the planning.
Obviously, you aren't part of the debate,
but you can question things on a point of order
or point of information.
And we have one instance, for example, which was refused.
It was planning compliant, but it
was refused because the ward councillor involved
gave a very emotional case to refuse it,
and he did influence the committee.
So there is a situation where it works,
not being on the committee.
You've got a stronger position.
and you could provide the right evidence.
So that was one thing that I'm actually,
but generally I'm unhappy about pushing this
down the road again because on the 25th of October,
I think it was last year, we agreed reluctantly
not to put in any more changes and not to have the review.
This is now nearly six months later
and we're being asked to just sort of take notes
and not do anything.
There's some things on here that are really,
really important.
I mean, for example, the planning, making planning training compulsory, number three,
for committee members.
But also, some of the officers don't know the neighbourhood plans, for example, and
they don't know where it says must and should.
And I think that is really important that not just members know planning principles,
but also officers, and some of them obviously are new.
I think it's also important, and it is on section 5, page 11, that I know that our officer
is planning to deliver points 4, 5 and 6. Point 4, I think that should be done sooner
rather than later. We don't know when. Number 5, considering electronic voting, because
some councillors are hesitant, I think better training would actually mean that you wouldn't
need electronic, which is the cost, we wouldn't need electronic assistance because their hesitancy
is waiting to see how other people are voting. I also think that we should be pushing forward
on the fourth, sorry, sixth point, joint meeting of the Development Management Chairman and
more regularly, but more so than quarterly.
I don't think that is enough.
And going back to number one, they're suggesting progress to
one planning committee, leading to consistency and confidence to
developers and investors.
Whoever thought that they had better advantage going to one
committee or another, I have no idea.
They said it was hearsay in the report.
But I think that would be inappropriate here.
We've got so many things coming forward
and it would be overwork for our committee members
if there were just one.
At the moment, we meet every six weeks
and there is a lot of work involved in those.
But that's what I wanted to actually say basically on that.
But I think, should I give it to Respa
that somebody else have to go.
And can I come back please?
Yes, you can do.
So, Matt, did you wanna come back on any of those points?
Matt Winslow - 0:12:05
I think on a few of those points, if I may, Chair.
So in terms of training,
I absolutely accept what Councillor Dadd said.
This is about officers and members,
not members and officers, sorry.
The PAS review is of the local,
is a view of the local planning authority,
the conduct both by officers and by members.
and the performance measure that the government
is looking at us on is for us as a collective team
as Epping Forest District Council
in terms of the local planning authority.
So I know that we've spoken relatively recently
about training officers on neighbourhood planning,
particularly given the referendum that's due shortly
on Epping Town but also to reinforce to all officers the legal status of
neighbourhood plans when determining planning applications. What we have
certainly spoken about as officers and with the chairs and vice -chairs of the
planning committees is broadening the training offer that takes place in
I know the style of training here at the moment is kind of officer presents a subject matter
expert presents an item, members listen and offer Q &A, but I think there are some subject
matters which would probably be better delivered by a combination of that and workshops, so
you start to embed some of that learning into real world examples, and that's something
which we're looking at for the forthcoming year.
In terms of the joint development management chairs
and vice chairs meeting and the frequency of those,
I think the planning advisory service,
their report has come at a time where,
or came in just before they were kicked off again.
In the diary, they're diarized twice a year.
The discussions with those chairs and officers
was that wasn't frequent enough.
and they have been moved to quarterly.
I hear what Councillor Dadd is saying,
that perhaps they should be more frequent,
but they can be called more frequently
if and when business needs arise.
So they're not limited to quarterly.
In terms of the matter about one planning committee,
I think we've got to bear in mind
that the Planning Advisory Service, in part,
probably has part of its mind in the fact
that the government are looking to move all local planning authorities to a single planning
committee in future, which changes an introduction of a national scheme of delegation.
Obviously, we don't have a confirmed date of implementation of that, but the legislation
to create that has already been put in place. We're just waiting for the regulations to
bring that into effect, but I do note what the council are saying.
Thank you. If I go to some other members.
Cllr Mary Dadd - 0:15:19
Thank you, Chairman. I will come back on one point. I understand that the consultation
just finished for the MPPF is actually looking to make it less democratically. It is going
to be more to the strategic authorities rather than local democracy. I think it would be
a shame if that's going to be imposed on us, well, okay, it's imposed on us. But in the
meantime, we'll have far more effective planning decisions, in my view, if people aren't overloaded
with the amount of work they're doing. And therefore, I personally think we should stay
with two until we know what's happening. Thank you.
This is just PAS's recommendation.
Matt Winslow - 0:16:08
So this is not to say that officers are in agreement with PAS's recommendation on everything.
Thank you.
Councillor Morris.
Thank you, Chairman.
Yeah, I just had a couple of points.
Cllr Martin Morris - 0:16:19
On the voting methods and hesitant voting.
Okay.
I mean, even if it isn't people waiting to see what everybody else votes for, it can
look bad.
So any mentions in the report that other voting methods are being considered rather
than electronic voting.
I'd be interested to know what those were.
In terms of councillors,
where the planning applications in their own ward,
I mean I'm strongly supportive of Mary's point here,
Councillor Dadd's point here,
that it's a good system we have now
and I do strongly support it.
So I'll be disappointed to see that disappear.
On the question of single committee,
Okay, I think a single committee would work, but what you have to do is commit to greatly expanding the membership and chairmanship
of that
Committee, otherwise people yeah, people are going to become overworked
So it would I don't know how much of a change it would really be actually because you would have lots of different members and probably
Alternative chairs are honest as well just because of the of the other workload. Okay, so that's yeah
Those are the points I'd like to make. Thank you
Matt Winslow - 0:17:31
Thank you for your comments on, if I take the last one first, Chair, on the Single Planning
Committee. I think we need to see some more of the detail from the government proposals
as to what the Single Planning Committees will look like. Obviously, they consulted
on some thoughts and some thinking that's been done across the country, informed actually
by some of PAS's work. Obviously, PAS is operated by the Local Government Association, so we
We are, it's from the, it's generated from some thinking
and a review of practise across the country.
And I know that there are planning,
there are local planning authorities
that still have four or five planning committees
on a more area basis.
And there are some that still,
that operate on a single basis.
But clearly what would, the kind of rules of operating,
how frequently that would meet.
The government are looking at this national scheme of delegation which would, I guess,
restrict the type of applications that go to those single planning committees in future
and force officers to determine certain applications rather than giving you the ability to decide
which ones go to committee and which ones could be determined under the scheme of delegation.
I have no idea what they could or couldn't include,
but the legislation to create the single planning committees
is in the Planning and Infrastructure Act.
So that primary legislation's already there,
but regulations are awaited.
And I think until we see what the nature
of those regulations might be,
it might be probably a little bit difficult
to determine the impact and things it would have on us.
but certainly once we have those draught regulations,
we'll review them to determine the impact
they would have on Epping Forest
as the local planning authority.
In terms of, if I may, Councillor Morris,
your first point you raised.
Voting methods, the alternative ones
other than the electronic.
So there has been a conversation with cabinet members
and also with portfolio holders
and with the chair and vice chair joint committee.
And there is an alternative
which some local planning authorities use,
which is using voting paddles.
That's strictly come dancing kind of style.
Where you would, to vote, you would all raise your paddle,
which indicates your vote at the same time,
which would show the chair or people on the front bench
how you were voting.
So that would at least reduce the risk as much as possible
that hesitant voting was taking place.
I mean, quite a few councils have invested in the upgrade
to the technology of chambers
to ensure electronic voting could take place
and that would be the ideal.
but with local government reorganisation around the corner,
I think that has been why the consideration
to not necessarily invest in that just yet is recommended.
But yes, there are some alternatives.
Thank you.
I'll put Councillor Sungga.
Thank you.
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 0:21:05
On point number four,
we I think proceed with considering performance data
at committee meetings, and it appears to be much enthusiasm for this, so are you
going to be, when you're saying you're going to be considering performance, are
you talking about number of appeals that are being lodged and the outcomes of
those appeals with the National Inspectors? Maybe perhaps you could
Matt Winslow - 0:21:34
elaborate on that please, thank you. Yes, so there's certainly from the
Planning Advisory Service, who they spoke to as part of this review, appetite for the
planning committees to hear about the progress of planning applications that have gone to
appeal and been determined either in favour of the council's decision or against.
Helping to support the learning and the change of practise that inspectors are certainly
adjudicating over. What there has been some internal conversations as to whether a full
performance report is appropriate because under the constitution performance is managed
through overview and scrutiny committee. So we are looking at, we're trying to ensure
that we respect the appetite of the planning committee to hear and learn about those appeals,
but also we're mindful of the terms of reference of other committees of the
council. Thank you. Councillor Allgood. Yes thank you. Probably should have got my
Cllr Ian Allgood - 0:22:44
hand up before Councillor Morris because she actually asked the same questions or
stated the same things I was going to say so to expand on them. Hesitant voting.
One of the things is obviously the councillors will get various abuse on
Facebook from the decisions they make. So some of that might actually not be
hesitant as in look what somebody else is doing but actually if I get vote and
I get seen I'm gonna get all the abuse etc etc so I'm more for almost like a
secretive road so the paddle would not help that I think as a council perhaps
we should go for the electronic because it's then we've got it. So I would
support an electronic device or a secretive, even if it's a
handwritten vote that then is passed an account.
And that may stop some of the hesitance, because some of it
is about the abuse you're going to get, especially on some of
the very topical subjects that are coming up,
so the farms, et cetera, et cetera.
The other thing is I would actually support one committee,
but with a much larger pool of members.
The other aspect of that, that would allow
the sometimes farcical substitutions that go on
because it's the person who's on the planning committee
who is then in their ward, they step aside
and that all just becomes a little bit contrived.
I think if you had a larger pool
and you actually worked out beforehand
if it was going to be your ward that was coming up
then they wouldn't be part of that committee
and then that would stop all that substitution
I think that would speed up the process and definitely be better. So
Yes to one committee, but with much look right a larger pool
and going back to the hesitancy I
Sometimes wonder is if you're doing it because you're hesitant
Is it because you're not confident and therefore have we put the right people?
To do the planning decisions because they don't feel confident enough and when this was sold to us right at the start
It was we were put in our best people forward was a suggestion
I don't believe that was the case with certain people that I've seen on the committee, that
they weren't as experienced as some of the people that previously were on the planning
committee and who went to a lot, so we didn't necessarily put our best people forward.
Maybe that's due to commitment.
We're a lot, you know, it's quite a commitment doing it to the planning.
So I think if you had a bigger pool with the people that wanted to do it, knowing that
they're not going to get inundated with planning because it's a big commitment, I think that
would be okay. That's it. Thank you.
So just to come back a little bit on the hesitancy concerns, certainly some of the conversations
Matt Winslow - 0:25:24
that we had with the Planning Advisory Service when they verbally delivered their reports
was that they'd watched back the videos of the planning committees and hesitancy in some
sort of one category was the reluctance to decide
which way to vote.
But what they also observed were waiting for other hands
to go up to see how you might vote.
And that's a legal, it's an area where it exposes
the council to sort of legal risk and is something
that electronic voting would completely remove
because you wouldn't be able to see
how other people were voting.
So I think I hear what you're saying in terms of the pros and cons of the different styles
and yes electronic voting would be the way to completely kind of remove that.
In terms of the right people I don't think that's for an officer to comment on but it's
ensuring that you're quite right.
Planning committees is a big commitment.
I'm sure a lot of the other committees are as well, depending on how many hats you wear
as well.
But certainly the way the government are looking at kind of semi -professionalising planning
committees going forward, they were consulting on mandatory training which would need to
be nationally certified.
So you would probably have to go to some sort of assessment centre to prove that you were
competent enough to vote and decide planning applications as a planning committee in the
future. There was some debate going on during the national consultation as to whether local
authorities would be able to deliver that themselves or whether or not a national body
would be set up or created or tasked with doing that.
In terms of the larger pool of members, I draw back to for one single planning committee,
The government consultation was talking at between nine and 12 members regardless of
the size of the council.
But I know that a number of councils, including this council, wrote back to the government
as part of the consultation response to say how would that really work in practise because
you would need a number of substitutes that are also trained in order to substitute for
members that couldn't necessarily vote.
and depending on the size of the councils, 9 to 12 might not actually be that large in terms of a committee.
So I think the debate, we still haven't heard back from the government yet as to how they feel planning committees should change in the future.
Thank you. So next was Councillor Amos.
Cllr Clive Amos - 0:28:16
Thank you Chairman. I'm sure like many people I was somewhat apprehensive when we introduced
the new system but I am pleased to be able to say I think it's worked very well and I
certainly have a lot of Councillors concerned that they weren't going to be able to vote
on things in their ward. As far as I'm concerned it's given me a great deal more freedom as
to what I can say and do and discuss before we get
to the case where it's up to me to put the case whatever I think.
And if I am clever enough to advocate well,
the committee will be with me.
And if I don't advocate it very well, they don't.
So I don't have a problem with that at all.
We're talking about one committee.
Well, of course, we did used to have one committee, the DDMC.
And there were three subcommittees
where we had nearly an average of nearly 19 members on the committee.
And maybe it didn't occur to us at the time, but looking back,
we think, come on, that is impossible, subcommittees with 19 members.
So I think in that respect it has gone well
and I think we could well work again with a single committee.
So hesitancy is the only thing I still am puzzled about.
As I say, I sit on Planning Committee B,
Unless I've not been very observant, I've never noticed any hesitancy.
There may have been, but I certainly haven't noticed it.
But overall, I welcome the comments and the report.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:29:52
Okay, so before I go to non -committee members, Councillor Dadds, did you want to finish your
points?
No, I think everything's been covered.
That's what I was going to say.
But to thank the officers for putting this together.
Cllr Mary Dadd - 0:30:02
but I still would really like as many changes apart from the disputed ones or ones waiting
from government to actually be actioned.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Zunger.
Yeah, can I just, I want to just echo what Councillor Amos has just said.
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 0:30:18
If you ask ward councillors how they think that the committees are working, I'm talking
about those that are not on the planning committee, what we would say is that it's working very
well, we're able to express what our residents are telling us about a certain application
freely and without any hesitancy. And I think most ward councillors would agree with me
here. So the system itself is working fine, because I know for myself that I can actually
lobby my constituents, my residents, about a certain application freely and without any
issues and I can put forward my case to the committee or you know to the what I
think about the application and come to the committee and freely speak about it.
Really has unchanged a lot of the council so I really think it's a great
way and a great system and if he goes to one single committee so be it. Thank you.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:31:23
Thank you okay so Councillor Kaufman's next. Thank you chair. It's always me
Cllr Will Kauffman - 0:31:24
isn't it, that has to be controversial.
So I think I broadly agree with everything, except on the one
occasion I had an application come to me which was in my ward,
well, it was two applications in my ward in one committee, and
the thing that tipped it was the fact that the applicant was the
local authority.
So I was arguing sort of against the case officer, the local
authority, and also trying to pitch to the committee.
And I think, if I recall correctly, I mean, there were
obviously, of course, a couple of subs.
But I think the way that the vote ended up, it would have
been, if I had been able to vote, it would have been, I
think, won in favour of the way I was going.
So that taking my vote away did influence the situation,
and I think it was slightly unfair and unbalanced there.
And Counsellor Amos touched on it quite well.
I think that's where DDMC comes in quite well.
You know, if the local authority is the applicant, I
I think it's right that it should get a better increased
scrutiny, but I don't want to dwell too much on that point.
The main thing I wanted to talk about was the hesitancy
on the voting.
I mean, the average case, I think, hopefully they get
through quicker, but I think most planning offices are
looking at cases for probably eight weeks.
We obviously get the time when we're hunched over our computers
looking at the case file and the couple of minutes in the
planning committee.
So often applications will come through and they're not going to
be completely clear -cut black and white.
And if we are being pushed into a situation where we have to make
a decision, and often there is a fact and degree, there may be
reasons why you might vote for it, might vote against it.
And if we're going to be pushed into a situation like that,
I suppose there is ultimately the third option where you may
just find there will be an increase in people abstaining
because they won't want to make a decision one way or the other.
And again, as Councillor Emma said, I've seen a couple of
occasions where people do look like they may be hesitating,
but they are cases where they're quite complicated.
And as I say, the average case officer gets eight to 12 weeks
for most options, so surprise, surprise, some people are a
little bit uncomfortable with it.
But that's me prattling on enough.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Councillor Whiskin.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:33:51
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Graham Wiskin - 0:33:54
I think we shouldn't lose sight of who puts us here.
We're voted in by the local electorate and they have expectations of us, some of which
is to support them.
I find it rather, I think the changes seem to be reasonable.
I'm not happy that they're not proportionate politically at the moment and that's been
kicked down the road as well.
The fact that a ward councillor cannot vote has been identified by the PAS report, the
PAS service.
Fine, I think I would tend to agree with that.
I think you should.
I think residents have three big things on their agenda when they're voting and their
thoughts about their council.
One, are my bins being collected?
Two, what's the state of the roads and pavement?
and three, when somebody's about to put a block of flats next door to me, I'm going
to get support and a vote from my Councillor. That's what they think. And we
shouldn't, I found it interesting to read that developers are looking to cherry
pick which committee they're on. They have no say, which is fine. I found
that quite interesting. But the one committee seems to be totally
unworkable. If it's the direction of travel of this government coming along,
It's a fait accompli, I guess.
However, again, I think this decision of acceptance
of this report, if it's pushed down the road,
it should go not beyond cabinet,
it should go to full council.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next, we've got Councillor Jones.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:35:25
Thank you, Chairman.
Just briefly on whether the ward councillor
Cllr Sue Jones - 0:35:29
should be able to vote.
I share Councillor Amos's opinion, actually.
I found that I can argue much more vociferously
on behalf of my residents.
I can truly support the residents viewpoint
and put that forward very strongly.
I think what we have to realise is that members sitting
on a planning committee, at that moment in time,
they're not ward members.
They are there to look at the planning implications
for the district.
You're there as district councils, district councillors.
And I just don't, I honestly don't think that having moved
to this system, despite what Paz said in their report.
I don't think ward members can genuinely
be on that committee, have a vote,
and really support their residents,
alongside at the same time,
looking at the planning application
from the point of view of the district.
So I think the system that we've actually managed
to come to is actually very effective.
There was admittedly, initially,
there was a little bit of musical chairs in the chamber when we had to change
places but all credit to the planning officers they have this is now beginning
to be reduced and most most of the time is handled just by pure agenda
management if at all possible so I personally would prefer for ward members
not to have a vote and for this current system that we've maintained to actually
work. One or two committees I'll sit on the fence on that one. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Kesker, did you want to come in? Just one point just to say
Cllr Paul Keska - 0:37:08
Chairman that I see applications from the District Council go through at
various times and I can assure you they're always put to the same high
standards as any other application and we do not automatically approve them
just because they've got EFDC on the bottom of the paper.
Thank you.
Councillor Whiskin.
Sorry, one last quick point.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:37:30
Cllr Graham Wiskin - 0:37:32
We hear a lot about following policy.
There is a strong element of subjectivity, which we mustn't forget.
And that's the reason we're sitting here, because it's subjective.
If it wasn't subjective, it would be a flow chart and a decision tree,
and everything would be decided without any of us being here.
So that is the reason behind people thinking about things
and thinking carefully
and maybe taking a little bit more time.
Thank you.
So are there any other members?
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:38:00
Councillor Brooks.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Rose Brookes - 0:38:04
Firstly, I'd like to endorse what many colleagues have said
that it's good to be able to argue.
And also something I think that some of us have done more
than others is to call in the planning applications
in one's ward that you recognise as a ward member
are going to be controversial.
Some people seem to have done it more than others
and I just like in terms of a planning training,
people could be reminded that this is an option
for anyone to do but the decision in the end
rests with our two planning cabinet members
and the Planning Committee.
I think that people, as Councillor Whiskin has said,
expect their elected members to speak for them,
and that's possible.
Something I'd like to say I'd appreciate,
you've already run a lot of training sessions,
and I've tried to attend as many as I can,
because I don't know when I might be called on
to substitute, but I think that is an area
that we could perhaps improve on a little with training and to make sure
that it is stressed it's available to any councillor to do because you know
we're all elected as members of Epping Forest not as members as Loughton or
Abridge and these decisions are very important to to anyone and certain
things we have no control over as Mr. Winslow stressed you know they're
coming down on on high but the things that we do have local control over I
personally think it's quite a good thing to spread the load a bit by either
having two committees or as Councillor Olgott has suggested a larger pool of
people because site visits should in my opinion be mandatory because these are
serious applications and you do see things.
Something that I've not found so helpful,
because I've often watched these meetings online,
is that I appreciate why this is the case,
but watching a small screen with an officer,
a tiny picture of an officer,
talking about an application is still not nearly as good
as having someone in the room here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:40:38
Yes, so just to come back on a couple of those points, Chair.
Matt Winslow - 0:40:43
So in terms of the call -in rules, we do intend to cover that at the training for members
in May as part of kind of reminding of the rules of operation and reinforcing that, because
I can appreciate that sometimes that might be once in a blue moon that you might want
to use that kind of function and it's time dependent as well. So it's important to do
that within a certain time period. In terms of training sessions, and as I've
indicated already, we would like to roll those out and broaden the offer of those. That doesn't
necessarily mean that that will always be delivered by officers. There may be external
parties on some occasions that are much more beneficial or perhaps it's a bit more interesting
to hear from other people just than your officers.
The training sessions are put onto Litmus which is the online training portal so that
I believe all members can access those.
One thing that we are looking at doing over the course of this year is reaching out to
members asking for topics for the future so that you can actually help generate
the training content rather than just officers or the chairs of planning
committees dreaming up of what the programme should be so so yes so thank you
chair thank you councillor dad thank you I wanted to come back on on something
Cllr Mary Dadd - 0:42:18
that councillor Brooks has said about site visits I think it's really
important if the chairman and the officers consider a site visit is important it should
be mandatory and if you don't actually go to the site visit then you shouldn't be on
that committee to vote. However, site visits at the moment are in a working day which used
to be on a Saturday morning and I think it should be to suit the committee members rather
than the officers, and if possible and appropriate,
there should be a minibus as well.
I know that's a cost factor, but that is sometimes
really important.
And I would like that to be noted, please.
And then the other one about, again,
Councillor Brooks mentioned, which I had thought of as well,
and that is it is very difficult if the planning officer,
the case officer, is doing it remotely.
I understand they don't all live locally, but I think it's very important personally
for them to be in the chamber.
We already now have legal people in the chamber and I think it's part of their job, frankly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Matt Winslow - 0:43:37
Just on the latter point, that's currently being reviewed by officers at the moment.
in terms of site visits and you might remember from,
it wasn't necessarily a very successful minibus tour
of Latin Priory, but the intention
were to provide the minibus was certainly there.
It just didn't turn up, but I think two councillors
stepped in to conduct the tour.
But I think this is also is showing that even considering
this at place scrutiny committee, considering the components of what makes up and leads
up to a planning decision shows that as members you're owning how you could improve or tweak
your operations as a local planning authority. And I know that there are some councils that
don't conduct site visits at all or leave that thought up to local members to determine.
Obviously the fact here that there is certainly if there is anything that we can do to try
to improve that, we can certainly explore what those options could be.
Thank you.
Councillor Bromwich.
Cllr Tom Bromwich - 0:44:53
Thank you and apologies for dragging this item out a little bit longer.
I'm wondering if there's a role for a ward member in requesting a site visit for individual
applications in that ward.
The reason I ask is that we were considering an application back in October and I wasn't
on the planning committee, it was another one that I didn't sit on.
And they were discussing something that happened, development on a main road, that's very, very
– well, speeding is a massive issue.
It would have been quite nice to have requested a site visit because it was also considering
other things that you can't really consider just by a Google Maps street view.
So I'm thinking whether that's a role for a ward councillor to empower them a little
bit more if they can't vote.
And then just on Councillor Dadd's point about a mini bus for site visits, yes, I would absolutely
– having almost had Councillor Williamson sit on my lap in the back of an officer's
car, it would – that didn't happen, but it was almost the case.
Yeah, I can definitely get on board with a minibus.
Thank you.
So as Councillor Dadd referred to earlier,
Matt Winslow - 0:46:11
yes, there is a cost associated with minibusses,
but where I think they're particularly important
where the site, where the land expanse
that you're covering, Latin Priory,
you went into Harlow, came out of Harlow,
you were going to different vantage points
over a site that was hundreds of hectares, rather than just, I know there are some sites
which are much smaller in nature and perhaps don't necessarily command that kind of facility.
But it was in discussion, I think, with Councillor Jones as the chair of that relevant committee
that a minibus on that occasion would be a worthwhile sort of investment.
And I think what's, in terms of the role for ward Councillors, that's certainly something
which we can take back to determine whether or not there's any changes to the, whether
there could be any changes to the operating protocols of requesting site visits as to,
I think at the moment what the ward Councillors could do is speak to the chair of the relevant
planning committees if they felt that a site visit is particularly important on particular
applications. I don't think you necessarily need any new measures to be
able to do that. You could do that already but that is something which we
can take back to see if we need to clarify that a bit further. Thank you
Chair. Thank you. Councillor Jones. Thank you. In fact I was actually just going to
Cllr Sue Jones - 0:47:42
confirm exactly what Mr Winslow has just said in that we
discussed site visits at the Chairman's briefing. If the Chair feels that it
should be a site visit, planning officers are always able to provide that.
Difficulty runs about the timing as Councillor Dadd said, ideal time is generally out of
working hours. As far as ward members asking for a site visit, I've had several situations
when a ward member has either been in touch with myself directly or in touch with planning
officers asking for a site visit. Personally, and I know Councillor Heather's the same,
So if a ward member has actually particularly requested a site visit, we do absolutely our
best to make sure that happens.
So I think it's just making sure perhaps ward members are aware that if they request it,
it will help.
Thank you.
I think the last member is Councillor Sungga.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:48:39
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 0:48:41
Yeah, I just want to follow on what Councillor Jones has said about site visits.
So there are site visits where you require access to the site.
I'm sure members know.
There are sites that you don't have to have a particular site visit, you can just have
a drive -by and some of the sites are accessible.
I'm sure that ward members use their discretion to make sure they don't ask for a site visit
when that site is easily available to be seen during any time of the day, of the week as
well.
But yeah, it's worth noting.
Thank you.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 0:49:15
So if there's no other comments from members, this report is for noting.
so if members can note the report.
Note it.
Thank you.
Okay, so agenda item number eight

8 Epping Forest Economic Development Strategy 2026-2029

is the Epping Forest Economic Development Strategy 2026 -29.
I'll pass over to Fab Ferrari and Wendy Cockville
for their report.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, councillors.
I'm just sharing my screen.
Give me one second.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 0:49:36
Okay.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, councillors.
I'm Fabrizio Ferrari.
I'm the Acting Director for Communities,
and I'm joined by Wendy Cockville,
who's the team manager for economic development.
You should have all read the report on the draught economic
development strategy, but we're just going to take you through a
quick presentation to kind of talk through some of the final
points of the strategy and bring it to life a little bit and
highlight some key areas.
So first of all, I suppose, why a new strategy, despite heading
into local government reorganisation and evolution?
Well, this is because the previous strategy was launched
in 2020.
In fact, it was launched in March 2020, and just a few weeks
later, and I really need to remind everyone we entered COVID lockdown.
And from there, ultimately, the world changed massively.
New technologies, working from home, everything sort of changed.
Therefore, a new strategy is needed to reflect this changing economy.
Furthermore, as we head into local government reorganisation and also devolution, we need
a new strategy to highlight the key areas of strength of our district and the key areas
that our district needs investment because there will be opportunities coming down the
line that we need to take advantage of.
And finally, this strategy just gives us a plan for the next three years, and it also
shifts the focus from the previous strategy onto inclusive growth and growth for wellbeing
and reduction in inequalities.
So a bit of an introduction.
So the last strategy, as I mentioned, nurturing growth, was launched in 2020.
Since then, the world's significantly changed.
We've had new technologies, we've had a pandemic, and we've got geopolitical events that are
shifting and changing business, the economy constantly,
not to mention what's happened a couple of weeks ago.
This has created a new explosion of technologies
and new ways of working,
but it's also brought about economic instability.
So what we're trying to do with this strategy
is look at bringing a bit of stability to the district,
and particularly for small and micro businesses
that our district is focused on.
And what we want to do is try and support them to grow
and really build the strengths that they have
and help them and build the strengths of our district.
The vision of the previous strategy
was to make our district a great place to live, work, and study,
and do business.
And we don't think that's changed.
We still want that as an achievement,
and we still want that as a vision.
What has changed, ultimately, in the strategy is the principles.
So our new principles, which we'll talk for in a moment,
we're trying to make this strategy more inclusive.
And the overarching principle of this strategy
is actually to be more inclusive and have an economy that reduces some of the inequalities
that we have within our district. What's also changed is the delivery methods and models.
We want to look beyond what is traditionally economic development and our traditional partners
and look further, work with statutory organisations and statutory partners. We have the NHS on
our borders, you know, we've got potentially the UK Health Protection Agency coming down
as well and that's going to be a big driver for employment in our district. And also the
The other thing we want to do is focus on a small set of priorities and objectives that
we can really deliver and that will have a larger impact than a wide -ranging objectives
and priorities that we don't necessarily have an influence on.
... highlights, which show some of the strengths and the areas to address via the strategy.
Let's start with employment.
Wendy Cockbill - 0:53:08
So generally as a district, we're actually performing quite well with the number of residents
who are employed, which is above the national and the Essex average.
However, on the flip side, we do have some of our unemployment levels in areas of deprivation
can actually reach up to 5 % of the population in the area.
This creates a stark divide with areas of affluence where unemployment can be as low
as 0 .2%.
Our district is principally made up of micro and small businesses.
These are businesses with 50 or less employees.
These small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and vital for its sustainability
as we do not have large employment sites or industrial areas like other districts do.
Training and skills.
Our district has a skills gap particularly in the areas of deprivation where often residents
have lower or no qualifications at all.
And therefore residents with no qualifications are more likely to be economically inactive.
One good thing is that the visitor economy has continually grown since 2021 and we intend
to continue that trend.
Inequality – we do have large inequalities in our district with those in more affluent
areas expected to live significantly longer and in better health than those in more deprived
parts of the district.
And that's actually why we've been carrying out huge areas of place -based work across
the district.
And hopefully in some areas we're starting to see some changes in some of the data.
But what also compounds this situation is the housing affordability ratio in our district,
which is the second worst in Essex, making ownership really challenging for many.
Going on to the next slide about consultation and engagement.
So as Fab's already explained where this strategy or draught strategy has come from,
it's been developed as a process that has taken place through the course of 2025.
The process began with data analysis to identify the strengths and to prioritise and priorities
to address in our district.
This was then followed by consultation and engagement with partners, industry and businesses
to test concepts and ideas.
Once the priorities and objectives were formulated, these were then put through the process of
further consultation and engagement, including a public consultation.
And all data, feedback and information gathered has shaped the principles, the priorities
and the objectives of the strategy.
Thank you, Annie.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 0:56:05
So as mentioned at the start, the principles of the strategy have changed.
And to achieve the vision of the strategy, these are the key principles that we want
to underpin the work we do.
So first of all, database decision making.
There's a lot of data out there on industry, but actually data isn't always the best.
We're going to use that data, but we also want to do constant consultation with local
businesses, local people, and residents to understand what ultimately the economy needs.
What are the drivers?
What is changing?
What are the pinch points?
What are people feeling?
We want to bring about community wealth building.
This is ensuring that wealth generated locally stays within the district and is reinvested.
We want to work with collaborative partnerships. So as mentioned at the start, we don't want to
just look at traditional economic development partners and industry. We want to look wider.
We want to look across sectors. We want to look at the NHS statutory organisations,
smaller community organisations. How can we build an inclusive economy that works with everyone?
A place -based approach. So one of our learnings from health, and many of you have probably seen
me talking about our place -based approach and our health and wellbeing strategy, is
actually recognising that different areas have different drivers and have different
needs. There's areas of inequality in our district that will need more investment, and
we need to recognise that in the work we do. And there will also be areas within our district
that will have different needs within that inequality, so whether that be jobs, whether
that be skills, and that is something we must recognise and take each area individually.
We want to future -proof the economy.
This is looking at, ultimately, beyond the life course
of this strategy.
This strategy will set a precedent and it will set the
basis for what we do in the future.
But the key is going to be how we bring about new generations,
how we have developed their training, developed their skills
for what are the new industries that we're coming down,
not only to within our district but also the borders
of our district.
Sustainable growth is going to be key.
looking at matching the housing targets we have
with the jobs we create,
and making sure that the jobs that we do create
have a wide range of strata and that they are different.
So not just high level jobs,
but jobs that will encompass all areas
and all members of our community.
And then finally a key one,
and that's protecting the unique characteristics
of our district.
Our district is, as it says in the strategy in the report,
90%, over 90 % greenbelt.
It's got market towns, it's got historic sites.
We need to protect that within our economic growth,
and as we grow, we still need to protect those key areas.
The priorities in the strategy have been developed
following extensive data analysis and consultation
with statutory and industry partners.
The priorities reflect where we as a council can influence
or harness investment from partners, stakeholders,
or private sector.
The priorities should not be taken as independent priorities
that have no influence on each other, but rather they should be
viewed as interrelated, as each priority will influence
another one.
The objectives that sit under the priorities are there to
guide our work and give us a plan to work to address the
identified priorities.
And the first priority is job creation and boosting employment
opportunities as stable quality employment is essential to lifelong wellbeing.
We want to therefore create a strong employment base with a wide and diverse range of opportunities
across our district.
We want to support our new and existing businesses and our district's economy is made up of approximately
95 % of micro or small businesses as we've already said with less than 50 employees.
It is therefore vital that we support them to grow and thrive.
We must also at the same time support the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in our
district and help those looking to start businesses as our economy is driven by the small businesses
and start -ups.
And some of the examples of that was our female entrepreneur programme that has run over the
two years and that has actually attracted over 200 residents onto that programme and hugely
successful.
We're also launching our business support programme to help some of those high streets.
We're really excited about that one.
It's launching soon and that's covering Eppin, Loughton, Debden Broadway, Onga, Buckhurst
Hill, Chigwell and Wolvermaby.
And that's going to be a real bespoke business support programme where the organisation that
We've commissioned date and bell.
They're starting off with a survey.
They're actually going door knocking.
And even on Saturdays they told us.
And from that they're going to look at what training
and what support those local high street businesses want
as well as some bespoke webinars.
We're also increasing the work around our town
and village partnerships.
That is starting to gain a bit more traction now.
I feel like I've been banging on about that one
for months now, but we are getting there.
And I'm really passionate about bringing a town and village partnership forum together
so that those partnerships can support each other as well and we can support them to get
funding.
And then also on top of that, we do work closely with Essex County Council and help to promote
any initiatives that they're running to.
So just moving on.
So the next one is the visitor economy.
As mentioned at the start, the visitor economy since the pandemic has ended and lockdown ended
has actually grown. It's been part of our economy ultimately that has continually grown.
And actually we've got more visitors than ever coming out of London to visit our district.
And we're sandwiched between two real areas of natural beauty, that's the Lee Valley
and the Epping Forest, and we need to make the most of that. But also let's not forget,
we have key historic sites. We've got the Abbey in Waltham Abbey, we've got St Andrew's Church
in Greenstead, we've got key sites that we need to make more of.
One of those things, and what we want to do over the next few years is, first of all,
brand our district.
Bring some branding in.
We're going to be launching a visitor's guide in the next few months, which will come forwards.
We're going to look to attract more investment into accommodation sites.
We're going to try and increase those overnight stays.
By saying that, it's not necessarily people more sites of accommodation, but actually
making our district a place to visit.
So people are not just coming here for the day, you know, out from London, etc.
But they're coming to see lots of the heritage and culture we have available.
And we also want to develop a bespoke business support programme for the visitor economy
and a tourism board as well to try and grow it in the next few years.
And finally, the final objective, which is ultimately the objective that underpins all
of this, and that's training and skills.
It's people that grow the economy.
So to achieve this objective, we really want to invest in training and skills.
Many of you will be aware that on Friday we're launching a new community fund and that will
have a focus on training and skills because that's ultimately what we want to achieve.
We need to grow the skill, we need to reduce the skills gap in our district and grow the
skills for the future.
But only this way will we protect the jobs and economy of our future but also protect
and give our young people an opportunity, particularly with the new areas that are coming
down, you know, new Stansted expansion, we've got the UK HSA, we've got Harlow growing exponentially
with new technologies, we need to give our young people the
opportunity to take advantage of those exciting opportunities
that are coming.
And finally, measuring success.
So one thing we've learned from health and that we want to do is
develop a dashboard with data to show how we're achieving and
what we're achieving and the success we're achieving.
We'll publish the data set annually, and we'd like to
publish an annual report and come to play scrutiny each year
to talk about that and what we've done.
And then finally, if you'll give me one little bit of a pet of mine, that's the Lions on
the Loose.
So going back to the visitor economy this summer, you'll be seeing lions popping up
all across our district.
This is in partnership with St. Clair's Hospice.
And it's a project, not only does it support St. Clair's Hospice, which is a fantastic
organisation, but actually in Southend when they did this, it created over 100 ,000 visits
into the town and into the trail itself.
So it's not only is it a great opportunity to support a charity
But it will also bring people to our high streets and to our district
Linking back to our tourism and wanting to get more people into our district to visit key sites
Thank you very much
Thank you both for the report
If I pass over to members of the committee
Cllr Mary Dadd - 1:04:46
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 1:04:49
Thank You chairman, I just want to say thank you for that presentations really good
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 1:04:52
I just, being that I'm a local businessman myself, I just want to touch home on shop
local and support our local businesses.
So we've got town and parish councils that have got, they've got community parks as well
to support local businesses and local residents.
What are we doing in terms, when you say business partnerships, how are we encouraging town
and parish councils to engage with our district to make sure we support our local businesses
to encourage our residents to shop local.
I know that neighbouring boroughs or neighbouring councils
do actually reach out to support in their local shops.
I just really like to know what we're actually,
and I'm sure we're doing a lot.
And finally, recognition.
When you're a small business person, it's really important.
Because I always say that soldiers will die for it
and babes will cry for it, recognition.
You know, just to be recognised really, to say that what we're doing for our local residents.
So in terms of business awards, just an incentive that we could actually throw.
And there's a lot of businesses out there that actually sponsor it as well.
So they'll be happy to sponsor our local business awards, which is really, really good.
And it goes a long way to say that we are here to support our local businesses as a
council.
Thank you.
I'm going to turn it over to the
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:06:18
Wendy Cockbill - 1:06:20
Thank you, councillor. If I can just come back about the
business of walls, I completely agree with you.
And actually, my colleague Matt Picking and I have been working
extremely hard and closely with the Epping Forest chamber of
commerce, particularly over the last year.
and we have really supported those in increasing their membership,
changing the way they work, modernising the way they work,
and actually they did put on a really successful business awards in November.
Whilst our sale was really successful, I still feel the membership was low,
but we are still continuing to work with them,
and we are expecting the one this year to be much higher attendance at,
and lots more nominations and more high profile.
But yeah, we are working really hard with them.
Thank you, Councillor Sanga, for your question.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:07:17
So how are we engaging local shops and local businesses?
So as Wendy mentioned in the presentation,
we're about to launch a business support programme
for retail and high streets,
which we are focused on Chigwell.
The other thing we've been doing for a number of years,
as Wendy's mentioned,
is trying to grow the town and village partnerships.
This year we put UKSPF funding towards that and we also put
further UKSPF funding towards town and village partnerships
coming forward with projects and ideas that they may want
to develop.
And we see the parish councils and town councils as a key
integrated part of that.
And what we'd really like to do is get those businesses to come
together to come up with ideas themselves that we can then
fund because they know better than us what the high streets or
their local area need.
And that could be, you know, events, it could be activities,
it could be a market, a farmer's market,
it could be a book market.
It's really not for us to say.
What we ultimately are trying to do with this strategy is getting
information and then become the facilitators to allow
organisations to help themselves and then looking for funding and
support with funding where we can.
I can just tell you about a slight bit of success that we've
Wendy Cockbill - 1:08:19
had at Loughton very recently.
So what we did with the town and village partnerships is we
actually approached the town or parish council
in the first instance.
We didn't necessarily want it to be led by the Town or Parish Council or District Council,
but we thought that they could be the facilitators to try to get some people together in the first place.
We went to the Loughton Town Council, and I know that everybody is so stretched with work these days and don't have too much capacity.
But they did welcome me to go and talk at one of their committee meetings and from there
they decided that we were offering a thousand pound to support them in setting up all the
start -up fees really for the partnership. So the town council did actually apply for
the thousand pound and from that they were able to use some officer time for the thousand
pound as well as book a venue, get flyers sorted and do some real ground work. Unfortunately
we can't do the groundwork, we don't have the capacity within our team, there's only two of us
at the moment, so we don't have the capacity. But they were able to get a meeting set up at
Lopin Hall and it was a really great meeting. So I went along with Matt Picking and we presented
about the idea, the concept of the partnership, and they had about 30 people there of a mix from
community, businesses, religious groups,
counsellors, it was a really good meeting.
And from that meeting, we were able to get a core group
of people together that were willing to take it forward
to the next meeting.
Then we went to the next meeting and from that,
they agreed who was gonna be their chair,
their treasurer and their secretary.
And now they're meeting and working on their first project.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how that develops,
but that's really the idea of how we would really like
to support them.
And then of course moving forwards, we don't want to just leave them to it and say, well, you've set it up now you're on your own.
We want to be able to work with them to continue to help them to support them in applying for funding applications, etc.
So that's really where the passion is. Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Bassett.
Cllr Richard Bassett - 1:10:34
Thank you. Very, very useful. I used to work on the business planning and all of that, with John Hughes, from your predecessor.
And we did that with the food partnership for the Glass House
industry and produced a great report which I know
Councillor Williamson said, I wish we could do this for
everyone and all the other areas.
Also, for my sins, I'm chairman of the business stakeholder
group at New City College.
And one of the areas I think we're not quite picking up on is
linking education with businesses.
A lot of the businesses when they come along, you know,
there's new training, you know, T -level.
What's a T -level?
In my day it was an O -level or an A -level,
and that was about it.
But now it's trying to get the businesses to actually link more
with the schools unless the business understand what it is
you're creating, you want to employ youth.
Youth unemployment's a big issue at the moment,
but the businesses don't know.
Someone comes to you and says, oh, I've got a T level.
What's a T level?
Where does it fit?
Where does it link together?
And I think that's an area we do need to do some more work,
and I'll just send you an email where we can actually get them
along to the college, exchange views with the college,
and therefore the college can change what it is they're actually developing, the courses, everything else.
So therefore they're getting the right sort of skills into the people that are good for the work market.
And a lot of the businesses then will understand what it is.
I know at Qualis there we just have another few apprenticeships coming on,
And they're doing quite well and they do come well as a skill set that we know, we understand
what it is they're doing and consequently it's good.
And therefore we can take that forward into adult learning where you said areas where
should we say they haven't got any qualifications.
But we could do far more in getting those people into skill sets.
you know, at the college now, it's very much getting your
English and maths to, well, we used to call it C award.
I don't know what it is now, about a level four or level five.
Again, it's we don't understand what that means.
And therefore it would be very good if we can actually pull it
all together and have it as a presentation.
And I say what you've actually presented as a focus there,
I most probably invite you to come along to a business
stakeholder group, so therefore businesses get an
idea of what it is we're doing and what links and how
can we link together and, you know, we're just trying
to work that out at the moment.
But there is an awful lot to do.
You know, universities, colleges nowadays, people
reach the age of 16, and a lot of them are not ever
going to be university candidates, but they could
be very good at colleges, we're picking up trades, picking up everything else.
And I know there is this considerable shortage now in trying to find trades out there and
then getting them up to a skill level and requirement.
I just want to see that link more.
I think that's what I'm saying.
I'll finish there.
I don't know if there was a real question there, but it was just a point of view.
Wendy Cockbill - 1:14:21
Thank you, Councillor.
Just today I've been on a meeting with a developer who is developing one of the key sites in
the district, and that was to talk about their employment and skills plan.
And that's where they have actually been into the schools to go and do some work about getting
some young people into the trade.
But also what they want to do is they want to work with the
secondary schools to get some work experience young people
onto the site so that they can show them the trade and they
can move around a bit as well.
So that's one thing that we're doing.
But also with the community fund that's being launched,
one of the priorities is training and skills and
particularly young people.
And we're really passionate about supporting organisations
to apply for funding for that.
And that can be universities, et cetera, as well.
We are also really keen to try and work with Stansted Airport.
They've got a huge college there, too.
So these are all areas that we're looking at,
and it will be really exciting to be able to come back hopefully in the next year
and tell you what momentum we've gained with it all.
All I was thinking is how can we link that now
with what the colleges are producing?
So on that, we have done, we have linked the Chamber and the College together, so the Chamber
have run some events there, but I'll respond to your email.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:15:42
I think it is maybe a chance for us to sit down and also then look at why the business
is in them outside of our district and how can we link them in, because I think there's
a place as well for the College to go further afield.
We did do some work with the College around the NHS and getting more people into health
and social care and linking them in with NHS roles, et cetera.
So there is quite a bit we can do, and I do agree.
I think we do need to connect those businesses together to the college.
I'll pick that up separately, Councillor.
Yeah, we'll have a conversation.
Thank you.
Councillor Dadd.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Mary Dadd - 1:16:12
Thank you very much for that very interesting presentation.
I have got a few queries and I think that some of the report that you sent to us actually
didn't do as much justice as the work you do.
But a few queries if you wouldn't mind.
Page 24, section 2, says that we need to refresh the strategy that
provides a clear, robust plan for investing resources, etc.
Now, I felt this was more of a strategy and this is what we'd
like to do, but not so much of what we're doing and how we're
doing it, and is your plan going to be following on from this,
and will it be a smart one, you know, the sort of specific, measurable, etc.
That's my first question, but I've got a few others.
If you want to take them all at the end.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
That's my first one.
The other one is that certainly in the Onga area,
over 50 % of the people work in London,
and the public transport links are never going to be economically viable.
So looking at things about that is I am concerned that
particularly in Onge we've got a speculative development where
it's going to be the loss of business centres at
Fifield Research Park.
And they're closing viable businesses and want to,
that's the proposal.
And what are we doing to protect that?
because in the local plan there's only a few places where they specify about business places.
In Onga town centre, for example, we've got a lot of, well we've had quite a few offices
and other premises being going over to residential. So we are losing businesses and business places
and yet, going back to Onga again, we're increasing in the local plan, it's increasing
by a third. And we really do need to have the businesses there. And that doesn't, I'm
wondering if you could take that on board and look at that. So it's a matter of maintaining
and increasing the number of available spaces for businesses, whether they're small. I know
you talk about ones that want to enlarge, but you still have small start -ups as well,
as you say, most of them are very small businesses.
But added to that, there's also the need for car park availability.
And I go back to Onga again.
We have, the last 10 years or so, we've had a free Grayson Favour car park
at Onga Bridge, which is closing at the end of March.
And that serves people who work in low -paid retail workers.
it has about 80, 90 car parking spaces.
We already have a situation where when we have a town festival,
they have to use a field, where they have a Sunday market,
the town centre parks, car parks are full.
So it's all very well saying we want to encourage this,
which is good, and we do need that,
particularly as we're growing.
But please can you take on board the need for sensible car
parking as well?
And then I haven't got much more really, I don't think.
On page 26, there's two points here.
On 2 .4 .1, you talk about promoting long -term
sustainability of the glasshouse industry.
But what about other food production?
We have got a lot of, particularly in the Northeast,
we've got a lot of best and most versatile food producing land
which is vulnerable to speculative development
or whatever.
And we need to protect that, not just for food for us,
but food for the local markets and so on.
So don't get me started on the solar panels.
Food security and energy security shouldn't be conflicting.
And then again, again on that section again about parking, but the bottom of the page,
section 2 .42, strengthening town and village partnership businesses to support the rural
economy.
Now, what do you mean by the rural economy?
Because that also includes food production.
And I'm hoping that you will actually take that on board and
try and actually include that in there.
It's really, really important these days.
But also, you're talking about the business support.
And is this partly based on the old business link that they used
to have that the government did years ago?
You're probably too young to remember it.
Which was very good.
And then what else have I got?
Oh, right.
Growing the visitor economy to a point of 4 .3.
I'd be really interested to see what you have suggestions
for improving facilities.
For example, again, talk about ongoing.
We have some major footpaths, Essex Way and things
that go through.
People come there and then go off on these walks.
but some of the things like the Essex Way is not very well maintained.
It doesn't have enough litter bins, that's coming on to the next one,
but also improving some of the site facilities around there,
because it's not, if you're coming to this area, it is also for long distance walking.
And have I finished? Probably.
I think Councillor Bassett has covered some of the points that I was really interested in as well,
But thank you very much for your presentation and all the work you're doing.
And I look forward to hearing a bit more about those other aspects. Thank you.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:22:31
Shall I come back on a couple of points? Thank you, Councillor Dab, for your question.
So going back to your first point around the how and when, what will we do.
So the intention off the back of this strategy then to develop an action plan,
which we'll bring to scrutiny and so on to then cover what
we've done, where we're spending money, where we're investing,
how we're doing projects, similar to the way we work
the health and wellbeing strategy.
So this is a strategy and then we want to develop an action
plan yearly, mainly because year on year things change in terms
of the funding available.
So we've had UKSPF for a number of years.
This is now coming to an end.
We don't know what the next stage is.
We don't know what will come down with devolution from the
mayoral authority.
So we want to adapt to that without really promising what we can do at the moment because
things will change depending on what funding is available.
So I hope that's okay and you'll allow us to do that.
So in terms of then page 26 about the agricultural industry, so one thing I didn't highlight
and apologies, that's my fault.
In the presentation you'll have seen we changed the greenhouse strategy to the wider agricultural
because one of the feedbacks from the consultation has been let's look at the wider agricultural industry.
And as you said to your point, there is a large amount of farming in our district and we do feel that's an area that maybe we've not looked at
and we've not supported potentially over a number of years.
And again, that links back to the college as well and technology and ultimately training and skills because there are particular skills and areas we want to do.
In terms of them five fields and your other points,
I'll take them away.
I can't comment on planning applications and so on
and what's gone, but I'll take them away and look at them
and then come back to yourself.
And then again, the town and village partnerships
links back in to looking at the farming
and the agricultural industry and how we can do that,
farmer's markets, other areas that they can potentially,
you know, supply chain areas and so forth.
So there's a lot to do.
We're kind of at this beginning stage
where we want to take this strategy
and begin to learn and grow our understanding
of what's out there and see what supports needed.
Cllr Mary Dadd - 1:24:34
Quickly, and will you please take on board about the need for car parking and need for more business premises rather than letting them.
I know it's a planning issue but looking at the local plan, I don't think there's enough protection for everything
and perhaps that ought to be looked at in conjunction with other departments. Thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Bromwich.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 1:24:56
Cllr Tom Bromwich - 1:24:58
Yeah, just again echoing the point that I thought that was a really good presentation
and following on from Councillor Dadd's points about the visitor, boosting the visitor economy,
which I think is really, really important.
So there's obviously the places in our district that are the no brainers for heritage and
tourism.
You've got Northfield Airfield, you've got the Eppionga Railway, you've got the forest itself,
you've got Waltham Abbey in the museum and you've got the actual Abbey itself.
And then as a case study, you've got Greenstead Church where I've
met people in the Green Man pub
afterwards, they've visited St. Andrews Church, walked back from there.
I think they've gone from Northwold on the train to Onga
and then walked from Onga station to Greenstead Church,
then onto the Green Man for dinner,
and then they've stayed in one of the Green Man's
bed and breakfast, and I'll declare an interest
that my cousin is the manager of the bar there.
But there's also the places that are slightly
more obscure and less focused on.
So I remember I was on Faden Boys Green,
and I was just having a picnic there,
And I just see a tourism group of about 20 people.
I think they were either Japanese or Korean tourists,
just pop up on the green.
And I'm thinking, I've not seen anything to advertise
that Faden Boys Green is an attraction itself.
And I can see why it's an attraction,
because people come to this country
for a quintessential English village green scene.
So I'm wondering whether there's scope to promote
of these less popular off the beaten track
parts of our district.
I've jotted them down, places like Matching Green
or All Saints Church, which if people don't know,
that's where John Locke, who is credited
as the father of liberal democracy, is buried.
Screens Park Camping Site, Ray, is that in Epping Forest?
That is in Epping Forest.
That's a camping ground in the middle
of the British countryside,
where just outside of just off the central line but then you've also got
Onga Park Wood which is a Norman hunting ground where they're still
discovering Roman coins and remnants of Roman villas there. So I think the
growing the visitor economy is really important but I feel like it's so linked
to your point about growing local businesses. I'm thinking if someone
wants to go to Matching Green, visit Matching Green, they'll go into the
Chequers Parlour. If they want to go to visit Onga Parkwood, they'll go to the
Dog House and that encourages these businesses to grow, it empowers them,
they can then hire on more local staff and it's sort of a synchronised
growth in both of these areas. So what scope is there to encourage more tourism
to these less obvious tourism spots in our district.
And then the second point to that question would be,
what would an advertising campaign look like in order
to do that?
Because I get on the embankment tube station every day to go to
work and they've got, I think it's either Hastings Council or
East Sussex Council who are running a campaign called 1066
County to encourage people to come down to learn about the Battle of Hastings.
So what would, yes, so how would we encourage attention to the less
obvious parts of our district in terms of tourism and then what would that
advertising campaign look like? Thank you. Thank you Councillor. So in terms of
advertising less well -known sites of our district, we are working on a visitor
guide at the moment, which the whole point of that is to highlight some of those key
areas and some of those unknown areas, as well as the important ones, obviously.
But to your point, there are lots of unknown areas in our district that – well, unknown.
We know them, but other people from outside the district don't.
And then that connects into then a tourism campaign.
So once we've got these visitor guides, it's about promoting that visitor guide and pushing
the district as more than just the Epping Forest.
Most people you speak to from outside our district, oh, it's the Epping Forest.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:29:21
Well, no, there is a lot more to our district than the Epping Forest.
the Lee Valley is a case in point, a huge amount of visitors.
How do we harness those visitors that come to those places
and highlight our district as more than, you know, you've come to Faden,
well, why not go further, go up to Epping, go up to Onga.
So it's about taking advantage of those.
And I think the only way we can really take advantage of those
is by setting up a tourism board with the key stakeholders.
But similarly to your point as well, in terms of growing local businesses,
I also think the town and village partnerships have a key role in that,
in a sense of they are the ones that know their area
and they're the ones that we can then market and promote
and help them matching.
For example, I discovered they're doing a 10K
and that's a community -based organisation
that are doing a 10K and that's gonna bring in visitors.
So how can we do more of these things
to bring people into areas?
And to Wendy's point,
there is only a small number of us in the team.
So how do we then harness that collective,
because the will's there,
it's just how do we harness it and grow it
and then use the funding we can achieve
all that common knowledge to then grow it.
So I think this is a kind of,
it's kind of my point earlier.
We want this to be a kind of growing
and we'll come back in the years
and hopefully have that success
and tell you this is what we've been able to do.
But I think to your point,
it's an advertising campaign
will be off the back of the visitor guide
that we can then do.
And I do agree, I think the tube,
you know, even in other areas as well,
the Lee Valley is a key one.
It has campsite within our district
and we promote to them,
get some of those people who are there at the campsite
visiting London out into other areas.
There's quite a lot for us to take advantage of.
The 150 years of the forest is coming up as well.
People come for the forest, but let's sell the other
parts of the district.
So there's opportunities that we need to just take
advantage of really.
Male Speaker Sorry, Chair.
If I could just come back on that just with a question
slash suggestion.
In the same way we have community champions at
Epping Forest, is there a scope for us to have a
voluntary position within each ward or however we
divide it to have a local tourism champion perhaps.
There will be people that are really interested in history,
very interested in the culture of their area.
And that could be a voluntary position
that could get people quite involved,
especially getting them on the tourism board
and come with their suggestions
of what would help their area.
That is a great idea.
It's something County Council are doing at the moment
and we'll look into that.
I think that's a fantastic idea.
I'll take that on board, thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Morris.
Cllr Martin Morris - 1:31:50
Thank you, Chairman. I just had a couple of questions to make. 2 .41 is on job creation.
The target is 10 ,800 jobs to be created between 2011 and 2033. So can you give us an idea
of how you are doing against that? Because we are fairly well through that period now.
and what is the mechanism that connects this document to job creation?
So, like, how does that work?
What do we... You know, how...
You know, how is the strategy implemented in terms of creating jobs?
And the second one is on 4 .4 on skills development and training.
I mean, it's obviously probably one of the most important areas
of the document, actually, in terms of employment and earnings
in the district.
There are big changes coming...
There are big changes to the world of work, and we can already see technologies having
even bigger impact than it has quite some time.
Can you give us a flavour of how the strategy is going to cope with that?
I mean, presumably you have, you're working with colleges and training organisations,
but how are you taking into account the fact that things are changing very quickly and
people need to be skilled for the future and not just for things we want to do today?
Thank you.
So in terms of your first question about the local plan, I'll take that away and we'll
look at an answer so I can't answer that on the spot.
I don't have the figures.
In terms of job creation, so ultimately it's about within that local plan we have employment
sites.
It's about how do we use those employment sites to create jobs, create opportunities.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:33:26
But I think it's also wider than that.
We also have to look at, as it says in the strategy, look at our neighbouring boroughs
and districts and what's going on in theirs and trying to work with the employees in those
areas. We've got very good links with Stansted Airport. I'm on boards from my health point
of view where we've worked with the UKHSA and we've got PAH in Harlow. So how do we
get our residents into those employment sites because we have limited employment sites in
our district. It's the nature of our district. We're Greenbelt and we need to protect that.
So how do we also take advantage of those other opportunities and create, you know,
and then there's also the training and skills plans that come through from planning applications.
So, you know, with any site above a thousand square metres
or 50 residential plus, they have a training and skills plan
and that is about employing local people and local businesses.
Linked to that, we've then...
We're looking at the construction industry.
It's a big part of our district.
How do we then support those smaller businesses
within the construction industry to scale up
and take advantage of some of the building that's going on in our district
and bid in for work, et cetera?
That will help them grow.
So, I think ultimately what we need to try and do
grow some of those ground roots organisations and help them scale up and help them grow.
So that's how the strategy is connected into employment.
And in terms of training and skills, so that is something that we need to constantly address.
So going back to the point of the principle around data led and so forth, we need to look
at what are the future industries and try and shape some of that training and skills
money with the colleges and any funding that comes down.
And also the community fund that we've got coming forwards that will be launched on Friday.
How do we get organisations to bid into that, to look at, okay, what's the future?
What future industries?
What do we need?
What do our young people need?
But also, to the councilor's point earlier around bringing businesses into colleges as
well.
So it's almost a building a network where everyone's talking to each other.
I think that's the best we can kind of do in terms of the resources we've got at the
moment and then when the resources come available for the funding from UKSPF or the mayoral
authority.
How do we then invest them? Because we've already got projects either in the pipeline or we've got those connexions where all the organisations have alignment of priorities.
Thank you. Just before I go to Councillor Dadd, are there any other committee members who want to speak?
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 1:35:39
So I'll hit Councillor Dadd and then we'll go to the non -committee members. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Can I just add to Councillor Morris's comments about the training and the growth sections.
And have you considered what we can do to support digital or
digitech or those sort of aspects?
And also, because we're sort of London Stansted Cambridge
Cllr Mary Dadd - 1:36:06
corridor, all the life sciences and science parks and things,
have you already got connexions or can you look at it, please?
Thank you.
We are part of the Innovation Corridor and we have been for a
number of years.
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:36:16
So we have got those connexions there.
And then DigiTAC is another one we need to look up.
Thank you.
Okay, Councillor Brooks.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 1:36:26
That was fascinating.
Cllr Rose Brookes - 1:36:30
Firstly, I confess to being a bit cynical about the initiative, and so in Loudoun, Wendy,
so congratulations that you got so many people, because I wasn't convinced it would fly.
My reason for hesitation had been partly based on seeing the gradual collapse of the previous
Loughton High Road partnership and also my experience in the Broadway.
I think you've done really well.
First of all, I'm delighted that the £1 ,000, because we lost three years ago in the budget,
we lost the £1 ,000 for the Broadway Town Centre partnership.
So I'm delighted that you're using some government funded money towards this initiative, because
I think it's really worthwhile.
My plea really, given that your strategy also highlights
the poor areas of our district is that
perhaps we could have a bit of CPR or first aid
to the Loudoun Broadway town centre partnership,
which is, this is council owned property.
Those businesses, some of them have been empty now
for some time and they do need a bit of help.
I know you're very limited in your office of time.
You're a much smaller department than you were five years ago.
But I just give a bit of a plea for that end of the district.
When we've Loughton Abbey, Waltham Abbey, pardon me,
has shown, particularly due to Paul Violet and his team over there,
valiant efforts.
It's a thriving partnership and they've done a great job.
Wendy Cockbill - 1:38:25
Our
UKSPF funding was due to all be spent and have your outcomes reported by the end of
the financial year. We have, as we all know, now got an extension to the end of September.
So we do have a bit more time. Please do reach out to them and ask them to contact us. I'd
be really pleased to have a meeting with them and see how we can support them. We did receive
an email from the current chair a couple of months ago asking for funding, and we did
go back to say let's talk so yeah if you can G that one up for me that would be
really good thank you thank you councillor Kaufman thank you chair it's
Cllr Will Kauffman - 1:39:18
just a quick one to bring up the the subject of business rates and what we
can do obviously appreciating everything is set by a central government and I
know there are some incentives but what we can do to to really put pressure on
to try and help out the micro businesses.
So when we're talking about the big companies,
but I'm talking about the mother and daughter companies,
the father and son companies.
I've got a couple of constituents.
One's business was paying previously about 270 pounds
a month.
They're shortly going to be paying just shy of 800 pounds
a month.
And realistically, there is no way
that that is actually sustainable.
And when you're dealing with, and in that particular instance I won't be too specific about it, but it's in Loughton.
So they've got no benefit of free car parking.
Double yellow lines everywhere, double red lines, whatever you speak to them.
They say, well, what do you want us to do?
People don't park here, they can't park here.
They go down to the retail park, they park for two hours for free, whatever it is.
They have a coffee in Costa, they buy their clothes from TK Maxx.
They don't need my little business.
So I just, not to grandstand it as ever, but what can we do to make sure that the local
people aren't being left behind?
Because at the moment I'm hearing a lot of things that are very good, but it just feels
that Mr and Mrs that run the small businesses are going to be left behind.
What can be done?
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor.
So is the business a high street business?
Fabrizio Ferrari - 1:40:58
Yeah.
So we are, as Wendy mentioned, launching a High Street Business Support Programme.
At the moment, we are going to go live with a survey, and the intention of that survey is to get out to all those businesses and understand what are the issues.
And then from there, the organisation we've commissioned, who we worked with and are very, very successful in other projects, are then going to look at business support and business support programmes.
And I think that's ultimately where we can go and what support we can give.
Obviously business rates are set nationally.
The only other things that potentially could be looked at were business innovation districts
or but unfortunately I think the current government has stopped them so we can't really do anything
around that.
But I do think the key at the moment is for us to understand what the issues are with
businesses and really shape our support around that.
That's why we left this strategy as objectives rather than key actions because I think the
key actions will come out as we're analysing and working and getting more knowledge and
information from the local businesses because it is a bit of an interesting time and we
could do something and then a war breaks out and things change within 10 minutes.
So that's why we want to really understand and really get to grips on the ground with
businesses and understand what the needs are.
Yeah, yeah, certainly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then also the other key is going to be working with organisations that exist like
the Chamber of Commerce that are out there for businesses' support.
We've got a business support programme in Onger as well, through Essex County Council.
Wendy Cockbill - 1:42:24
So some of the business support package could be things for example like how do I sell on TikTok, how do I sell on social media, how can I manage to purchase my goods cheaper.
The thing is with high streets these days unfortunately they have changed, they've really changed and some of those independent shops are really suffering.
So that's the kind of support that they really want to try to reach out to give.
I've forgotten my other point, something you just mentioned.
I think it's more aggressive trying to get people to go through the door.
Sure.
It's just a car party, so it's just getting people into the...
Sorry, into the locality that is the thing.
Cllr Will Kauffman - 1:43:04
Wendy Cockbill - 1:43:07
Also, just to say that we have got our business survey that's actually online,
and we also put out a monthly Business Matters newsletter.
That did stop for a while, but we have reinvented that,
and that goes out every month.
And actually, there's lots of funding opportunities
and ideas and innovation ideas and things,
so we really do recommend that any businesses
do try to sign up to that.
So, yeah, please put us in contact with the person.
Thank you.
Thank you. Okay.
Have any other members got any points to raise?
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 1:43:36
No. So, we have two recommendations.
So the first one is to recommend the strategy to cabinet and the second is to add this as
an item annually to review for the place committee.
Our members happy to agree both of those items?
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Okay.

9 District wide udate on flytipping

So item number nine is the district -wide update on fly tipping.
I'll pass over to Brian Ellick for the report.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, everybody.
Brian Ellick - 1:44:10
I'm the service manager for community resilience.
With me I've got Christopher Smith, who's the environmental
enforcement manager, and Rosa Tanfield, who's the director for TVS.
Okay, next slide please.
So I just wanted to set the scene and just so that we could appreciate
the scale of fly tipping and how it affects nationally.
So fly tipping has hit a record new high with incidents nationally up 9 % rising from 1 .15
million to 1 .26 million incidents nationally.
The cost of clearing has gone up too.
Now it's over 19 million when compared to just over 30 million the previous year.
These are the highest levels of fly tipping nationally that we've seen since fly tipping
data started to be recorded, and that was over 20 years ago.
When we look at what's being dumped, we see it's mostly household waste.
that makes up around just under three quarters of the millions of incidents.
The most common locations for our fly tipping incidents are on public highways,
housing estates and pavements and roads. And in terms of the types of sizes we're seeing,
things like car boot loads, truck loads and sometimes small van loads.
So nationally, we know that local authorities have increased their enforcement activities
around by about 8 percent.
But even with that, we still see fly tipping rising across the piece.
And when we look at why it's rising, there's a variety of reasons why it's rising.
Sorry, if we just go back one slide.
That's okay.
Yeah, thank you.
So just quickly, why, that's one of the questions,
why is it rising?
There's a number of reasons why fly -to -people is rising.
Disposal costs are high.
You've got unlicensed waste carriers
who are collecting waste from residents
and then taking a fee and then dumping it
at the corner of the road or in rural areas.
Fines are low.
They're not in line with what we would expect to see if somebody's transporting waste illegally
or if somebody fly tips.
And also the courts are not imposing the type of fines that we would like to see when we
have those larger fly tips.
In some areas nationally there's language barriers.
There's high turnover of residents because of transient population.
and there's also issues like stretch resources
within councils.
Next slide please.
So when we look at fly tipping when compared
to our neighbouring districts in the west of Essex,
we see that Epping has the highest number
of incidents recorded.
That's around 40 % more than Harlow,
who's the next highest.
And that's quite significant.
And that highlights sort of the real challenges we have
in Epping.
Next slide, please.
So this slide, we can see the types of fly -tipped waste
across the district, looking at the split between household
and commercial.
So we can see that approximately 60 percent of all reported
incidents involved household waste and around 14 or so percent related to commercial waste.
The remaining percentages are a combination of a variety of items, white goods, electrical
items, bulky waste.
And we're starting to drill down more as we look at the data to try and inform our response
to how we tackle this locally. Next slide please. So moving on we can see this slide
shows the areas where fly -tippin' is happening across the district and you can see that Walthan
Abbey followed by Loughton and Chigwell and Buckworths Hill, Walthan Abbey seen 29 % of
full fly -tip in the district.
And that's quite high.
And it's similar to the previous year.
I don't have previous year's data, but these five areas are effectively the same when we
look at the previous year.
And we see that within these areas, the locations within those areas where the fly -tip happens
is mainly on our estates, as I said, on our public highways, on our roads, you know, next
to litter bins, next to bin chambers.
Then as you get more into the rural areas, you'll see more of the larger fly tips.
So for example, in Waltham Abbey, you can have maybe two or three fly tips within a
street or within a locality, which will bring those numbers up, whereas when you get to
the rural areas, you have maybe a larger fly tip, which is as impactful, but you're not
having it as often, so to speak.
Okay, next slide please.
So we'll see, this is a further breakdown
of the other areas within the district.
And although we could argue they're far fewer,
we're still mindful of how impactful they are
regardless of how small they are.
We're very mindful that sometimes when you look at the whole broken window theory, it's
those five or six bags, those bulky items that makes residents feel really low and upset
because it attracts a variety of other types of antisocial behaviour in environmental crime.
Next slide, please.
So this slide is looking at fly tipping incidents and actions from the environment enforcement
team across the district.
And you'll see that we've had 3 ,542 incidents.
And overall, it's up by 14 % when compared to last year.
So last year we had about, we had just over 3 ,000 incidents.
At the same time, enforcement action has reduced when compared
to last year.
And these can be attributed to a number of reasons.
So some people, so people who fly tip are a lot cleverer.
They don't leave information in the fly tips, you know,
traditional names and addresses.
or if it's commercial waste,
items that will point you to a particular business.
Witnesses are less reluctant to come forward.
They're happy to say who they think
or what they might think's contributing to it,
but in terms of actually giving us that statement
or putting their name to the evidence,
they're far less willing to do that.
Some of it is a lack of awareness, some of it is some people will see a location that's
dumped, they'll see it gets cleared, so they'll put their rubbish there, so it just turns
into an unofficial collection point, thus making it even more difficult for enforcement
to take action.
It's also important to remember that fly tipping is a criminal offence, it's not a civil offence.
So the burden of proof is to the, sorry I'll call it,
the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt.
So that's the highest standard you can have
in a criminal sanction.
So though it's, I always say it's not what we know,
it's what we can prove when it comes
to taking enforcement action.
So all those things makes it difficult.
So the more enforcement action we take,
the harder it is for us to take enforcement action
because people get clever.
And we're dealing with a combination of organised crime
in terms of large -scale fly -tipping and some people
who either don't want to take their rubbish to the right
place to dispose of it or don't want to put certain
items in certain bins so they're being calculated on
how they flout the law.
Next slide, please.
So, this slide is just outlining some of the things the team does in terms of how we approach
fly tipping.
And there is no one thing you can do on its own to try and tackle fly tipping.
So the team will do joint patrols with the police, joint patrols with other services.
They'll carry out physical investigations, that's by actually examining waste and looking
for evidence.
They'll do door knocking, they'll speak with residents, they'll try and ascertain
intel from colleagues like in TVS or within parking enforcement.
They'll use CCTV, so that's both overt and covert cameras.
In our rural areas, we'll have what we call wildlife cameras that we'll effectively attach
to trees or put inside foliage to try and capture flight incidents.
We use warning stickers and signage and we issue fixed penalties and we also use our
comms and social media to create awareness and to highlight to residents what they should
be doing but also how to report evidence to us.
So as well as us wanting residents to report to us,
there's been a fly tip.
What we really want is to get them to have the confidence
to report good, solid intel and evidence
that we can follow up and take enforcement action.
Next slide, please.
So we thought we'd give you just a couple of case studies
to give you a flavour of the different types
of fly tipping we deal with because they can go from four
or five, six bags, wood, house clearance,
to major large organised crime.
And Chris is going to go through a couple of case studies just
to give you a flavour of the kind of issues the team deals with.
All right, thank you.
So I've got two case studies I want to share with you.
The first one I want to run through, unfortunately, sorry,
they're both actually live cases at the moment,
so I can't give too many details,
but it gives you a bit of a flavour
about how long things take
and some of the actions that the team has to take.
So the first one is probably one of the largest fly tips
we've had to investigate for a number of years.
So this originally come to us, believe it or not,
legal encampment in one of our industrial units. This happened in September 2022. So,
we got reports that it was a legal encampment. Officers turned up to visit and inspect to
see what was going on. While they were there, they established that the site was being used
as a legal dumping ground. Also, while they were there, lucky enough, they actually witnessed
a vehicle going in with its registration plates, et cetera, were removed. We saw the vehicle
go in, we saw the tipping take place. Unfortunately at the time there's physically nothing that
the officers could do about it. We shared that information with the police. Two days
later they actually tracked the vehicle down for us, actually outside the same industrial
site, managed to get the details with the driver and moved them on. So when the police
officers took the details, they obviously passed over to the enforcement officers. The
vehicle was not owned by the mail that was driving it but it was insured and
actually held a waste carriers licence. So this site obviously we had to
actually get possession of the site back which we had to do by the high court
and get possession order. Within the week we had control of the site back but in
that week the clearance cost and disposal cost amounted to over £97 ,000.
So that is one of the largest ones we've actually had to come across and
investigate. Once we had control of the site, the team went in and actually rummaged through,
for lack of a better expression, the waste that was left behind. In that, we identified
a few addresses, a few more bits of information, and we conducted further investigations which
later led to the same person being identified that the police stopped. Unfortunately, our
investigation took 10 months to actually conduct, to a point where we actually could get it
to our legal team to go for prosecution.
That being said, our first hearing was set for December 23.
Today I've got information that it's actually
been adjourned now to December 26.
So it's taken us three years to actually
hopefully get a court case.
Potentially that could still change again
come December 26.
But that just shows that it's not a quick process,
a 10 -month investigation and then another three years waiting to a four
hour day in court and at the moment a plea hasn't been assigned either which
way at the moment so we're still waiting for that one. The second one I want to
raise it's an ongoing case and hopefully we get into the end of it quite
soon as well but this has been ongoing on and off since May 2017. The location
actually seen 124 flights at 340 since then.
Unfortunately we have attempted,
as Brian said, to actually conduct investigations early days
with the use of covert CCTV equipment, checking the
waste for evidence, etc. But as Brian says, people don't
generally leave their name and addresses in things these days.
And the equipment that we were using, we were limited for
a power source in this lane, so it was a country lane of the beaten track shall we say. So
we tried our covert cameras, battery changes have to happen quite regularly and unfortunately
we were finding that they were finding them as quick as we were putting them in. So we
unfortunately we never actually got any evidence for a period of time of what was actually
going on until early 2024 where we actually found a new solar CCTV equipment system that
that we actually put in place.
So since that went in, which I believe was around
June, July time, 2024,
we actually captured a vehicle fly tipping 15 times
between September and March.
So September 24 and March, 2025.
Investigations were carried out and we found out again
that the vehicle was not actually owned by the person
who was driving it.
But this person was obviously insured.
Shortly after we come up with this information, he sort of disappeared.
The vehicle was tracked by NPR to an airport and we didn't hear of it again for a period
of time.
That was until we come aware in August 2025 that Redbridge Council actually tracked down
the individual and prosecuted them themselves.
Part of this investigation that we do, we actually contact the police and we actually
try and put markers on these vehicles as well so we get notified when they come in.
If other councils, et cetera, have got any interest in these vehicles, they will see
our marker.
In this case, it actually worked quite well for us because Hounslow and Birmingham Council
were also investigating the vehicle and they got our details through the police intel.
Between the three of us, we've actually tracked the individual down and we've managed to conduct a pace interview with the person in December 2025.
Unfortunately, they made a no -response comment to interview, so it makes our life a little bit harder in terms of making sure our case is solid and we can actually take it to court.
And we're actually in the process now of actually getting that package over to our legal team now for the start prosecution proceedings for the 15 deposits that we've got evidence for where the cameras have been used.
But we're also putting it to them as well for 124 deposits in total.
Again, that's going to be going to legal and potentially we have to see if it's going
to be a case like it was before with the previous one where the magistrates make the decision.
Actually this is too big and too large for us to deal with.
It has to go to Crown Court which is where more of the delay generally happens when it
comes to prosecution.
So that just gives you an overview of, I suppose, the worst case scenario in some instances.
But there aren't all like that.
As I said, there are variants, there are incidents where people chance their arm and they'll
dump some rubbish and we will capture them on – we'll either capture the evidence
on CCTV or somebody witnesses it and then they pass us the information and it can actually
move a lot quicker.
So for example, there was an incident in Loughton where a contractor was doing some work on
a property and they dumped some rubbish and one of our colleagues in housing witnessed
the incident, reported it to us.
We were able to do some investigative work, identify the company responsible, invite the
director in for a formal interview.
He admitted it was his member of staff, so we gave them an on -the -spot fine, and the
director also said he was going to discipline his member of staff.
And there's been a couple of other incidents, or a number of other incidents, similar, where
We've either identified evidence within the waste
or spoken to residents or gathered enough information
that's enabled us to take quick swift action
by issuing fixed penalties.
So it's just giving you a flavour of the two ends
of the spectrum in terms of fly tipping.
Next slide, please.
So with all that being said,
And with fly tipping rising nationally, with fly tipping rising locally, we have to sort
of think about all of those things I've said.
Less people are not leaving evidence in rubbish.
They're sometimes taking off their number plates.
They've been a lot more clever.
They've been a lot more conniving.
So, we have to, you know, we have to develop, we have to adapt how we approach fly tipping.
And looking at this slide is how we look into develop ourselves going forward.
We want to be more data driven.
We want to be looking at the data.
Where are the most fly tips happening?
What type of fly tips are being deposited?
Work closely with our colleagues in TVS.
If it's bulky items, what's the reasons behind that?
Can we look at data from what's happening at our centres?
We wanna be more resident focused,
we wanna be more engaged with the residents.
We wanna be speaking to them more,
we wanna get more information out to them.
We wanna promote responsible waste disposal.
We wanna celebrate responsible waste disposal.
We want to, dare I say it, name and shame where we can.
We understand the importance of partnership work, so we've got our colleagues in TVS who
have probably got to be more out there than our officers are because they're doing more
of the investigative work.
And we're working more with TVS, customer services, parking enforcement, all these services
that I've got, if you like, the eyes and ears,
and trying to develop how we can be more productive
with them feeding us information
so that we can utilise that.
And sometimes it's not just about I saw something
or I've got exactly what you need.
Sometimes it's that intel that we can use
to build that picture so that we can start thinking
about the action we can take to not only enforce,
but also prevent.
We've increased our fixed penalties
that we've proposed to increase our fixed penalties to the maximum, which is £1 ,000,
that's what the law currently allows us to raise it to. So we're proposing to raise it
to the £1 ,000 maximum with no early payment discount for your large fly tips like what
we've just discussed. There will be some caveats, for example, if, you know, what we don't want
to do is have a one, try and do a one size fits all so if someone inadvertently does
something wrong we don't want to be penalising them with a thousand pound, we want to have
a scale where we can be a bit more adaptive.
We've got these, you may see these yellow sacks now, we're using these bright yellow
sacks and it's got information about how you can report evidence to us and it makes it
easier for the team as well when they're out examining waste they can just put it in a
right yellow sack rather than having to dig deep into the sack and it lets people know
that something's happening in the area.
We're doing a lot more work with the police.
We've got some joint training coming up next month where we'll have the police, we'll have
the environment agency, we'll have City of London, we'll have TVS and we're really looking
at how we can be far more holistic because I think that's the way forward.
We can't continue doing the same thing we're doing.
Traditionally, we have to be a lot more agile and a lot more creative in how we approach
Fly Tippett.
We want to start doing more work with social media.
We want to be more creative in how we publicise what we're doing and where we're looking for
support from residents and how they can communicate with us about what they've seen.
And we've got to think about how we get that information back to them because I think feedback
is key.
Some of the things I hear and I've heard in my career is feedback is key.
If residents are getting feedback, they're more inclined to report and they're more inclined
to give us the kind of info or intel we need to try and take things forward.
But doing some, we're going to start doing some work with bulky waste.
So let Rosa come in and just talk about how we might start looking at the data and if
it's certain types of data, how we might think about what we do with that area.
Yeah, so I'm just going to be working with Epping Forest colleagues and with Brian and
Rosa Tanfield - 2:09:16
his team, having a look at our special collections scheme currently, just to make sure that if
we do make any changes, there's no wider impact to things like fly tipping.
So using the data, as Brian said, looking at fly tipping,
looking at what we're collecting, how we collect it,
what our charging policy is, and also things like the recycling
centre and what's on offer there.
What are the, ultimately what are the barriers and what are
the issues that are causing the fly tipping and what are the
easiest ways we can help residents to recycle, reuse,
repurpose, redistribute the items rather than hopefully
dumping it and, yeah, as I say, just look at it in a more
to make sure that a decision there doesn't have a more detrimental impact somewhere else.
Brian Ellick - 2:10:03
So really just the key is for my service area is to continue to be agile.
Is to continue to be agile, to listen to yourselves, to work more holistically,
to not just think about it as we need to, you know, we won't be able to enforce our
way out of fly tipping, but enforcement is a key part. But what we're trying to accomplish
is behaviour change, trying to get people to do the right thing. And enforcement is
part of that, but also there's a number of different strands within that that we need
to be mindful of. We've already started a piece of work with TVS where we've made the
process for clearing fly tips and working with TVS
much more efficient in a short space of time.
It's a trial period at the moment, but it's working.
Not only is that working, but we're more connected with TVS,
we're more connected with colleagues in parking,
we're building more relationships with housing.
We know that there's been some challenges with police
and their understanding of who does what,
So we're building some of those relationships there.
And part of the training next month, which we'll have,
is to further have that platform with all those colleagues
to start having those conversations
and having those regular conversations
about how we can be more smart with the resources we've got,
particularly cross -border,
because some of these individuals, as Chris mentioned,
they're not just fly -tipping and epping.
So we've got to have those links with Thorek,
with Brentwood and those neighbouring districts
and have those regular communications.
So that's my presentation.
I'm happy to take questions.
I have a feeling there'll be lots of questions.
Thanks very much for the report.
It really is sad to say that fly tipping
is really still rising in Epping Forest
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 2:12:06
and even more sad that Epping Forest has been hit
nearly double, nearly double Harlow
and way more than anywhere else in the district.
The point I wanted to raise was on the fixed penalty notices.
So you said it's gone up to 1 ,000, which is the legal maximum, but you said about maybe
tapering it for different types of fly tipping, depending on conditions.
I don't think anyone, if they are genuinely fly tipping, should get any kind of discount
on their penalty notice for anything happening.
If you do even the smallest fly tip, you should get the maximum fine.
That's my opinion.
So how does this decision get made and what's the timeline for the fines changing?
Brian Ellick - 2:12:50
So what we've always got to be mindful of I have to say is when fixed penalties changed
or when they increased it to a thousand pound there was a lot of talk around boroughs, should
they increase it, should they not increase it, what should they increase it to, because
they felt similarly, you know, we should, we should, a lot of boroughs felt they should
set it at the maximum. But the challenge was, is the courts, it's what the courts are doing.
So you have to, you have to bear in mind that if you're setting at the maximum, and somebody
puts down, say, for example, a carrier bag, and you give them 1000 pound fixed penalty,
and they say, I can't afford a thousand pound,
I'm not gonna pay, take me to court.
You know, we don't know what will happen,
but in my experience, I've been in this,
in local authority for 30 years,
and I've taken a number of cases to court.
You have to be mindful about how the courts will view that.
And if somebody goes to court and they say,
I don't have the means to pay, I'm on benefits,
they've given me a thousand pounds,
These are my means to pay.
The courts are very, it's very unlikely the courts are going
to give them a thousand pound fine for that type of offence.
So we have to be mindful of that.
I'm not saying we have to base it solely on that,
but I think we have to be mindful of the crime
and the penalty.
And we have to, and even if we did take that approach within
In the journey, it might come up that there are mitigating circumstances that makes us
say actually, if we take this to call, in fact, before we even take it to call, once
we put it on our legal's desk, they'll say, mmm, not sure about this one.
You've given what they've said as to reason why they've done what they've done.
I'm not sure that's the approach.
So we just have to be a little bit mindful.
I think raising it to the maximum for the most serious offences like we've discussed,
I think is appropriate, but equally,
the scale is that we're proposing
is still relatively punitive.
So I think we should be okay there.
Perfect, thanks for that.
So I've got some names, I'll start with Councillor Allgood.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 2:15:12
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Ian Allgood - 2:15:15
Thank you very much for the report.
It's disappointing too, to hear that we've gone up 15 %
in the last year.
So depending on whether you're a half full or half empty,
I'm going to ask the same question,
but it's a case of what are Harlow, Brentwood, Chelmsford,
Maldon, Uttlesford doing right?
Or what is, what are we doing wrong?
It's a very good question.
I don't think it's more about what we're doing wrong.
Brian Ellick - 2:15:42
I think it's more about how we approach or how we review what
we're doing and adapt it to the increase.
Because remember, fly tipping has gone up across
it nationally, it's increased.
And I think we have to acknowledge that the team
doesn't just deal with fly tipping.
So they deal with all environmental crimes.
So that's fly tipping, graffiti, illegal street
trading, illegal encampments.
So it's about understanding.
I think we just need to be a little bit more strategic about
how we approach flighting.
Because a lot of the time, we're very traditional.
So the waste is dumped.
We try and get there.
We try and examine it to see if there's any evidence.
We might put a camera in.
We might do all these things.
I think we need to take a step back, look at the data, look
but what's happening there and determine,
for example, some of the fly tipping,
they might not be your traditional fly tipping
in the sense of what we just talked about.
There might be sideways, for example,
where you have a bin, someone's put their bin out
and they've put waste beside the bin.
So it's still fly tipping in terms of reporting,
but it's not fly tipping in the traditional sense.
So it's about stepping back, looking at the data
and then formulating plans for those areas
that we've mentioned, say more from Abby,
specific plans to look at what's happening
and what we need to do to address it.
Yeah, I accept all that,
but Harlow, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Maldon, Ullswood
Cllr Ian Allgood - 2:17:33
have, ignoring Harlow perhaps,
but they have a way lower number.
Now, what are we doing so different?
Are they comparable to what we're saying is a fly tip to what they are?
Because I understand if you've got multitasking jobs and things like that,
but that doesn't do anything for the figure.
If they've got a better system and a better way of dealing with it,
should we not be doing what they're doing, or at least looking at what they're doing to say,
why are you so successful or why are we not doing it so well?
You can blame it on having different jobs,
titles and everything else that you're doing.
But realistically, we want our public to be having less
fly tipping and we need to be providing answers.
We need to be looking at other places doing well and get what
they're doing and bring it over here.
Absolutely.
Benchmarking is key.
Hence why we are doing the cross -borrow work.
Brian Ellick - 2:18:35
That's why we meet with Brentwood, Haverin and Thorek.
That's why we've arranged the training.
I've arranged the training for next month, April, and those
districts attending those training.
Some of that data is there, so the returns that I've sent to
DEFRA is there in terms of the number of fly tips and the
number of actions, and sometimes it's not necessarily equivalent.
So some of those boroughs' actions are not as high as ours in some instances, so they
may do a lot more vehicle stop cheques than us, but they may have less fixed penalties.
But I think you're absolutely right.
Benchmarking is key to see how they're reporting, what they're reporting, what type of activity
they're undertaking and how they're working and if they're working holistically.
So it's something we're definitely looking at in terms of benchmarking for sure.
Thank you.
Councillor Simga.
Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for the report.
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 2:19:40
I just want to put on record to start off with my thanks to the residents of Chigwa
with Lambourn Ward who have been subjected to a number of flight tips recently.
And also a big thank you to your team as well for turning those around and getting them
cleared.
So thank you for that.
We've had a number of these fly tips where these people have the audacity to actually
do this, the fly tip in our area.
And we've actually caught them red -handed as well.
In fact, in one incident, the police was even there as well.
I'm not going to say any more than that because I know my ward colleague, Craig McCann, is
and you probably want to speak on that particular issue after myself.
But I do welcome the fact that we have now increased the fines from 400 to 1 ,000 pounds.
In my view, that's still not enough, but I understand why we've done that, because it's
a fixed penalty notice and therefore that's the maximum as a local authority we're allowed
to charge.
I also have seen on the slide show where you've put behavioural change.
I think it's important that as residents of our district, we all have a social responsibility
and residents have a social responsibility too.
When we're asking somebody to take away the waste, let's say it's an extension of a kitchen
or something, we must also do our part in making sure, I feel, in my personal opinion,
that the people that we're asking for the waste to be collected, we actually do our
due diligence as well and say, have you got a licence to remove the rubbish? Because ultimately,
our officers will go through that waste and find out where it's come from and if it's
from your place, you've got no get out gaol free card, so to speak. So I welcome your
or adopting that policy as well.
But another thing I think we also maybe need to look at
is commercial waste.
When I say commercial waste,
this is where we've got the construction industry
where builders are carrying out works.
Have they got a service level agreement in place?
Do they have the mechanism to dispose that rubbish properly
without being legally dumped somewhere?
And, of course, I also welcome the approach that we're going to have.
We're going to name and shame those individuals that are found guilty and responsible for
flight tipping in the district.
And can you also confirm, once they've been found guilty, or should I say found responsible
for the acts, will they be publicly put in the domain names that these people have been
found guilty?
It's just a message we send out to the members of the...
All those people that are doing this,
carrying out these offences are held responsible.
Thank you.
So, thanks for those questions.
Hopefully I should have wrote them down.
Brian Ellick - 2:22:47
I'll try and remember them.
So, you're right, it's linked.
It's about social responsibility.
It's about making it unacceptable to flight it.
It's about giving residents the information about their responsibility in terms of who
they give their waste to and how they, and giving them the confidence to ask certain
questions.
Because even the large rural fly tips, although technically it's probably somebody who's working
commercially, they're picking up domestic waste predominantly from residents.
And, you know, they're picking up waste from residents who think, I've just got a deal.
Or they spent 300 pound on a skip or 400 pound on a skip, but he's taken it off me for 150
pound.
It's a deal.
So it's getting that information out and getting them to understand that they are responsible.
If their waste is dumped down in a location by somebody else, they are responsible unless
they've taken some due diligence.
So you're absolutely correct.
Sorry, you're going to have to remind me.
I do apologise for the last question.
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 2:24:06
If I can just, what are we doing as a district to change that
culture, what are we doing in getting in touch in front of our
residents saying, you know, can you do your part as well to
help us to curb this?
In terms of the name of shame, just came to me.
The name and shame, so the name and shame would generally come.
I know the government is talking about new powers for councils to name and shame, but
generally we would only name and shame once somebody has been found guilty by a court
law.
If you pay your fixed penalty, it's effectively discharged you from prosecution, but that
doesn't stop us from being creative about how we publicise where we've been able to
penalise somebody for doing something wrong.
So we can still say the person lives on this street, they live on this estate,
they were driving a car.
And generally, people will know in the locality who that person is.
Brian Ellick - 2:25:02
And there's things we can do in terms of appeals where we can say,
do you recognise this person?
And if that person's been penalised,
we can then say a person from this block was penalised.
And the people in that block or in that street will get an idea.
I mean, for example, we're now using bespoke letters,
which have got pictures of the location of the street.
So when that goes through your door,
you're not just seeing your general flight.
You're seeing a letter which has your street on it.
So it makes you think, oh, I know that location.
That's the corner of my road.
Or that's my estate.
In fact, that's actually me.
So, you know, sometimes you've got to try and use a bit of psychology when you're trying
to tackle these things.
And just going back to the fixed penalties, so the fixed penalties, the increase, you're
right, is the maximum.
That's the proposal.
We're looking to implement it on the 1st of April, but at the moment that's our proposal.
Thank you. Next name I had was Councillor Bromwich.
Cllr Tom Bromwich - 2:26:14
Thank you very much, Chair. I think this was quite a good opportunity to credit Chigua
with Lambourne team and Councillor Morgan as well, because I've noticed on social media,
you've certainly been, all three or four of you in fact, including Councillor Risby and
Councillor McCann and Councillor Sunge, have been very vocal about that you're an active
community team cracking down on fly tipping reporting it and I remember seeing that massive
pile that you put out Darshan a few weeks ago and I just thought that was very very impressive
and what residents would expect and want. It's a pretty bleak picture across the district but
I think first of all I want to say that I think that you and the team are doing a fantastic job
certainly in my opinion. So for example I'm going to go through the things I'm happy with with the
report, the things I'm not so happy with and could do with
some improvements, and then just follow up, finish up with
some questions as well.
So I'm very happy with the response time and the take -up
rate, the stuff that you accept and say, yeah, this is a case of
fly -tipping.
I think this year, since March last year to this year, I've
reported 78 cases of fly -tipping in North Wield,
Northwell Bassett I should say and just one hasn't been accepted and all of those cases
that have been accepted they've been cleared up within a matter of days which is definitely
noticed by the residents very much so.
So I think that's excellent.
Another really good thing that I think has been introduced is the what three words referencing
back in a few months ago when what three words wasn't an option in terms of reporting the
location of a fly tip, it was difficult to try and work, to try and say where
exactly on a rural road a fly tipping has taken place. So I think that's really
good as well. And then obviously increased fines. Obviously I can think of
a solution that I think 90 % of my electorate in Northwell Bassett would
would get on board with but I don't think that's legal anymore. It'd be make
for an easy reelection slogan, I suppose.
But the things that I'm not so happy with,
and I think there is room for improvement, is I don't,
I look at the data in Northwell Bassett.
I don't believe the data.
I'm not saying that you've put the data down wrong.
It's an issue with how many things,
how many cases are reported.
Like for instance, on one road,
Rye Hill Road in Thornwood,
I reported 26 cases of fly tipping in one day,
and that was the entire length of the road.
And that's about 18 % of the total that you've got for 2425.
But that's not your problem.
It's a case of how many reports you receive.
When you reference the streamlined reporting system,
I always think it'd be quite good to have an app.
That probably boils down to Epping Forest District
Council having an app where you can do all sorts of things.
But I just think it's a lot easier
to tap something in on an app with an integrated camera where you can, rather than uploading
it onto your computer.
In terms of surveillance, so I'm a member of the Northwell Bassett Neighbourhood Watch,
we had a meeting the other day where apparently Essex Police and Essex County Council advised
that EFDC only have four mobile cameras.
given what you were saying this evening,
I don't know whether that's correct,
but that's obviously insufficient for the district.
And then finally, when it comes to the warning signs,
the ones that I've seen in Northwell Bassett particularly
are down rural lanes without any light,
street lights or anything like that.
And most of this fly tipping,
I'm assuming is happening at night.
So if the signs are up in these,
down these dark alleys and dark roads,
they don't really make much of an impact
because no one can see the signs.
But those are the things that I'm happy with
and not so happy with, slash room for improvement.
I've got four questions.
How would you want me to ask each one and then?
Okay.
So just on when you, the report refers to North Weald
having I think it's 141 cases of fly tipping.
Is that North Weald village or the parish of North Weald,
which includes Thornwood and Hastingswood.
Okay, thank you.
What was the number of enforcement action?
How can we compare enforcement actions for 2024 -25 with preceding years?
Do you have figures?
Yeah, I have that, yeah.
I haven't got it with me to hand, but I have it.
Do you know if it's higher or lower this year than it was?
I think the overall elections might be higher.
Okay.
Maybe.
I think that's okay.
That's fine.
I'll continue my question.
On the point about there being a fly -tipping
improvement group, I'm assuming that's reducing
fly -tipping rather than making it easier.
Do you have any idea of what that would look like
at this juncture whether that would be sort of section having flight a bit like
how Qalis grounds maintenance works where you have the district divided
into different areas like you have a Wolfram Abbey fly tipping group you have
a Loughton and Buckhurst Hill maybe a Northwield Epping and Faden boys fly
tipping group we are you think you're sectioning it into that sort of way or
Brian Ellick - 2:32:07
district -wide? So at the moment it's it's we was so we said we're at the early stages of that
but it was more of a district -wide looking at the data looking at having certain partners on
the um on at the meeting and being able to look at those hot spots drill down
device action plans for those recurring issues
and then revisit them to see what improvements
are the fly tips going down.
Because there's a variety of things.
It won't just be how many fixed penalties you've issued.
It'll be a variety of things that we may need to do
depending on the area and the location.
So that's how it looks.
But going back to what I was saying,
we wanna be agile about how we approach this.
So it's not gonna be hard and fast.
it will be, we're looking to have a group.
We already have a group which we are using to,
if you like, introduce some of these changes
and it will develop into,
I've used the word improvement group,
it may be called something else,
but it's about having,
because at the moment we don't have that.
We haven't had a collective of people who sit down
and look at the data and actually take a location
and say, right, we're going to have an action plan for this
location and we're going to review it on a set frequency
and then look to see how it's improved.
And then my final question, whilst also capping off by,
again, thanking you very much for what I think is an excellent
Cllr Tom Bromwich - 2:33:46
service you provide, what cooperation are you looking at
with local farmers and landowners?
owners because at a time when getting anything through Essex
Highways in terms of putting up cameras on county council
property can be glacial, are you looking at cooperating with
farmers, landowners of adjacent land to fly tipping hotspots to
just make surveillance a bit easier?
So, yeah, I mean, if...
So, your microphone.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
So, for sure, that's all part of action plan.
Brian Ellick - 2:34:19
So, location specific.
So what we would do on a housing estate would be completely different to how we would approach
One of the rural areas one of the things we've been looking at is you mentioned signage is looking at how we can have our signage
More prominent so more
Illuminous so that it's lit up in in
Over night time, but also we've got things like solar -powered lighting and there may be other things we can do in terms of
I wouldn't say redesigning it, but making it less attractive
or making it look like it's monitored more often.
Because that's what cruisers are happy to do.
If they go somewhere and they see,
okay, the flight has been gone,
someone's coming, I'll dump some more.
But there may be things you can do in certain,
it's a lot more difficult in rural areas, I grant you.
But there's potentially things you can do
and how much you put in there
that might make somebody think something's changed here.
And just by making them think something's changed here,
And even if they're looking a certain way,
then we might catch them on camera.
And I know there's a location in Onga, which
we was looking at in the car park, which
has been a regular fly -tipping location.
And the type of waste that's being dumped there,
it's a combination of adult nappies, excuse me, and manure.
But there's things we've been doing there,
because how would you find out who?
You're not going to go to every equestrian.
But there's things we've been doing there to try and identify
the people responsible.
And we've kind of, there's CCT there as well,
but we've taken an approach there
based on what we're finding and based on our locality.
That's given us some good intel.
And when they're, I would say, 70 % there
by getting to identify the individual
and the fly tip introduced, and that's only
in a matter of a few weeks.
It's not completely reduced, but it's peated off a bit,
just through some awareness and tweaking
what we would do normally.
So rural areas is far more challenging,
and the fact that the onus is on the farm or the landowner,
to have to clear it makes it even more challenging.
So we just have to try and, as I said, step back
and think about those locations,
to think collectively how we can, what we can do to address it.
Thank you. So next I've got Councillor Dadd.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 2:36:56
Cllr Mary Dadd - 2:36:58
Thank you, Chairman. My question is quite quick, I hope. First of all, does, I mean,
it's very, I also agree with, about the response time has been really good when I've seen things
in the rural areas of Olga.
But can you tell me what relationship you have with TVS
as far as reporting or picking up things?
Because obviously they work to a schedule,
time schedule to collect their refuse,
but if they go past something, what is their strategy?
Secondly, it was very good to see EFDC doing litter picking down Stanford River's road
yesterday. Can you tell me how regularly that litter picking on those sort of roads happens?
And also, going back to on private land, now, one thing, what happens about private land,
You've mentioned car park at Onga Bridge,
which have also got lavatories there as well,
and various other things.
So what happens about that?
Because sometimes if the onus is on the landowner
and they haven't got the wherewithal
to actually catch people or prosecute or pay
to have things removed, that is an extra problem.
Oh, and just very lastly, do you, I mean,
We wonder about why people do it.
I was brought up that if you dropped sweet paper,
you'd be fined.
But also, do we need more sites for people to take their own
refuse in EFDC?
Oh, yes, they won't take something.
Brian Ellick - 2:38:53
I'll pick, I'll let Rosa speak about the litter picking,
and she may also talk about the schedule
and how she links in with us.
But that's one of the things we're developing
as we move on in terms of our relationship with TVS.
So, TVS collect the waste, collect the fly tip in,
but they also feed into us if they find evidence
or if they see something or if they have intel
that they feel would support our investigations.
As I said earlier, they probably are out more than
the enforcement team at certain locations because
they're probably going to them more often to collect
fly tips, so if they have that intel in terms of
times, type of rubbish, or things they might be
seeing that's just out of the ordinary, there's a
mechanism for them to feed into Chris's team for us
to follow up.
In terms of landowners, where possible we would try and work with landowners.
A lot of the time landowners are victims, but equally we want to empower them to think
about how they can change, when I say change the physical appearance I don't mean build
walls, but what they can do at low cost to them to prevent the flight having happened.
So that might be CCTV, that might be security lighting.
And if they have the evidence, we can take action
if they give us the permission, basically.
So if somebody fly tips on private land
and the landowner collates the evidence,
gives us a statement, we can take a prosecution forward
or we can issue a fixed penalty.
In large and large, large scale incidents,
it would be the environment agency.
but equally we would work with them where possible to try and take the necessary enforcement
action.
Christopher Smith - 2:40:58
So with a lot of the private landowners, including the farmers, we do work quite closely with
them.
They've got quite, they're on first name bases with the enforcement officer in the area,
shall we say.
They're always in contact.
Any fly tipping that is done on private land, our officers will go out and inspect them
with the landowner with landowner's permission for any evidence that's found inside them.
We've also been known to supply signage to assist them.
We do give advice on how they can better try and secure their land, shall we say, from
fly tippers.
It's quite hard to do.
So obviously these landowners own a lot of land and there's quite a few access points.
But we do try and go on above beyond to assist them.
Unfortunately it does come to clearance,
is the landowner's responsibility to clear.
But we do what we can do,
and we do try and recover costs where possible
from anyone that we do prosecute
for flight on private land,
or indeed any land that we get our hands on.
So camera wise, we do also support them with any CCTV system we've got available, especially
if it's identified as a hotspot area.
So from, I'm not part of the CCTV section, shall we say, but I do know we've got two
bits of covert kit that we can place out at any time at our request.
We've also got six wildlife cameras which are actually data independent as well.
So we can put them in and officers get notified as soon as there's movement or anything like
that on there so we can regularly cheque.
And we've also got a few new bits of equipment that we actually placed in bin stores now,
which don't look like cameras whatsoever to try and actually catch people going in.
So obviously people box off lots and that sort of stuff.
They do abuse the system and they do abuse the storage space.
And as we drove down, so a lot of the numbers, a lot of the waste that's been deposited is actually coming up on housing land.
And that should be done by residents as well as people coming into the area to deposit as well.
So we're trying to get a full flow of what is actually happening.
and CCTV is one way, but obviously resident engagement
is far better if we get a witness to say,
yeah, I saw something so this X, Y and Z,
which also leads on to some of the posters
that we've got going up.
So you will find that these residential areas
that are struggling, we might have CCTV
and you might get a clip of somebody going into a bin store
and deposit and waste,
but we can't identify them from CCTV.
So we're actually putting posters up now on the bins that were saying, do you know this
person in the hope that someone might drop them in.
And previously a year or so ago when we tried this, we actually had the person in the photo
phone up saying, that's me, can you take the sign down?
So it's all ways to try and manipulate the, I suppose, the subject matter to try and get
the response that we need from it.
So I'll talk from a TVS, Terra Verde services aspect.
Rosa Tanfield - 2:44:12
So you asked about the relationship between TVS and the enforcement teams.
I think the relationship now between the operational team, the people that are collecting the waste,
and the enforcement team is the closest it's ever been, particularly now that we are Terra
Verde services.
We've worked together really hard over the last few months to
improve the processes.
So where you're seeing fly tipping being picked up much
quicker now, it's because of a review and a process review that
we've undertaken.
And that's helping to lift that material from the streets and
rural areas so that it is improving those local areas and
hopefully trying to deter some of that poor behaviour.
So we're working much more closely both at a strategic and
also an operational level.
So the enforcement officers work in geographical locations and so
do our own teams.
So we've recently had a session where it's been a bit of a
meet and greet, putting names to faces so that we've got
point -to -point contacts.
And more strategically, as Brian's talked about,
the improvement groups.
So TVS will be part of that group because we collect data
and as we said, we have eyes on the ground feeding into that
group, not just from a fly tipping and street cleansing
perspective but also from a waste perspective.
As Chris has just mentioned around bin stalls and areas
where bins, wheeled bins even are collected can generate lots
of side waste and additional fly tipping.
So we can also feed into that more strategically at that level.
In terms of, we are at the moment more reactive,
so when work comes through, we go out and collect it.
I think the point is whether we see it and do we clear it
at that point.
That's something that we're working with the team to make
sure we've got the right processes in place so that
if we do see it, we can look at clearing that as quickly
as possible, but we don't want to compromise the process
or possible enforcement action.
And so we'll be working on that as part of the next
steps going forward.
In relation to litter picking, we do have schedules for
litter picking certain streets.
So if you can let me know which streets you're
interested in, I can get the team to let you
know where we do that.
There are some high risk routes across Epping which
require us to put in traffic management because of the high
speed and the nature of the roads.
They're on a slightly less schedule than maybe other
areas just because of the nature and the need for that.
So again, just let me know which streets they are and I
can get the team to give you that information.
Is it quick? I'm conscious at the time I want to give everyone a chance to speak.
Yeah. Just going to say that I was particularly, had particularly youngsters
I'm talking about primary school aged children who are very worried about the
Cllr Mary Dadd - 2:47:09
litter and are there enough waste bins. Thank you. Next I'll head Councillor
Cllr Maria Markham - 2:47:17
Thank you, Chair. My question is very similar to Councillor Allgood's behind me, but firstly
thank you very much for your detailed presentation. There obviously is a lot of difference between
the different areas and towns in comparison to others in the situation with regards to
the fly tipping. So Waltham Abbey is at the top of the list and it's pretty horrendous
in Waltham Abbey town, we get constant complaints and concerns from residents, but also from visitors.
For instance, we've got the Waltham Abbey Church, which is a very historical
place in Waltham Abbey. We've got a lot of visitors there, but there's a situation with fly
tipping right outside the church. There is a bin there, but it overflows and it's constantly sort of,
There's rubbish bags left to the side of it.
People dump different items there,
household goods like chairs and things.
And it's an ongoing situation.
We have a local resident emailing constantly,
nearly every other day.
Obviously, I know you do sort of pick up on the situation
and it's collected pretty quickly,
but what can we do with these situations
to try and prevent it?
And also as you come through the town,
there's another area where the shops are
market, the market square. There's large bins that the shops use but when it's
collection day they're brought out so they're collected but then they're left
there instead of taken back and this is a constant problem. So again, constant
complaints because everybody goes to the bins and then just basically dumps all
their rubbish, black rubbish bags all the way around and it piles up high, right,
you know, to the wall height. It's just ridiculous and we just need someone to
to assess the situation and investigate
to try to prevent this because it's just ongoing.
And obviously it's not good for the town.
It's not a good look and it's not nice for visitors either.
Thank you.
Sorry to interject due to the timing.
Would you be happy if we come back
with written response on that?
Is that okay?
Yeah, that's absolutely fine.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, I'll pass over to Councillor Morris.
I just have one quick question.
I mean, this is going to be potentially a very profitable business.
Cllr Martin Morris - 2:49:38
Do you have a view on how much of this is being carried out by organised crime,
and how much is just down to individuals wanting to get rid of rubbish cheaply?
Just a rough idea.
No.
Sorry.
Brian Ellick - 2:49:55
Without really, really drilling down, 60 % of the Fly Tips household waste,
14 % commercial waste, is the household waste a resident dumping it or is it somebody doing
something a bit more sinister? You'd have to really drill down.
Christopher Smith - 2:50:20
Just in the sort of diverse example I gave, the £97 ,000, that was clearly a criminal
activity. They took control of the site and I thought they would take epping time to get
their hands back on the site again and they made the most of the seven days that they
had the site for and there wasn't a single inch of that land that wasn't covered.
So with those ones you can easily tell, but again, would you classify the man in the van
as a criminal activity going around collecting?
So that's the distinction that we're unable to make with the data that we've got until
we actually get to an extreme point, I suppose.
Thank you.
So that's all for committee members.
I'll go straight to Councillor McCann.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 2:51:03
I'll be brief as I can.
Cllr Craig McCann - 2:51:07
I'm the award Councillor for the Chigwell -Lambourne ward,
as we mentioned.
We are suff, we've been blighted by fly tipping.
It's number one on my agenda.
It's filling my inbox regularly.
Myself and Councillor Soongar and Councillor Risby had the
opportunity to actually accompany the enforcement team
out on some patrols.
I think she again commended for her efforts.
I mean, they are doing a fantastic job.
We went out with them, found Fly Tips.
They talked us through the process by which they deploy
covert and overt tactics.
As mentioned earlier about the cameras,
which I'll come back to.
I'd implore any other members to please do make contact with the
team to go actually and see boots on the ground exactly what
they're doing on a day -by -day basis.
and it is sometimes rummaging through rubbish trying to find addresses.
The direction of some of the ire and the anger of residents I think is often misplaced towards
the council.
We need to be absolutely clear this is a criminal activity and these are criminals doing it.
I accept that sometimes there's some upset around the amount of time taken to clear up
the fly tips, but let's be absolutely clear.
I'm not entirely sure I've ever seen Brian and his team out there flight -hipping themselves.
So let's be clear who the criminals are in this.
The fines, I'll echo the comments of Councillor Parsons.
I see the victims of this.
I guess I'm suffering from empathy fatigue if I don't see the case for reducing fines
for people flight -hipping.
It's interesting though the timescale is from the 1st of April on that.
So that's the maximum fine that we can level.
We should do that in every instance we possibly
can as a deterrent.
Flight tipping is not a victimless crime.
I regularly meet people, landowners who,
private landowners as been mentioned,
they get big flight tips on their property.
I know communication with them is done by the enforcement
team.
Can I just implore them to be sympathetic to the fact
that these are victims of crime. I know that the team work closely with them, but ultimately
they've got a job to do, but they are saying to these people, you're going to get fined
unless you clear this yourselves. And that's a tough pill to swallow if you're the victim
of a crime. So I implore for sympathetic communications with landowners. But ultimately, we're all
cleaning this up for free.
We're all paying for this.
So I think the idea that this is a victimless crime
is just frankly for the birds.
Surface public consciousness.
You mentioned comms.
When we gather money from fines, how
do we advertise how that money is being redeployed,
being used?
We need to be, I think, more public facing on that.
Also surfacing in the public consciousness
the cost of the TVS removals.
I think the public should know.
You mentioned a figure earlier on, Chris.
I think the public needs to know how much this stuff's costing us, frankly, and I think
that should assist in driving a wedge between normal law -abiding people and the criminals
that are actually carrying out these activities.
Images circulated for ID purposes and post -conviction, very supportive of that.
We don't do nearly enough of that, in my view.
If you've got CCTV evidence of a fly tip, we need to be getting that out on Facebook
channels as quickly as possible to identify the suspects.
Wolverhampton Council have a good initiative and it's about they will pay members of the
public £100 in vouchers for reporting information about fly tips, which is particularly, we're
Timeliness of prosecutions and adjournments, that's disgusting frankly that we're waiting
years for these people to have their day in court.
If there's anything the team needs in terms of surfacing that, the local MP, the Police
and Fire and Crime Commissioner, the Chief Constable, please do utilise elected members
to help do that.
That's what we're here to help with.
What else is there?
Performance metrics, a question for Mandy.
I'm rattling through this as quickly as I can.
We mentioned performance metrics.
When overview and scrutiny, we talked about the number of fly tips.
That is not a performance metric for the council.
A more meaningful performance metric would perhaps be the timeliness of the collections,
because then we can actually analyse that.
The number of fly tips doesn't tell me anything in terms of what the council are doing
against that particular activity.
So something to consider.
The training next month, really welcome that in terms of the joint training.
There is certainly some work to do with the police around understanding legal powers and
how they interact with the council.
We have seen some gaps in that in the Chigaw Lambourne case.
If there is an opportunity for elected members to participate in that training, please do
let us know.
I would be very, very keen to attend.
And that's it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So are you happy to go back with a written response?
Thank you very much.
I have got three more names.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 2:56:30
I'll let you all speak because you've been waiting patiently but if officers are happy
to give written responses just I'm unconscious we're nearly at 10 o 'clock so I've got
Councillor Kaufman.
Thank you chair I'll be high speed.
Cllr Will Kauffman - 2:56:45
I sympathise with all the rural people we spend thousands of pounds a year clearing
out fly tips and we've tried to catch the people to no avail I think we've tried to
go through the local authorities to no avail.
The main reason for talking is I have had one instance the other day, and it's always
these freak instances that catch me, which was it was the aforementioned shopkeeper with
the 700 pound business rates, was caught the other day and I don't know if they're after
her for 400 pounds or 1 ,000 pounds, but she happened to have her granddaughter in the shop
with her the other day who did what granddaughters do in her nappy.
And of course, grandma ran out into the street to dispose of the nappy in the bin right in
front of an enforcement officer.
So the last thing she needs is a 700 -pound business rates bill
and a 1 ,000 -pound bill for disposing of a nappy.
So I think where I'm just going is that, please, can I have the
contact details for the department to discuss whether
or not that fixed penalty notice should stand.
And just for officers to be mindful that you don't
necessarily need a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I don't know where there's much to come back on that,
but just a bit of empathy on certain situations.
Just really quickly, so somebody put nappy in a litter bin
and they got a fine?
Brian Ellick - 2:58:03
Yes, but I don't.
Okay, so we're not aware of that, but I mean.
Who is the company to trade data?
Yeah, sure.
Okay.
Great, thank you. I've got Councillor Morgan.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Cllr Lisa Morgan - 2:58:25
I have got to say it would have been really nice to have Quarters 1 to 3 for 25, 26 on
here and maybe where we are on Quarter 4 because I am very lucky to be the joining board to
Councillor Sunger and Councillor McCann here. I have got to say the 32 instances in Lambton
and Abridge, you have had more than that this year so far. I am very lucky that in the job
where I can actually drive around, I drive around every day. So I do report them when
I see them. And the other reason I'm very lucky is because I don't have to then pass
them on to the ward councillors because you clear them within 28 to, well I suppose 24
to 48 hours, the majority are cleared. So that's really, really good. What I have
noticed, which unfortunately is not my ward, but the Luxber Lane Recycling Centre, you
can book to go there but what they don't actually put down is the fact that when
they're having a collection they still got people booked in to go down there so
therefore you've still got 10, 15 cars waiting to go in there because they're
booked for 11, 5 past 11, 10 past 11 and they've had a collection at 11 o 'clock
and I've seen people turn round with mattresses and things on the top of
their van because they can't take them there anyway. They've got to go to
the other places that we had discussed which was Brentwood or Onga, the majority of people
are not going to take their mattress to Brentwood or Onga and that's when they end up flight
tipping them.
And the fact that they're waiting 25, 30 minutes to get in there and they're turning
around, what are they doing with that rubbish then?
Because they're not rebooking to go back in there.
And it's something that really needs to be looked at and, you know, what are we doing
with Essex County Council and TVS,
how they're working together.
If you'd like to come back to me on that one,
that would be really good, thank you.
Quickly, Councillor Kesker, yes.
Ongar tip closed years ago, sorry.
Cllr Paul Keska - 3:00:31
Actually meant Brentwood and Harlow,
sorry, that was my mistake.
Thank you, and the last name I've got is Councillor Whiskin.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 3:00:46
Cllr Paul Keska - 3:00:47
Thank you, I'm going to be very quick. The question comes up again, I've asked many times before,
Cllr Graham Wiskin - 3:00:49
what are we doing with Essex County Council to get the tips open seven days a week?
Surely that must have some impact on fly tipping, perhaps in relation to what Councillor Morgan was saying.
And secondly, can you tell us how much we've actually raised in the 34 fixed penalty notices?
Brian Ellick - 3:01:15
13 ,600 Councillor Sunga said. If you wanted to come in. So from recollection I
think for the 34 I think it was about six or seven K my head because remember
the fixed penalties there is fixed penalties for different offences so some
Some will be for fly tipping, some will be for duty of care.
And just going back to what the Councillor mentioned about Wolfram Abbey Town Centre.
Again, with the action plans, if it's a location where there's businesses, then we may need
to do some work to see if those businesses are disposing of their rubbish correctly.
Is it fit for purpose?
Have they got the right contract for the amount of rubbish they're producing?
We don't want to penalise businesses and fine them if they're having difficulties
financially, but equally if what they're doing is incorrect and it's impacting then.
So there's, as I said, the action plans for specific areas need to be bespoke.
But yeah, there's different level of fly tippings, different level of FPNs currently depending
on the offence.
So fly tipping is currently 400 pound, the treatment of care offence is 300 pound, the
littering offence is 100.
So that number is made up of different FPNs.
Thank you. Councillor Morgan. Sorry, it's just one more thing I forgot.
Cllr Lisa Morgan - 3:02:39
I'm in total agreement with what Councillor Parsons said and what Councillor McCown said.
The £1000 fine, if you've dumped your mattress somewhere or anything, you know it's wrong.
You should get your £1000 fine. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Sunger.
Cllr Darshan Sunger - 3:02:56
Right, so having listened to the whole debate, I think it's really important as a place scrutiny
committee that we bring this to the report from your department at least twice a year.
It's a bi -annual report moving forward.
Is the committee happy to add that as a twice a year report?
Yes, twice a year.
Brilliant.
That ends item number nine.
Cllr Joseph Parsons - 3:03:23
So the last one is just data future meetings,

10 DATES OF FUTURE MEETINGS

just to say this is the last place meeting.
Thank you so much for the officers and members
for their input over the year.
And the next meeting is scheduled for the 30th of June,
2026 and I'll close the meeting.
Long one, three minutes past 10.
Cllr Ian Allgood
District councillor for Loughton Forest ward
Loughton Residents Association
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Cllr Clive Amos
District councillor for Theydon Bois with Passingford ward
Liberal Democrats
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Cllr Richard Bassett
District councillor for Roydon and Lower Nazeing ward
Conservative Party
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Cllr Tom Bromwich
District councillor for North Weald Bassett ward
Independent
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Cllr Rose Brookes
District councillor for Buckhurst Hill East and Whitebridge ward
Loughton Residents Association
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Wendy Cockbill
Team Manager for Economic Development and Inclusion
Epping Forest District Council
View profile Wendy Cockbill
Cllr Mary Dadd
District councillor for Ongar ward
Conservative Party
View profile Cllr Mary Dadd
Fabrizio Ferrari
Team Manager - Economic development & Health Improvement
Epping Forest District Council
View profile Fabrizio Ferrari
Cllr Sue Jones
District councillor for Theydon Bois with Passingford ward
Conservative Party
View profile Cllr Sue Jones
Cllr Will Kauffman
District councillor for Loughton Fairmead ward
Loughton Residents Association
View profile Cllr Will Kauffman
Cllr Paul Keska
District councillor for Ongar ward
Conservative Party
View profile Cllr Paul Keska
Laura Kirman
Democratic Services Officer
Epping Forest District Council
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Cllr Maria Markham
District councillor for Waltham Abbey South and Rural ward
Independent
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Cllr Craig McCann
District councillor for Chigwell with Lambourne ward
Conservative Party
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Cllr Lisa Morgan
District councillor for Grange Hill ward
Independent
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Cllr Martin Morris
District councillor for Waltham Abbey North ward
Labour Party
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Cllr Joseph Parsons
District councillor for Waltham Abbey West ward
Conservative Party
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Cllr Darshan Sunger
District councillor for Chigwell with Lambourne ward
Conservative Party
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Rosa Tanfield
Managing Director
Terra Verde Services Ltd (TVS)
View profile Rosa Tanfield
Matt Winslow
Planning Director
Epping Forest District Council
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Cllr Graham Wiskin
District councillor for Loughton St John's ward
Loughton Residents Association
View profile Cllr Graham Wiskin