Agenda item

To discuss the following matters raised by Local Council’s:

(a)               Planning Enforcement.

To receive a report on the present status of planning enforcement.

(b)            Highways Maintenance.

            To receive an update on the latest position about the transfer of responsibilities for highways maintenance and the need to set up a good set of contact points between local councils and officers. In particular, road traffic sign replacement.

(c)       Traffic Wardens

            To receive a report on traffic wardens, their organisation and timing patterns.

(d)            Planning Sub-Committees

            To discuss the movement back to Epping of two planning sub-committees (Plans ‘C’ and ‘D’) and the effect it may have on public participation.

a)                             Planning Enforcement

The meeting received a report from Stephan Solon (Senior Planning Officer) who currently manages the Planning Enforcement Team. The district council currently has 4½ enforcement officers and 1 administrative person, with only himself with any planning experience.

There were over 700 cases cleared per year over the last few years, with a backlog of about 580 cases still to be closed. They are currently looking into ways to eat into this backlog – by looking at officer’s caseloads to see if they can close any cases and to review any particularly difficult cases. Last year 890 new cases were received – with the review currently going on it is hoped that a substantial number of these cases will be dealt with. Although it is recognised that there are staffing issues, having one post that they have not been able to fill. They particularly need officers with planning experience.

A member noted that without more staff it seemed difficult to see how the section could catch up with the backlog; they need more money to get more staff. The parishes tend to see planning issues that are on the whole, ignored.

Another member noted that planning sub committees ran a serious risk when they imposed conditions that needed to be enforced, but with the backlog they cannot enforce it. The planning officer replied that officers advise members if conditions are enforceable to which members need to listen to and act upon.

The Joint Chief Executive (Community) added that Planning Enforcement is discretionary, which meant the council does not have to do it, but does it anyway in the interests of good planning for the district. There are more jobs than officers available to fill them. The Government says this service should be cost neutral but the council are unable to achieve this. There is a dilemma here as members are reluctant to raise more money through the Council Tax as the government may cap us.

A member asked if a report is made by one of the parishes on an enforcement matter would the Enforcement Team give this priority over a public complaint? The planning officer answered they prioritise on the nature of the complaint and not on who sends it in. He added that they would also like more information from the parishes when they do send in reports.

The planning officer was asked what would happen to the backlog – will it ever get cleared? He answered that it depended on the nature of the complaints, the easy ones could be cleared in a few weeks, but some of the more difficult cases could take years – one thing they do need is more officers with planning expertise.

b)                             Highways Maintenance

The Head of Environmental Services gave a short account of the latest position on the transfer of highways to the County Council and drew the attention of the meeting to the tabled sheet containing the new contact names and numbers of the Highways section (Appendix 1). He offered to ask Paul Hardy, the West Essex Area Manager for Highways and Transportation to attend the next meeting to answer any questions. The majority of the highways officers are the same ones who did this work for the District Council and so there would be no learning curve for them. A formal service agreement is still to be signed with ECC. If the parishes have any problems contacting Paul Hardy or his team please contact Environmental Services at Epping Forest DC and they will endeavour to help.

There is a Highways Transportation Panel being set up to liaise with Essex C.C, and this should be set up by September this year.  Also starting up will be an EFDC Overview and Scrutiny Panel that would be taking a particular interest in this move.

c)                             Parking Attendants

The Head of Environmental Services introduced Paul Blamey, the Council Parking Manager. He explained that yellow lines first appeared in 1958, this used to be controlled by the Police, then by traffic wardens and now local councils have control. There were 22,000 penalty notices issued in 2004/05, which generated just short of £600,000 in fines. This breaks down to around 70 to 80 penalty charges per day or roughly 10 per Parking Attendant (PA) or about 1½ tickets an hour, per PA. Not an excessive amount.

The Council also collects about £1 million per year from on and off street Pay and Display meters.

• The member for Chigwell said they have a small shopping parade, with a one hour parking restriction in force. The traders say they have never seen any parking attendants, except when the road works were being done. The Parking Manager replied that they had received complaints about over zealous wardens in Chigwell – they do regularly patrol but it seems that when they turn up the cars vanish and reappear again when they have gone.

• Epping Upland were concerned about the over zealousness of wardens that stop people from going into the high street in the evenings. The answer was that if you park on a yellow line out of hours you are not committing an offence. Yellow lines restrictions cease at 6:30pm. Anyway, the Council does not pay their attendants on how many tickets they issue. A parking attendant issues a ticket on a hand held computer and has to take at least three photographs, and the fastest this can be done is about two minutes.

• A member asked what the council was doing about out of hours enforcement in areas in the south of the district where this is a problem? He was told that on three Sundays over the last month and over the bank holiday period they had sent out special patrols, but If the parishes care to tell us where this is a particular problem then we could target those areas.

• The Parking manager was asked how much is collected and how much it costs per month; he replied it was approximately £60k per month. The questioner believed this left just under a £1 million in surplus p.a. The surplus from on street parking went to offset the cost for setting up the system - in the first place the County paid and we are now paying them back, once it is paid back the money will be ring fenced by law, to be spent on Traffic/Highways and Environmental improvements. Any surplus from the off street parking goes to the Council.

• Is there provision to tow away or clamp cars?  No we wont be able to do that, as the County did not adopt that part of the legislation.

• How may tickets remain unpaid?  We have a payment rate of 70%, so it’s quite good compared to London boroughs that only have 40% rate.

d)                             Planning Sub-Committees

This item was asked for following the move back to the Council Offices in Epping for Area Plans Sub-committees ‘C’ and ‘D’ and the effect this move may have on public participation.

The Joint Chief Executive (Community) said that this was a decision made by Councillors and therefore a political decision and not for the officers to defend. In order for Plans ‘C’ and ‘D’ to come back to Epping, full Council had to give their consent to this move, which they did.

It was noted that some of the meeting would still like the Planning Sub-Committees to be based locally if possible, but it was accepted that this was a political decision and beyond the scope of the officers attending this meeting.