The Council’s rules provide for questions by any member of the Council to the Leader or any Portfolio Holder, without notice on:
(i) reports under the previous item; or
(ii) any other matter of a non operational character in relation to the powers and duties of the Council or which affects all or part of the District or some or all of its inhabitants.
The Council’s rules provide that answers to questions without notice may take the form of:
(a) a direct oral answer from the Leader or, at the request of the Leader, from another member of the Cabinet;
(b) where the desired information is in a publication of the Council or other published work, a reference to that publication;
(c) where the reply cannot conveniently be given orally, a written answer circulated later to the questioner; or
(d) where the question relates to an operational matter, the Leader or a member of the Cabinet will request that a response be given direct to the questioner by the relevant Service Director.
In accordance with the Council’s rules, a time limit of thirty minutes is set for questions. Any question not dealt with within the time available will receive a written reply. The Chairman may extend this period by up to a further ten minutes at their discretion.
Minutes:
The Chairman thanked Members for giving notification of intentions to ask questions without notice.
(a) Essex County Council’s for the vulnerable during the Christmas period.
Councillor L Burrows asked the Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder if she would like to comment on Essex County Council’s support for the vulnerable through the Holiday Hunger and Welfare schemes.
Councillor H Whitbread replied that she was pleased when Essex County Council announced a Holiday Hunger programme, with the help of Government funding were able to roll out this programme. There were two specific programmes running in the district, one at Ongar Primary School run by the Red Balloon Foundation from the 21-23 December, there will be activities, arts and crafts for residents and children to get involved with as well as a healthy meal and a food parcel to take home. The second programme was at Oakwood Hill Community Centre in Loughton run by the Restored Church. In addition to this programme Voluntary Action Epping Forest and Essex Child and Family Wellbeing services were also providing food parcels and support to vulnerable families during this time.
(b) Demand responsive and regular services which were replacing bus route 87
Councillor C C Pond asked the Environmental and Technical Services Portfolio Holder what was being done with regard to linking in the Epping Forest Retail Shopping Park with Debden Broadway. He added that it seemed wrong that the Council should own a retail park and the only way to travel to the park was by car.
Councillor N Avey advised that he did not know the answer to the question but did agree with what Councillor Pond had said, he advised that he would speak to the officers concerned and reply back to Councillor Pond.
(c) How Covid had affected the District in 2020
Councillor G Chambers stated that 2020 had been a very difficult year and asked the Leader of Council if he could sum up how Covid had affected the district in 2020 and how the Council had performed during this period.
Councillor C Whitbread agreed that it had been a difficult year but it had shown the importance of Local Government, how good the officer teams were, how well that everyone, Councillors and Officers, had pulled together through the pandemic. There had been some brilliant examples in the way the Government grants were quickly turned around and sent out to businesses, Epping Forest was one of the fastest to get these grants paid in Essex. The work done around the welfare section and the ability to help high streets become socially distanced and doing the job as normal against the most difficult times. Learning to work from home, being flexible and doing all those extra things that make Epping Forest a special place to live and work in. As we move into 2021 there will be some hard times ahead and he had every confidence that Epping Forest would weather the storm and move forward.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that this was Councillor G Chambers last meeting as a District Councillor as he was stepping down to further his career and would like to take this opportunity on behalf of himself and all members to wish him well wherever the future took him.
(d) Civic Offices Accommodation Project
Councillor J M Whitehouse asked the Leader of Council if discussions had taken place with Essex County Council regarding the library and whether it would be occupying any of the space in the Civic Offices.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that there were ongoing discussions with ECC, negotiations were going well and hopefully by the next Full Council there will be some positive news to report.
(e) Qualis Staff Salaries
Councillor S Heap asked the Leader of Council how many employees had come from EFDC to Qualis and were Qualis paying their salaries.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that there had been staff transferred from the Council to Qualis and these staff were paid for by Qualis.
(f) Response from the MP about moving into Tier 3
Councillor S Murray asked the Leader of Council given that we had recently moved into Tier 3, does the Leader think the response from our MP was woefully inadequate in the sense that her only public quote was “I know this is disappointing news for the constituents and businesses’. Therefore will the Leader use his good efforts to make sure that himself and our MP can go knocking on the Government’s door and make sure that the businesses that were suffering got the support and were fully compensated, especially those in the hospitality sector.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that he did not have to comment or defend anyone’s actions but would like Councillors to know that he was with the MP, Dame Eleanor Laing on Friday 11 December as she was preparing a letter to the Health Minister arguing most strongly for Essex to stay in Tier 2 and in particular Epping Forest. He stated that he knew how difficult moving into Tier 3 was for businesses, it was devastating for them, not only for the hospitality industry, it was devastating to all the feeder businesses, self-employed people who had not got three years of accounts and families. It was hard but the Government had to make tough decisions at this time and the Government were doing their best to get funding to businesses.
The job of the District Council was to get that funding to the businesses as quickly as possible and he advised that he had every confidence that the team at EFDC were working on that now. This Pandemic was ongoing and until it was under control there would be tough times ahead.
(g) Qualis – Social Housing
Councillor D Plummer asked the Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder why council housebuilding under the Council’s House Building Programme was subject to affordable rents rather than social rents. Affordable rents were a misnomer in that they would charge 80% or the market rate which was far from affordable for many families and also new council homes were subject to Right to Buy. Will the District Council commit to setting up a social housing association as part of the Qualis Group or could reasons be given as why this was not feasible.
Councillor H Whitbread advised that Qualis were committed to following the Council’s Local Plan and delivering 40% affordable housing and the District Council continues with its Council Housebuilding Programme. With certain projects the Council look at different kinds of tenancies for example, St John’s Road, a project looking to be delivered in Epping, those properties would not be the subject of a Right to Buy the Council and Qualis did look at different tenancies and different models of local housing were looked at with every site.
(h) The Landmark Building, The Broadway, Loughton
Councillor D Wixley asked the Leader of Council, in the absence of the Commercial and Regulatory Portfolio Holder, for several weeks there had been scaffolding up at the Landmark Building and it looked like there was work being done on the cladding, therefore concern had arisen whether the cladding was safe from a fire point of view and if there was an issue and would the Council have to bear the cost of any such remedial work or would it be down to the company that built the building.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that the Landmark was modern and Building Regulations had improved immensely and therefore the materials used would have been safe from a fire point of view. He would advise Councillor Patel to look into what was had been going on at the Landmark building and who would bear the costs and would ask him to report back to you.
(i) United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Councillor J Leppert asked the Leader of Council on behalf of a resident in his ward if he could clarify, in the light of a recent well-publicised Standards Committee case, whether he and the Council did or did not support and endorse Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stated that everyone had the right to freedom of opinion and expression which included freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek to impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Councillor C Whitbread replied that everyone had a right to an opinion and everyone had a right to be responsible with their opinions, unfortunately some people aren’t responsible with their opinions and unfortunately Councillor Leppert you found yourself in that position.
(j) Qualis Fleet of Vehicles
Councillor J H Whitehouse referred to the report of the Environmental and Technical Services Portfolio Holder where it stated that a fleet of 24 vehicles had been provided to Qualis by the Council and wondered if the Council had already given millions of pounds to Qualis why therefore were the Council providing the vehicles to Qualis.
Councillor N Avey replied that he did not know the answer to the question and that he would get back to her. If he found there to be an issue he would publicise it to the rest of the Council.
(k) Government Business Grants during Tier 3 of the Pandemic
Councillor D Sunger stated that as the District had now moved into Tier 3 could the Customer and Corporate Support Services Portfolio Holder confirm that the grants from the Government for businesses that needed support have now been distributed by the District Council and how many grants had been given out so far in this tranche.
Councillor S Kane replied that he was very conscious or the problems facing local businesses in the recent months due to the Pandemic and in particular the hospitality sector. The Government had made available to businesses a wide range of grants for businesses to provide some financial assistance which was then administered by the Council as the Local Authority. There were a number of different grants and the movement of our District by lockdown and different tiers had created an enormous complexity in the process. Businesses first had to apply for us to administer the grants. He therefore assured Members and businesses that officers were doing the absolute best to make the application process as easy as possible, whilst maintaining the integrity of the award process which was required by Government. Officers had a target of paying all verified business applications by the Christmas break.
If businesses were contacting Members they should be referred to the EFDC website which was being reviewed and constantly updated in line with the most recent changes and ongoing circumstances.
(l) Qualis buying Commercial Property
Councillor M Owen stated that his question was to the Commercial and Regulatory Portfolio Holder and in his absence hoped that someone else could answer his question. He advised that he had some concerns with Qualis buying commercial businesses as this time, outside of the District, when a lot of businesses were reporting that their workforce would now be working from home and they would be reducing the headcount in their offices. Should Qualis still be going down this commercial property route or should they be re-assessing.
Councillor H Kauffman, Qualis Board Director advised that he was Chairman of the Risk Committee and Qualis had bought two assets, one was a Wickes DIY store in Malden and the other was an office building in Leatherhead. The blended yield was around 7%, if you look at interest rates, banking wise, the rate was down at zero and therefore you would be in negative interest rate territory very soon. Over the next two or three years money will go down in value and assets will go up, assets over the long term always go up therefore we had to buy carefully. He stated that he had been in this kind of business since 1977 and had also been to see the assets, he knew the quality of the assets, they were robust and not over rented. The office building in Leatherhead was rented by Hyundai and Zoetis, they were both multi-national multi-billion pound businesses and the rents they were paying were approximately £28 per square foot, which was very good value for a fully refurbished building. The office block has a ten year income stream and both properties were producing a gross income stream to Qualis of just under £1.4 million a year.
The Council had lent Qualis the money at an interest rate so Qualis was already paying a premium price for the money and getting a significantly surplus yield as we were receiving 7% blended on secure assets.
(m) Mitigation Strategy
Councillor D Dorrell stated that he welcomed the decision of Natural England to accept the Mitigation Strategy asked the Planning and Sustainability Portfolio Holder if he could give some indication to those whose business lives were being held up by the delay of nearly 2 years and what the next steps were and what actions were being put in place to expedite this problem matter.
Councillor N Bedford stated that he was please to announce that the Air Quality Mitigation Strategy had finally been agreed with Natural England. Officers from the Council at the highest level and those of Natural England to work tirelessly to get this Mitigation Strategy agreed.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dame Eleanor Laing for intervening which helped drive this forward without her assistance The Council would still be without a policy that had been agreed.
At earlier Council meetings it was reiterated to Members how important this document was for business and builders who had no work and their businesses were failing, if we did not get this policy approved it would affect everyone in this district. The strategy affects everyone in the district from those that want to build a granny annex to the local small time builder who was building two or three houses where originally there was just one property.
The Conservative party have pushed this policy to the limit, it has been scrutinised over and over and the best minds in the Country had looked at it so much that Natural England were going to use the EFDC strategy as an exemplar to producing Air Mitigation Strategies.
I hope that Members would be able to support this interim strategy, without calling it in, to enable the Council’s Planning department to start releasing the backlog of applications that they hold.
(n) Sites in Epping for development
Councillor C McCredie asked the Leader of Council with regard to the five sites in Epping to be developed by Qualis and would like to be assured that the green initiatives for these sites were not just a token gesture but would be planned and managed in a sustainable way.
Councillor C Whitbread agreed and replied that it goes without saying.
(o) Work on the Civic Offices
Councillor P Stalker stated that he was pleased to learn that the work on the Civic Offices was progressing well and was looking to see the new facility and what it had to offer. He asked the Leader of Council for an update on when the Civic Offices would be completed and what services would it include.
Councillor C Whitbread advised that the Civic Offices would be completed by quarter 4 and was making good progress he added that when it was finished it would be amazing and will have multiple uses. The ground floor would hopefully house a library and negotiations were currently ongoing with ECC and a number of other partners and will bring forward an exciting future for the Council.
It was not just about the Civic Offices in Epping because we were a District that covered five major centres, rural and urban areas and it was about trying to reach out to those areas as well. The important thing to come out of this was the Civic Offices would be an office fit for the 21st century.