Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were tabled by Councillors Anton Dani and Lina Savickiene

To sign and confirm the minutes of the last meeting.

With the agreement of the committee the Chairman signed the minutes of the previous meeting.

To receive declarations of interests in respect of any item on the agenda.

No declarations of interest we tabled.

To report progress on outstanding actions from the minutes of the last meeting, for information only.

The Lead Officer for the Committee, the Assistant Director for Leisure and Culture advised members that following the previous meeting the Green Flag Group sat on the 26 June and agreed the outline of the scope and work was ongoing identifying the resources required in delivering such a project.   The work programme would involve the management plan itself by exploring the option for UK SPF funding for a Friends of Central Park in support of both the strategy and the development of policy.

Moving forward a visit would be scheduled to enable the group to view the sites at Lincoln who had successfully achieved four Green Flags.

To answer any written questions received from members of the public no later than 5 p.m. two clear working days prior to the meeting – for this meeting the deadline is 5 p.m. on Monday 29^th July 2024.

No questions table.

To allow members of the public to address the Committee.

A member of the public addressed the meeting voicing concerns in respect on ongoing issues of fly-tipping / littering within the immediate vicinity of his residence in the Granville Street / Carlton Road area of the town.  Committee were further advised that initially a CCTV camera had been thought to be installed but when officers had advised that would not take place, the member of public had offered their own premises as a site for the camera such was the need to source the evidence and impact of the incessant littering.  Members were advised that wild life tore into the bags of rubbish and strew the contents, which included foodstuffs and also items of a personal matter, along the pavements and onto the road – with the site being a continual rubbish tip. Whilst the operatives cleaned the site once reported, the site filled up again repeatedly.

The Chairman thanked the member of public for the question and advised that officers on site had taken note of all the comments and concerns tabled, and both members and officers would move the issue forward to look at achieving some action to address the volume of activity at the site. 

A report by the Local Communities Development Officer and and BTAC Grant Administrator.

The Lead Officer for the Committee presented the report confirming the outcomes of the Committee’s Small Grants Working Group.

Committee were advised that two grants had been considered and agreed within the Empowering Healthy Communities Grant Scheme and a further two grants considered and agreed within the Boston Town Area Committee Small Grant Scheme.  

RESOLVED:

That BTAC endorse the decisions made by the Small Grants Group

A report by the Chief Finance Officer

Presented by the Lead Officer, members were advised that the report provided an update to members on the BTAC financial position, showing the budget and outturn (full year spend) for the 2023/24 year, and the BTAC reserve at the year-end 31 March 2024.

The report showed the BTAC outturn position for the 2023/24 year, both in terms of revenue expenditure for the year and the reserve sums held. It helped inform members to enable them to ensure probity and to make decisions on future spending within the BTAC area.The outturn position was an overspend of £37,115 which has been offset by a contribution from reserves to ensure a breakeven position.

The opening balance of the BTAC reserve on 1 April 2023 has been £328,136. The closing balance on BTAC’s reserve as of 31^st March 2024 being £118,459.

Details of the use of reserves had been outlined in Appendix A and included expenditure on play equipment of £142k and the contribution from reserves towards the in-year overspend of £37k.

Having considered the S151 Officer’s recommendation of a minimum reserve of £70,000, the Funds available (not allocated) stood at £118,459.

Member deliberation followed which included:

Strong concern was tabled by the Chairman and other members at the lack of supporting detail within the report, which failed to identify how the figures had been achieved, along with a lack of identification of any break down of charges and a lack of justification of the figures.

Members agreed the need to be fully conversant with the finances of the committee and also to be aware of every charge incurred by BTAC.

Members were advised that historically on the committee, a workshop was scheduled for all members to explain the budget process. The Chairman agreed the re-introduction of such a workshop.

The Chairman further requested that his displeasure at the lack of any attendance by a Finance Officer to present and answer questions on the report, be recorded. 

RESOLVED:

To defer the report to enable a fully detailed report to be returned to the next committee meeting on the 28 November 2024, enabling members to have fully detailed report on all BTAC charges to enable them to consider any decision making moving forward.

A report by the Services Manager (Property and Technical)

The portfolio holder presented the report to the committee, confirmation that following receipt of its annual financial reporting, BTAC had voiced concerns at the significant overspend against budget on the provision of Public Conveniences and requested a report providing a full breakdown of the costs and reasons for the overspend. During the financial year 2023/24 there had been two occasions when water consumption for two public conveniences in Boston were found to be unusual and unexpected and resulted in higher water bills than expected. To ensure a full understanding of matters at individual locations this report will deal with each location separately. On the 13^{th of} February 2024, the property team were informed by colleagues from the council’s finance team that a water utility bill for Bond Street Toilets for the period 10 November 2023 to 9 February 2024 had been received for the sum of £4,201, ten times more than expected. Average daily water consumption at the location prior to this date had been broadly similar with quarterly bill for the previous 12-month period averaging £401 per quarter. Officers from the council’s property team attended the location and commenced to take a set of daily meter readings for a period of a week to confirm detail of water consumption at the location to see if they could initially establish the volume of water being lost prior to initiating any leak detection measures. During this period of monitoring officers were able to establish that the water consumption was identical to previous consumption periods. This indicated that there was no water leak present at the location. Monitoring since this unusual water bill has indicated consumption is in line with the average of £401 per quarter.                         Having monitored water consumption since the alleged period of excessive use average water consumption remains static at pre-November 2023 levels. Anglian Water were asked if the water meter at the location could have developed a fault that caused the excessive consumption. They advised that that was not possible and that it did not require replacement.

Officers are simply unable to offer any rational explanation for the excessive consumption during the period 27^th November 2023 and 27^th January 2024 based on the fact that Anglian Water do not accept that there could possibly have been any meter issue, and equally, there was no evidence during the period of any automatic stop valve failure on the cisterns, taps or other visible water supply.

Property colleagues were alerted to a notable increase in supply costs in September 2023. The water supply at this location feeds several locations throughout Central Park in addition to the toilet block, including the aviary and a mess room used by council staff. Careful checks and monitoring of the area upon notification failed to detect any obvious areas where a leak was taking place. Between September and October 2023, both property staff and the Council’s maintenance contractor undertook visual and physical investigations but did not identify and escape of water. In November  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

A report by the Services Manager (Property and Technical)

Presenting the report the Portfolio Holder confirmed that at its meeting on 28 March 2024, BTAC had resolved to request from officers the cost of upgrading a number of its older Footway Lighting assets across its geography; this report provides the Committee with information in relation to a number of those lights for which costs have been obtained to date. The current replacement cost to undertake the above works on the 21 assets is estimated to be £7,350 +VAT. Please note this cost may increase upon any commission as the price was provided on visual inspection basis rather than a structural inspection. In the event any order is placed post quote term, costs may also be subject to review. For clarity to the Committee, all footway lights at the above locations are full night rather than ‘part night’ lights (being timed to turn off, normally somewhere between midnight and 02:00 hrs). Whilst reducing operating hours would reduce electricity costs, moving to part night lighting may prove to be problematic from a reputation management perspective so it may be prudent to retain the current lighting arrangement of full night time illumination in the event of any upgrade?

To help the Committee, officers have undertaken some high-level calculations to quantify the potential savings that could be generated by upgrading to 18W LED light fittings. Currently these assets cost c. £1,369 per annum to operate (based on an average annual 11.76-night hours with electricity at 37.6 pence per kWh). Changing the lighting heads would reduce the annual running cost to c.£610. This equates to a potential annual saving of £758.55 or a reduction of approximately 44.6% in the annual running cost of the lights in scope, giving a capital payback of 9.69 years.

Members comment and questioning followed which included:

The Buildings and Property Services Manager confirmed that the report was one in a potential series of three reports across three phases, for BTAC to consider as the committee was responsible for other lighting assets within its ward including car parks and ornate lights.  In the event that members of BTAC wished to progress with those two provisions that a contractor would need to be commissioned to enable modelling to take place.

Concern was noted by members that BTAC appeared to pay for the Councils Car Parking lighting – yet BTAC received no income back into BTAC from the Car Parks.

Concern was further noted that that within the last twelve months BTAC had dipped into its reserves to deliver the lighting if agreed, and members wanted to know if it was possible to ensure any savings made from the changes went back into the BTAC reserves.

Responding to members questions the Buildings and property Services Manager confirmed that it was not possible to run street lights on solar lights particularly within the winter months due to a reduction in sun hours.  There were no solar street lights on the market – they were not suitable.

Urging caution on any decision being made  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

To assist committee to populate the work programme.

The two items agreed during the meeting, the updated Finance Report and the updated Footway Lighting report were scheduled onto the agenda for the next meeting on the 8 September 2024.

A further request sought a report on cycling around the town and the impact it has on pedestrians.