STC

Operations Committee 15.9.2021

September 20, 2021

5 minutes read

At first glance, the last Operations Committee (OpCom) meeting agenda was not impressive and contained only five items. Yet, the meeting itself was full of some exciting discussions, decisions, and votes. The whole meeting took an hour and forty minutes. Compared to Leisure Committee meetings, which usually take no more than twenty minutes, it is clear which Committee has the heavier workload. Even though the meeting took an hour and forty minutes, most of the discussion took part on the exempt part, so I can’t report that. Everything else that I could write- I did below.

O/21/010 TO RECEIVE APOLOGIES AND REASONS FOR ABSENCE.
Two members were missing.

O/21/011 TO RECEIVE DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST.
No interest was declared.

O/21/012 TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN COUNCIL HAVING BEEN HELD 14TH JULY 2021.
This part took well over forty minutes. Usually, reviewing and accepting minutes from the previous meeting takes a moment. Still, this time few items took a significant amount of time to review.

First: Market Square risk review. The committee Chair and Market Manager conducted a review, and there were several recommendations made. One of them is about trees on the Market. Sadly- the roots of those trees causing havoc in the infrastructure of the Market. Most visible at the moment are damages made by roots to Market surface but as review underlined- soon enough growth of those trees could cause damage to walls surrounding Market. The cost of the surface repairs will be high, but if roots damage walls, costs will be exponentially higher. I’m not a fan of cutting down the trees in green areas (like in Glapwell). However, on this occasion, unchecked growth of those trees could cost taxpayers a lot of money in the future, not to mention the risk of injury to members of the public. A decision wasn’t made yet, but I think those trees will have to go under axe at some point.

Second: traffic at Market Square. A decision was taken to try to solve the problem again. Recently I asked residents on Facebook what they think about it and how they would solve that problem.

The majority share my view: the car traffic Market should be limited to buses and service vehicles (and blue badge holders, as many suggested in comments to the poll). In addition, the confusing sign at the entrance should be changed from current into the “no entry at all time” sign.

Councillors once again underlined that they have been trying to solve that problem for over twenty years. In my opinion, the main role of the opposition is to criticise and point out mistakes. This time I decided to try to do something about this issue so I offered my help. Committee Chair accepted offer. I know I’m taking on myself a very difficult task. Labour Party, which has run Derbyshire for decades, could not do anything with this issue. How can I? Well- I like the challenge. On top of that- my lack of experience could be an advantage here: since I know what was tried, I will try something else, and the new approach can field different results.

Third: adoption of footpaths. Here we came across a little misunderstanding. Minutes states that OpCom decided to adopt all footpaths, but few councillors (including me) thought we decided to review footpaths and then determine which should be adopted and which abandoned. I did a review of footpaths in my ward, you can read here:
https://shirebrook247.com/public-footpath-review-south-of-shirebrook/

Few other councillors also chipped in their views as they use some of those footpaths for walks. We recognised few footpaths that at this point are entirely abandoned. From my point of view, restoring them would not only cost significant amounts of money and time but would reduce the ability to care for these paths, which the town should adopt. The truth is that these paths fell into oblivion because nobody used them. If no one has used the paths in the past, then there is little chance that residents will start using them in the future. I think that the majority of the Committee shares my opinion. After all, I was invited by the Committee Chair to take another look at these paths that have fallen into disrepair. STC has until December to decide on this matter, and it seems to me that work on this issue will continue until the last minute.

O/21/013 TO CONSIDER RESPONSES AS NECESSARY TO LISTED CORRESPONDENCE;
a. IAN OXLEY – CEMETERY ROAD SYSTEM
Discussion on this issue took way more than I expected. Different approaches were discussed, but in the end, everyone agreed that the current system meets the requirements. Problems are caused not by flaws of the system but by drivers who don’t obey posted signs. I could only add that maybe STC could add CCTV cameras to monitor and punish offenders in the future.
b. KEVIN COATES – ALLOTMENT REQUEST – PERMISSION FOR SHED
c. JENNIFER STUART – ALLOTMENT REQUEST – PERMISSION FOR SHED AND CHICKENS
d. KAY GRAVES – ALLOTMENT REQUEST – PERMISSION FOR SHED
e. BEACROFT MEMORIALS – CEMETERY REQUEST – REVIEW ADDITIONAL INSCRIPTION

Once again- the permission part of any meeting trips me off. I feel very uncomfortable deciding on plans that I know only based on one line of text. For example, this time, someone applied for permission to build a 1000 litre rainwater storage tank. I do not know if I have ever seen a tank that is supposed to hold a tonne of water, but I suspect it will be quite a large structure. How can I decide on a permit when I don’t even know the dimensions of the plot on which this structure is to be built? I don’t want to sound like a bureaucrat, but if I had the influence, I would require more detail in the applications than just what someone wants to build and where.

That was the end of the public part of the meeting. It doesn’t sound as much, but it took a lot of time to go through all of these items. After that, we moved to exempt part of the meeting that I can’t report anything but items.

O/21/014 CONFIDENTIAL ITEM/S
Exclusion of public
Due to the confidential nature of the business to be transacted it is advisable, in the public
interest, that the public and press be instructed to withdraw from the meeting.

a. TO IDENTIFY PREFERRED SUPPLIER FOR CCTV PROJECT AND MAKE RECOMMENDATION TO FULL
COUNCIL.
b. TO REVIEW OPENING AND LOCKING PROCEDURE AT SHIREBROOK VILLAGE HALL.

O/21/015 TO APPROVE THE DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING OF THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE.
(SET AT 17TH NOVEMBER 2021 AS PER THE APPROVED MEETING SCHEDULE)

END
After all, I’m glad that I was assigned to OpCom, not to Leisure Committee. From my point of view, OpCom deals with real problems and tries to solve real problems. The LCom talks mainly about parties and spends money without considering the financial situation of the town, and after my meeting with Town Clerk, I can say with a big dose of certainty: we are broke! Residents have no idea how bad the situation is and I’m not entirely sure that I can write about it since some of the issues are “exempt” or in Labour Party terms “contractual”. That’s why I asked to include the issue of the PWLB loan on the agenda of the next full council meeting- councillors of the Labour Party can not hide this scandal anymore.