Listening to and Speaking up for Residents

This report concentrates on the work of a couple of the committees I am on: Port Health and Environmental Services Committee and the Standards Committee. I hope you find it interesting.

The Port Health and Environmental Services Committee is responsible for overseeing a wide range of areas including environmental health, trading standards, Animal Health, including the Heathrow Animal Reception Centre, some licensing, public conveniences, street cleansing, refuse collection and City of London Cemetery and Crematorium. In addition we are also responsible for port health functions on the tidal Thames, including the ports of: Tilbury, Thamesport, Sheerness, London City Airport and London Gateway.

Last week The Clean City Awards were awarded. City of London firms cutting back on single-use plastics dominated. Over a million sets of single-use plastic cutlery, and tens of thousands of plastics cups, water bottles and plastic toothbrushes were eliminated together with hundreds of thousands of plastic coffee cups. The scheme rewards firms leading the way in environmental waste management practice.107 City businesses entered.

The winners were:

Bank of England who have embedded a “reuse culture” within their workplace. Their “think before you drink” campaign has resulted in 80% fewer single use plastic items being used.

Bow Lane Dental Group for cutting 6,000 plastics cups, 1,000 plastic water bottles and over 7,500 plastic toothbrushes from their operations in the last year.

Linklaters for their “Ditch the Dispo” campaign which saved one million sets of plastic cutlery in just over two years.

Brookfield Properties (UKPM), 99 Bishopsgate for excellent communications around their recycling campaigns. They introduced four new recycling schemes and recycled over three tonnes of coffee grounds last year bringing their recycling rate up to 76%.

Standard Chartered Bank who swapped 75,000 single use plastic containers with reusable ones and cut their annual coffee cups usage by half a million.

Savills, The Leadenhall Building for doubling the amount of food waste collected for composting.

Buzzacott for eliminating single use plastic cups and cutlery and removing wooden stirrers from staff catering areas. The firm also cut deliveries to only one per week.

The Host Café and St Mary Aldermary Guild Church for managing waste responsibly and ensuring that all rubbish and recycling is correctly separated.

These firms are fully committed to reducing plastic, improving recycling and keeping the streets clean.

Together (The City Corporation via the Port Health and Environment Services Committee and City business) we are taking steps to make the Square Mile free of single-use plastics and harnessing the clear desire of City workers, residents and visitors to eliminate their use.

The City Corporation has pledged to eradicate unnecessary single-use plastic at the Guildhall and the Mansion House by Spring 2020, and the entire organisation by 2021.

149 City pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants have also become part of a network of water bottle refill stations, where the public can refill reusable water bottles – all found on the Refill app.

HAVE YOU USED THE NEW WATER REFILL TAP OUTSIDE THE BARBICAN CENTRE
(near the bike racks) NO NEED TO BUY PLASTIC BOTTLES!

Thank you to Keith Bottomley (Deputy Chairman of the Port Health and Environment Services Committee) for much of this information. I am proud to be a member of this committee and support these initiatives.

Emissions Reduction Bill

The City Corporation (again via its Port Health and Environment Services Committee) has championed the Emissions Reduction Bill. The Bill was re-introduced in the House of Lords last week. It will give powers to deal with airborne emissions from plant and for emissions limits to be set for non transport related pollution i.e. combined heat and power and standby diesel generators.

The real solutions to the serious public health crisis of poor air quality lie in strong partnership and collaboration with London Councils, with the GLA, with central Government and with businesses. Non-transport sources of pollution account for about 50% of the air quality problem in central London so Officers from the City Corporation and London Councils completed a programme of engagement on this new Emissions Reduction Bill which was first introduced to Parliament last October but fell, with all other Bills, when Parliament was dissolved.

If passed this will further allow control of airborne emissions from specified plant and make provision for the Secretary of State to set emission limits for plant and to provide for fixed penalty notices in specified circumstances. The need for this new legislation has been championed and led by the City Corporation and is a good example of the leadership that we take. I supported this proposal and look forward to its successful implementation.

With cooperation, initiatives and leadership we can make a difference.

Standards Committee

The Committee oversees the conduct of Members in all areas of the City of London's activities. Its main responsibility is to promote high standards of conduct by its Members and Members co-opted on to City of London Committees. It monitors the operation of the City of London's Code of Conduct for Members and any complaints of breaches to it. I was elected to this committee in March last year by fellow Members. My objective in standing arose from my concern and dissatisfaction with the way the committee was operating and I wanted to see change. As a Barbican resident and member of the Barbican Resident Committee (BRC) I appreciate there is a possibility of a conflict of interest. I (together with other Members) had to submit a 9 page application for dispensation allowing us to speak or vote every time there was an item on the BRC agenda about the Barbican. Often we were given permission to speak but rarely permission to vote. These restrictions never limited my ability to represent residents of Golden Lane. There was also anger and frustration amongst residents who felt that their elected Members were not able to represent them fully. Residents submitted a petition at their Ward Motes expressing these views. I signed the petition. Since last March the Committee has discussed and modified its policy. The situation, whilst not ideal, is far more liberal. All specific applications to speak have been granted. Following a legal opinion from a QC we voted at our last meeting to accept his opinion. It would not be lawful for us to grant general dispensations to speak or vote. He has provided us with some tests which we will apply rather than state that such dispensations would only be granted in exceptional circumstances. We are still bound by the 1985 Housing Act Section 618 which prohibits members from voting on housing matters and there is no facility for dispensation in such cases. The Committee has agreed to seek repeal of section 618 which strangely only applies to the City of London. I am not prepared to break the law and I hope that residents will accept that we have gone as far as we can in liberalising the policy. I am pleased that I was elected to the Committee and have been able to be part of these changes and put forward my views and those of our residents.

Mary Durcan
Common Councillor
Cripplegate Ward
City of London Corporation
(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
August 2019