Agenda and minutes

To approve as an accurate record, and the Chair to sign, the minutes of the meeting held on 19 December 2019.

RESOLVED

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 December 2019 were approved and signed by the Chair.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Belinda Donovan.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter.  The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Audit, Pensions and Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Committee is asked to note all matters in this report.

Officers presented the report and discussed the following key areas.

Alternative Ecological Mitigation (AEM) proposals

Tenders for Design Consultants had been received and evaluated. An appointment would be made in due course.

Forest School

Several volunteer projects had either taken place or are were planned to support Forest School activities in the woodland areas adjacent to Braybrook Street.

OPDC Local Plan

A planning inspector would examine the OPDC Local Plan with Wormwood Scrubs on the agenda for 8th April. The Trust submitted comments on the plan during the consultation phase. Since then the OPDC responded to these comments including making some changes and clarifications. Although the Trust had been invited to make a further submission there were no new comments to be made. The Friends also made comments on the plan in July 2018 and had made a further submission to the inspector.

Lease with London Power Networks

A new lease with London Power Networks (LPN) was to be signed imminently. This provided access off Scrubs Lane to a service tunnel just south of the Substation near Mitre Bridge. LPN carried out some clearance works on this site last year - damaging habitat had been identified as valuable for invertebrates by local wildlife enthusiasts. An ecological management plan has been added to the lease conditions to restore and improve the biodiversity value of this area.

Development of the former Cyclotron Building

Comments from the Trust on the development of the former cyclotron building, relating to Hammersmith Hospital had been forwarded to the planning department.

Kensington Dragons Football Club

Discussions with Kensington Dragons Football Club (KDFC) had been held. Further to the presentation of the KDFC proposals to the Committee in December, KDFC had met with Leisure Officers on 24/01/19 and Regeneration Officers on 04/03/19. There were several issues concerning the proposal which still needed to be addressed.

The Committee gave strong support to the proposal and suggested that the Council should continue to work closely and positively with KDFC to overcome the issues and deliver the proposals. The Council should take a lead role in the partnership, making it clear that the proposals were only interim until the long-term future for Linford Christie Stadium was agreed.

It was agreed that these proposals should not divide the site to make the other pitches unusable for other games or compromise access to the yard currently used by Idverde.

Parks manager and general site update

The site team continued to work on the litter issue and officers were looking to implement re-sitting of some of the existing bins and retrofitting lids onto all. This included the removal of several bags of litter by volunteers, encouraging local schools to use the site for Forest School activities. Officers had been working with Idverde management to look at how the staffing resource at Wormwood Scrubs could be increased and as a result the site now had a dedicated supervisor.

The issue of Professional dog walkers was raised with concerns that dog walkers were arriving with up  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A draft online questionnaire for the Linford Christie consultation, including a communication plan was presented to the Committee for comments.

Members reviewed the proposed consultation and provided their feedback to officers. The Committee requested that the context of the consultation questions reflected the wording used in the Council’s Cabinet report. Furthermore, some amendments needed to be made to the structure of questionnaire.

Matt Rumble (Head of Area Regeneration) noted that he would work with the Council’s communications department to update the questionnaire. Approval would be sought of the updated draft from Councillor Wesley Harcourt prior to the consultation going live. It was agreed that Matt Rumble would share the final version of the questionnaire with the co-opted members of the committee prior to consultation going live.

RESOLVED

That the Committee noted the draft online questionnaire and requested that Councillor Wesley Harcourt approve the final version prior to the consultation going live.