In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, a member of the public resident within the Borough may ask a maximum of two questions relating to the business of the Council providing notice has been received by 10.00am two working days before the relevant meeting.

Four Public Questions had been received and these were put to and responded to by the Leader of the Council, Cllr Hossack, as follows:

Mrs Pat Smith submitted one question as follows:

1.         How does the Council's constitution prevent a slide into political extremism (for     example extreme right or left wing attitudes and behaviour) by the

administration? What are the checks and balances? Are they being applied?

Cllr Hossack responded as follows:

The Constitution in part 5 clearly sets out the Model Code of Conduct including the Nolan Principles that all Councillors must abide by when undertaking official duties for the Council.  The Monitoring Officer on receipt of a complaint, will speak to the Independent Person to make an initial decision if the complaint should be investigated or not.  The checks and balances are in place and are adhered to through the proper processes.

Mrs Susan Kortlardt submitted two questions as follows:

1.         Essex County Council has placed addressing the climate challenge at the heart of its strategic priorities. As there are four Essex County councillors covering Brentwood Borough, presumably they support the key steps published in the Essex Climate Action Commission's report 'Net Zero by 2050', with Step 1 including all new builds to have solar panels from 2021, with 25% of all roofs having solar panels by 2030.

Could Brentwood lead the way by achieving this target sooner by fitting all its estate with solar panels in the next eighteen months?

Cllr Hossack responded as follows:

The Council will endeavour to support Essex County Council in delivering its climate challenge priority.

In turn the Council has recently approved its own Environment Strategy for consultation. The Council seeks to implement a Strategy that confirms the direction of the organisation aligning and affirming with the actions already taken, identifying key targets and objectives to ensure the Council is on track to meet its long-term aspirations of carbon neutrality by 2040. This strategy ensures individual projects that are delivered will result in the overall outcomes and objectives being met.

In addition to the Environmental Strategy, The Council recently adopted the Asset Management Strategy 2022-2025. This strategy has seven key priorities with one being reducing the environmental impact of our estate, regarding the energy it consumes, emissions it generates, and the materials used in construction.

These strategies require action plans to support the delivery of the Council’s commitments. Action plans must align with the financial resources available. Achieving net zero comes at a cost and the delivery of the environmental strategy must balance with the Council’s, resources, finances and budget setting process. The Council will seek all funding possibilities to maximise the ability to deliver as many outcomes as possible as outline within it’s own environmental strategy.

Cllr Aspinell has asked if the question was specially to the Leader.  If not, he asked if he could reply.  Mrs Kordtlandt confirm the question was not just to the Leader of the Council.

Cllr Aspinell replied to Mrs Kordlandt question:-

I welcome the question, as the Liberal Democrats  side of the Chamber have been going on about for 12/15 years.  We should have taken the advantage when government afforded this all those years ago for decent tariffs returns if we had placed solar panels on our estate, this isn't just the council housing, it's the Brentwood Centre it's the depot, it's all over.  So yes, I would absolutely love to have started that when we first introduced climate change initiatives, all those years ago.  You've heard the answer from the from the Leader.  I believe in action rather than word and you see no action we have been asking for this simply since the first local development plan was laid down.

There's no renewable energies within that plan, that I know of that has been placed in it and we're looking at strategies now to have an idea of what we'd like to do about it and as you've heard from the Leader there's a cost so in other words that won't see the light of day.  We've been waiting for a parking strategy for about 20 years that still hasn't seen the light of day.  So, I'm sorry, I don't see anything immediately happening, but I’d love to be able to deliver an 18 months, you'd have our complete support.

Cllr Barrett also responded to Mrs Kordlandt question:-

I think it's interesting what's been stated by both the other groups and I think on a practical basis actually solar panels and more importantly I think actually energy and energy saving measures and insulation in homes it can be aggressively important and actually a spend to save measure and count for asthma talks about costs and the Cllr Hossack quite rightly says we have a housing budget that we have to hit but I’m believing that the current circumstances the current energy crisis for our residents there is now a new potential impetus given where energy prices are given the problems of dependence on gas of actually using this as a spend to save opportunity like it'll be something good to consider in the new civic year ahead of us and I’m sure that actually across groups. we can actually come together to produce something rather than fighting this chain but do something sensible

2.      I note, from the recent report of Essex Climate Action Commission, that 49% of carbon generated in Essex is transport-related, of which 90% is from vehicle use, that the number of battery electric vehicles in the UK has tripled in the last two years and continues to grow strongly.

I understand that Brentwood Council decided 3 to 4 years ago to install 40 public electric vehicle charging points (PEVC’s) across Borough-owned car parks, but that this total has now been reduced to 20. Also, according to this report, there are still only 7 PEVC’s in the Brentwood area, the second lowest in Essex. Only Castle Point has fewer, with 3.

In light of this extremely weak performance, I should like to ask what is preventing the Council from delivering on its commitment? I am sure that the 3 Brentwood Council members who also sit on Essex County Council, Barry Aspinell, Lesley Wagland (Cabinet Member for Highways) and Andy Wiles will want to ensure that ECC’s support for more sustainable travel options is given proper priority.

Cllr Hossack responded as follows:

Brentwood Borough Council are committed to introducing Electric Vehicle Charging points across the borough however we are limited by the space we as a Council own which is accessible by vehicles.  We have undertaken a feasibility study which sets out our path for delivering EV Charging points over the next 8 years to 2030.  These will be provided within car parks we control.

We are presently determining the provider of the next phase of EV Chargers to be delivered in Brentwood Council Car Parks.  This will deliver at least 20 EV Chargers in our car parks and although the Council hope it will deliver much more, this is dependent on available power. 

However, the third phase seeks to increase the overall number of EV Chargers towards 100 and then towards 200 in 2030.  In order to achieve these numbers further work will be required to confirm the available power supply is adequate.

The Council are also working with Essex County Council and will be willing to be part of a pilot where appropriate to install on street parking.

We envisage the roll out of EV Charges to commence in late Spring early Summer 2022.

Cllr Aspinell responded to Mrs Kordlandt question:-

I’m declaring interest as named as a Essex County Councillor, but I hear tonight speak as a member of the Brentwood Borough Council now several years ago when I was Leader of this Council I met with some energy companies that were setting up to discuss how to put electric charging points into what the Leader described as areas that residents do not have driveways, so we were looking at like is it Albert Street, North Road Avenue and those areas that are of just residential roads with no driveways and we were looking at how they've rolled that out in other boroughs quite successfully.

 So officers of this Council were aware of that some 6/7 years ago when we were having these discussions and I am totally a loss why this wasn't encouraged.  I know the reason why, because it was a Lib Dem idea. We shouldn't be doing it, so all talk and all discussions with that was stopped immediately. We're now seven years down the road and we still haven't got them four or five years ago,

I put a motion to full council to have an area around that we border on the M25 as a station just to deal with electric charging vehicles, that wasn't progressed,  but Braintree had done it and the marvellous now I’m sure that you heard in the Leaders response that strategy is being drawn up yet another one, just delaying in my opinion.  We should have gone down this road a long time ago.

I think that electrical vehicles probably be out of fashion and be replaced by something else such as carbon hydrogen driven before we get around to getting to our faulty target by 2030. So that's my response

Mrs Jan Gearon-Simm submitted one question as follows:

1.     Do you agree that any Brentwood Council tax payers has the democratic right to choose not to be on the internet and not to own a mobile phone?

What is Brentwood Borough Council’s response to these particular residents?

Cllr Hossack responded as follows:

Any individual has the right not to access technology as they wish.  Residents who wish to access the Council can do so by visiting the reception area in the Town Hall, or by either using the Royal Mail or posting documents into the post box at the Town Hall.

The Council recognises that there is not just one way to interact or connect with the residents and continues to improve its commitment to accessibility.