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Central Area Panel August 2021 Resident’s Questions
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2 Star Central |
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1. Visitors Parking Issue: Residents at Somerset Point want action taken to ensure they can use the parking spaces in their car park.
Background: · Visitors’ parking spaces are continually occupied by people who have no connection with the block. · If visible permits are in place, residents can report wrongdoers adding to capacity and enforcement. · Enforcement of the regulations is inadequate and ineffective. · Residents are unable to reserve parking spaces as these have been rented out to businesses. · The ability to park close to their home is particularly important for residents of sheltered housing. · Residents have been trying to resolve this issue for many years and are frustrated by the lack of progress.
Action: A report is requested on what action will be taken to ensure that Somerset Point residents can use their car park.
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Response- Ododo Dafe - Head of Housing Income, Supply & Customer Service
The Essex Place visitor bays (shared with Somerset Point and Warwick Mount)
The Essex Place car park visitor bays, as with others at Housing sites across the city, are well-used. These bays can be occupied only by a vehicle displaying a valid visitors permit or that has been authorised with a ‘virtual permit’ to park. A ‘virtual permit’ means that a physical permit is not required to be displayed and authorisation is set digitally, by the Housing Customer Services Team (HCST). As HCST have had no office presence during the pandemic, they were unable to issue physical visitors permits for several months and so in some cases have set a ‘virtual permit’ to still enable residents’ visitors to park.
Any vehicles that are felt to be abusing the visitor permit rules can be reported to HCST at housing.customerservices@brighton-hove.gov.uk or on 01273 293030 and they will investigate. HCST rely on reports from residents, so that they can act in incidences where visitor permit abuse is suspected. Over the past 12 months, the team has carried out the following actions as a result of resident reports:- · 22 ‘Stage 1’ warning letters have been sent to visitor permit holders · 8 ‘Stage 2’ letters have been sent, where issues have continued to occur after the Stage 1 letter · 9 telephone or email conversations where abuse has been discussed with a visitor permit holder at Stage 1 & Stage 2
The Council’s parking enforcement contractor, One Parking Solution, visit the site once every 24 hours as a required minimum but often visit more. They will also come when called to ticket any unauthorised or wrongfully parked vehicles. Residents can report wrongfully parked vehicles to One Parking Solution directly on 0330 043 0240 and all calls are treated anonymously. Their contact details are also contained on their parking signage, in place at the site.
Businesses renting numbered bays at the Essex Place car park
The numbered bays at Essex Place car park are offered to Blue Badge holders and council tenants and leaseholders as a priority. Businesses can also rent spaces at the lowest priority and the highest charge rate. If the car park became full, any business space would be terminated so that it can be offered to a waiting resident with a higher priority.
We had set aside spaces for essential major works, including gas riser replacement works by Southern Gas Networks, that have been carried out at the Somerset Point and Warwick Mount blocks over the past year. However, throughout the works there have been available spaces that residents could apply for. Anyone who would like to apply for a dedicated space at the Essex Place car park can do so now using our online service at www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/garages
If residents have any questions or would like help with parking issues at Essex Place, please contact the Housing Customer Services Team at housing.customerservices@brighton-hove.gov.uk or on 01273 293030.
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3 Star West |
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2. Reaffirming the EDB as a resident led budget Issue: The Estate Development Budget was originally established as a resident led fund, with the process led by representatives from Residents Associations. West residents agreed unanimously that this founding principle is being eroded, with the process now being led by officers, rather than residents. They want the principle of a resident-led budget reaffirmed and acted on.
Background: EDB process of application and funding has changed beyond recognition. Although the EDB process has been discussed at some meetings, the nature and extent of the changes were not clearly put and debated. Some residents on the EDB panel, for example, were not consulted or involved and only realised the extent of the changes when asked to score bids at the West EDB meeting. West residents feel that the present system encourages top-down solutions. For example, residents were told that the old system was unfair and what changes had to be made.
The EDB used to be a simple process that really facilitated involvement. It is now more difficult and less helpful. For example, at Woods House the EDB was a quick way of accessing a small amount of money for their garden, which made a big difference to the volunteer gardeners. Last time Woods House applied for this their bid was rejected.
Action: Ask that the Council recognise and acknowledge the issues residents are raising Reaffirm that the EDB is a resident led process Engage with residents about what this means in practise.
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3. Resident Associations and Resident involvement
Issue: There is a lot of demoralisation and frustration amongst West Resident Association representatives. The following points were raised:
West residents feel that they are not listened to and their opinions are not considered important. Whether or not this is true, it is significant because it is the experience of residents who are engaging in the consultation process. West residents often experience their involvement as a box-ticking exercise and that they are being informed about decisions that have already been made, rather than involved in a joint process.
It is very difficult to get even small things done, for example with CityClean and grounds maintenance. There is often no response or on-going communication about the progress of complaints or issues raised. The difficulty of getting things done, and feeling that your voice is not heard, takes a toll on individuals mental and physical health, and means people give up because they come to believe there is no point. It was recognised that COVID has made the situation more difficult, but there are underlying issues about how the council relates and communicates with its residents which are not about COVID and which need to change.
Action:
West residents asked for this item to go to Area Panels to (a) register their concerns (b) see if other areas are experiencing similar problems and (c) look for a way forward.
Residents would like clarification as to how are these being actioned and communicated. The question is about communication, so that people know that they are getting things done for what they are being asked for
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Response Keely McDonald-Community Engagement Officer
At time of writing, a meeting is being arranged with West residents to listen to the points they’ve made and see what we need to do to improve communication. This is due to take place early in August. We hope that this meeting will have taken place before the August Area Panel meetings so that we can provide a verbal response.
Jonathon Pyle - Assistant Business Support Manager | City Environment, Hollingdean Depot
What happens when complaints are made/issues raised for CityClean, what is the process for when complaints are made? Where are they sent to, how are they dealt with?
Complaints received from customers directly into the CityClean Inbox (cityclean@brighton-hove.gov.uk) or via a call-back request from Switchboard (for those currently using the Accessibility Line.)
When an expression of dissatisfaction with the service provided by City Clean is first received into the Cityclean inbox, a Customer Advisor (CA) will firstly review the email to assess both the nature of the issue and whether this is the first time the customer has contacted us about the issue. If there has been no previous contact from the customer and the complaint relates to a general issue (such as a missed collection or weeding issue*,) the CA will provide details of the complaint to the relevant Team Leader and their manager and request that an investigation is carried out and a response provided in order to respond to the customer. The CA will then respond to the customer to advise of the action they have taken and update the customer on the action they have taken.
*Very often for any street cleaning issues the CA will also raise a ‘Report A Problem’ case which is then sent over to the Streets Team to action.
If, however, the same customer then contacts us again regarding the same issue, the CA will raise the issue as an “Ops Referral Complaint” via our internal Customer Management system (CHAS), that gets automatically sent through to the relevant Team Leader to investigate. The Team Leader will then investigate the complaint and provide feedback, either directly to the resident (if the resident has requested a response via telephone) or email the CA with the outcome of their investigation, for the CA to update the customer (if the customer has stated they would prefer to be contacted via email.)
If a customer has contacted us and within the body of the email, the customer has requested to raise a complaint, or if the nature of the complaint is more serious (such as staff/crew conduct issues) then the CA will immediately raise a complaint on CHAS irrespective of whether the customer has contacted us before.
Following the recent introduction of a new Customer Management system, all Operations Team Leaders and Manager have ‘live’ access to all the complaints that have been raised by the CA’s and a report can be run at any time. A 10 day turnaround has been agreed with Operations in which to provide feedback to the customer and resolve the complaint, however, it has recently been identified that a number of responses from the Team Leaders fall outside this timeframe and following a meeting on 13th July 2021 between the Contact Centre Manager and The Operations Managers, it has been agreed that from next week every Team Leader will book in some designated time each week to respond to any complaints they are responsible for. The Operations Managers have also agreed to review the cases on a regular basis with the Team Leaders to ensure both timely and effective responses are provided.
If the customer remains dissatisfied with the service provide or the outcome of any action taken (or lack of) the CA would offer to raise a Formal Stage 1 Complaint for the customer, under the council’s formal complaints procedure. (Previously customers would be advised of how to do this themselves at this stage, however, the CA’s are now more pro-active and will offer to raise one on the customers behalf.) It is important to note that customers also have the option or raising a Formal Stage 1 Complaint themselves via the website or by contacting the Customer Feedback Team (CFT) directly without going through any of the above steps. When a Stage 1 Formal Complaint is raised the customer is sent an acknowledgment of their complaint by the CFT and the complaint is passed on to the relevant Manager at Cityclean to carry out an investigation and respond directly to the customer. The timeframe for these responses is also 10 working days. If the customer remains dissatisfied following their Formal Stage 1 response, the Customer can then escalate the matter to a Stage 2 formal Complaint. At this stage the complaint is reviewed by a Customer Feedback Manager from the council’s Customer feedback Team, this may lead to a further independent investigation by them, and can lead to recommendations for service improvement or a specific remedy to the complaint if it is upheld. Stage 2 responses are sent by the Customer Feedback Manager usually within 20 working days.
There is ongoing training to provided to all CA’s in respect of how to respond to queries and complaints, with some specific complaints training currently being scheduled for all staff prior to the Environmental Services telephone line re-opening in September. It has been identified , however, that there have been occasions where the above process has not been followed as it should. When this is identified the individuals have been provided with additional training or had their performance managed more formally.
· What are the current communication procedures to let residents know the progress of complaints/issues raised?
If a customer has contacted City Clean via cityclean@brighton-hove.gov.uk or via the Accessibility Line, then they will be advised that the issue has been passed on to the relevant team to investigate and resolve. If a customer has requested a further update then this request will be included in the communication between the CA and the relevant Team Leader.
When a complaint has been raised on CHAS it is then the responsibility of the Team Leader who has been assigned the compliant to either update the customer directly or update the CA in order to provide an update to the customer.
If there is a delay to responding to a Formal Complaint at Stage 1 then the customer should be notified of the reason for the delay and provided with an expected timescale of when they will receive a full response. Following a recent review of this process it was identified this was not always happening and additional measures have been put into place to ensure this does happen going forward.
If you require any further details or would like me to look into any specific queries or complaints from customers that were not resolved satisfactorily, please feel free to pass these details onto me and I will investigate these myself to identify where the process has fallen down and respond with an explanation.
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4. Lack of Maintenance of estates Issue: Inadequate grass cutting and grounds maintenance.
Background: Ingram Court: an incomplete job was done when the grass was cut, with some areas left at least 2 feet high, obstructing pavements and causing a hazard. Residents were told these areas had been left as a strimmer was needed, which wasn’t available. Weeds are climbing up walls in the carpark and covering paving, fences and buildings. · North Portslade: alleyway completely overgrown. · Hangleton and Knoll: overall lack of maintenance to public areas. · Different areas of the city seem to get different treatment, with some having more regular and frequent grass cutting and maintenance than others. · Residents attending the Estates Task and Finish group have been disappointed with this and hoped for more progress.
Action: West residents want to see an improvement in
the maintenance of estates generally. They asked for responses to the following issues: · Why has the grass cutting and grounds maintenance service been so poor? · What plans are there to improve this service and give value for money? · How is it decided what area is getting what? · Why are workers not provided with the correct equipment to complete a job?
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Response Robert Walker, Head of Operations-City Parks
We have brought bank cutting specialists contractors with specialist machinery at Fitch Drive which has a similar problem with bank maintenance. I am unable to confirm further detail however, I can confirm that to date none of them have been able to help tackle the problem. In this case it is a steep bank down to the back of a high-rise block. At time of writing in spite of the cutting back of the overgrown bushes two weeks ago, this is still reported to be a continuing problem. A further update will be provided verbally at the next meeting.
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5. AGM requirements Issue: Residents have been told they must have a generic mobile phone and email address to meet the council’s recognition criteria for Residents Associations. It was agreed it is important residents have an easy way of contacting their Association, but it should be up to the Association to decide what works best for them. One solution should not be imposed by the council. Action: Request for more discussion on (a) how best to facilitate communication between residents and their Association and (b) a more flexible approach to how this is done.
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Response
Community Engagement Team
Thank you for your question. We sent out some AGM guidance to offer support for residents associations with AGMs going forward. In the letter, we stated that new requirements are for residents to have an association phone number and email address. Apologies for the lack of clarity in our initial letter, we acknowledge that these requirements should be flexible for each association and that the community engagement team can support associations in acquiring the phones, phone numbers and email addresses on how they can be used. There is not the expectation for residents to be “on call” or the phone number to be accessible at all times. One example of use could be, that the could be “office hours”, the groups could advertise around their area that the phone numbers are available on a certain few hours a week for people to contact them. The community engagement team can support associations and groups in advertising these times.
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3 Star North |
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6. Overgrown brambles at the bottom of Davey Drive See Minutes of North Area Residents Only Meetings: Items 2 and 6 from 19th January 2021 and Item 2 from 23rd March 2021.
Issue: The overgrown brambles on the bank between the bottom of Davey Drive and Horton Road are a hazard for local residents.
Hollingdean Residents Association has tried many different avenues to get this resolved over the last few years but none have resulted in effective action. Background: When requests to get the bank cleared regularly were not successful the Residents Association submitted an EDB bid for the work to be done, which was approved in April 2019. The work still wasn’t done, and despite ongoing reports and written responses to Area Panel, the matter still hasn’t been resolved.
In a written response to Area Panel 7th January 2021 Justine Harris stated: “Housing Services will invite representatives from the Residents Association to attend the inspection in the new year. The piece of land belongs to Housing. CityParks are not asked to cut it as they have no safe way of doing this. This bank cannot be cut with a tractor mounted flail I’m (sic) because of the uneven sloped verge at the bottom, obstacles in the verge such as trees/lamp posts etc and the fact that it is single carriageway, however CityParks are going to be purchasing a new machine that may be able to reach further so it will be trying it out. In the meantime CityParks have confirmed that they will endeavour to keep the overgrowth cut back off the path and steps. The only obligation is to stop any overhang onto the highway which includes the footpath.”
However, this didn’t result in the bank being cleared and more local people have since been injured, including a young boy on a skateboard whose face was severely cut by the brambles. The issue was re-submitted to Area Panel on 26th May 2021 but no written response was forthcoming. Direct discussions between Hollingdean Residents Association and CityParks have also not resolved this problem, and explanations about a lack of appropriate machinery and a lack of staff have been repeated. Residents’ representatives have attended the Estates Task and Finish Group to raise this, as it is recognised that a similar problem exists in other areas of the city. This hasn’t yet led to a satisfactory solution, but the discussion is ongoing. The meeting agreed to respond to this lack of effective action by: Asking Housing to investigate the use of contractors with suitable equipment to clear the bank. Asking the Health and Safety Officer to inspect the area to assess the risk to local residents and action required to mitigate that risk. Contacting the Argus to ask them to run a report to highlight the problem.
Action: Residents have proposed that the use of external contractors with appropriate machinery be considered to clear overgrown banks. Information is requested on whether this option has been considered and details of the outcome of any attempts to use contractors.
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Response In all areas the use of glyphosate has been stopped, this means that hard surfaces are no longer treated with weed killer. To date no satisfactory substitute has been found, any control on hard surfaces has to be done manually. This is far less effective than chemical control in most situations. We can supply details for any Housing sites where tasks such as grass cutting have been done. This information will be different for different sites.
The situation with verges is quite different to maintenance on Housing land. The Environment Transport and Sustainability Committee will consider whether they change mowing frequencies on verges. The Lewes Rd central reservation is intentionally left long for the wildflowers and will not be cut until September or October. If an area is affecting the vision of drivers it will be cut back.
In relation to verges, as we are behind on cutting, we will not be strimming around lamp posts and spraying around these is no longer an option. There are inconsistencies across the City, these are not intentional and are caused by other operational factors, such as staffing. City Parks currently have contractors and agency staff assisting the gardeners in the north area, due to them having the highest number of staff shortages. We expect staffing levels to improve, once less people need to quarantine due to notifications on the NHS track and trace app. City Parks will then use the current hot spell to get on top of outstanding work.
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7. Grass cutting Issue: There are ongoing problems with the frequency and quality of grass cutting throughout the area.
Background: · The grass cutting teams cut some of the grass areas on estates but leave others uncut. · They don’t strim around trees and lampposts, leaving the long grass and weeds to grow. · Grass and weeds are left to grow in the cracks in pavements causing a trip hazard for pedestrians. · The central reservation along Lewes Road and other main roads are not mown, leaving the weeds to grow very tall and obstruct the vision of drivers.
Action: A report is requested from City Parks on: the planned schedule for grass cutting throughout the north area; and how many tasks on the schedule are being missed or done late.
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8. Estate Development Budget – Communication Issue: There are ongoing problems with communication after bids have been submitted by Residents Associations. This needs to be improved so that: · the specification of work can be clarified before it commences · the work can be checked afterwards · local residents affected by work can be kept informed
Action: Residents are requesting that the procedures for EDB bids be reviewed to ensure Residents Associations are: · informed of the outcome of all bids; · contacted before work is carried out to check the location and specification; and · informed when the work is completed so they can check it has been carried out correctly.
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Community Engagement Team
We apologise for any instance where residents did not receive the level of communication they were expecting around EDB bids. The Community Engagement and the EDB Team are working together to improve this and ensure groups which have submitted bids have access to updates on their bid progress in good time. The Estate Development Budget Task and Finish Group will be looking at the process of communications around EDB and will be making recommendations around how residents can be better informed at all stages. I will ensure that the points raised here about contacting bid applicants in advance of, and on completion of works are included in that discussion. The recommendations made by the EDB Task and Finish Group will be presented at future Area Panel meetings at the end of this year.
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