OLD COLWYN EAST RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
ARCHIVE
Minute of a talk on Wednesday 13th October 2004 by Mr Nick Jones,
Environmental Health Officer, Conwy County Borough Council.
Mr. Jones opened his Talk by saying that it was his intention to outline what his environmental health section did within the umbrella of the Public Protection Department of the Council. More basically he said it was to give an idea about what the Department does and what our members should bring to them if they had problems.
He noted that there had been an agenda item in our meeting about fly-tipping. He said that there had been some confusion over the issue of fly-tipping and litter during reorganisation of the council. The Environment Agency had taken the responsibility for this issue from the local authority during reorganisation: the council had had to state what resources it had for dealing with such matters.
Fly Tipping comes under the Environment Protection Act, it's a criminal offence to knowingly cause or Permit the offence and it carries a fine of £20,000 or four months in prison or at a higher court unlimited fine and two years in prison. Mr. Jones said that it is only fairly recently that they had arrived at an understanding with the Environment Agency. The policy is now that if it is a small amount of waste the local authority will deal with it. The Environmental Agency deals with larger amounts of tipping and tipping "hotspots". The two agencies now work together.
Evidence is the most important issue. They can only take action where there is evidence in the waste of who has tipped it. If the waste is a mattress for instance there is little chance of prosecuting. The agencies must prove that the person knowingly deposited the rubbish. There can be documentation in the waste which proves the origin but in the case of a domestic rubbish bin where someone says they had put it out and later it had gone, it would be difficult without other evidence to prove "knowingly".
Mr. Jones said that the authority will look into all incidents, prosecution or not. If the waste is on public ground it is the environmental services agency's department to investigate. There are various remedies available, the owner can be forced to clear the land or the authorities can clear the land and recharge.
If the land is without an owner the environmental service will not remove it, as there is no fund for that removal. If a public health issue is associated with the removal Mr Jones' Dept will arrange for its removal but there is no budgetary provision for this service.
Mr. Jones stated that the council and the environmental services have a better understanding now.
Mr Jones then continued to describe the environmental protection department and its functions. It is split into two parts~
1. Reactive ~ dealing with service requests. There are two environmental health officers (EHOs) and two Technicians dealing with statutory nuisance such as noise. There are 2,000 requests for service in a year.
25 percent are regarding accumulations, mainly in private gardens.
25 percent are noise issues including commercial, domestic and dogs etc.
20 percent are regarding drainage.
The remainder is a mixture including requests for dangerous premises to be boarded up; home burials and other issues.
2. Proactive ~ dealing with environmental monitoring . There are 145 caravan sites which require licensing. The authority has a duty to inspect contaminated land and he described the lengthy processes required to form a strategy to reduce the contamination; find out who is responsible and managing the lengthy process of cleaning the land. He referred to the process as legalistic and the long winded but necessary. He said that at present there is only one declared piece of contaminated land in the county, which is on the public register . There are a further 55 sites that have been identified as being potentially contaminated due to their previous use. This is being added to all the time. These will all require a certain amount of investigation.
Also the authority has a duty to review air quality ; the last review was in June 2004 . T he air is monitored for pollutants such as nitrogen oxide from traffic for which there are 14 monitoring sites throughout the County and also dust from premises such as quarries . The government set levels for pollutants. Mr. Jones described the controls on particles which are breathable. Sulphur dioxide is another pollutant which has to be checked for. He stated that Conwy is within all of the set limits. He described concerns about dust on certain parts of the A55 which they will have to monitor.
The authority also has a responsibility to permit Polluting Works such as quarries and fuel outlets. This involves 40 processes twice yearly. We have one Part A pollutant this is at Dolgarrog aluminium works. Part A refers to the fact that it has the potential to be a larger pollutant.
The authority has to monitor private water supplies of which there are 450. They take samples of mains water and check for lead in water as a free service.
They also have to check bathing and spas in public and private. The council has had to close two premises this because of water quality.
In summer they have to monitor ten and beaches between Llanfairfechan and Towyn ~ Old Colwyn had a mandatory pass recently.
Dog wardens also are under the control of the public protection department. They deal with two statutory responsibilities Stray dogs (which responsibility they share with the police) and dog fouling.
A resident said that we had heard that dog wardens of under resourced and that there were no signs which indicated that dog wardens were on patrol.
Mr. Jones Indicated that his department spends a lot on signs, nearly £4000 but he said there are none which state that dog wardens are on patrol. He also said that there are 30 stray dogs per month collected. The dog wardens try to educate dog owners to be responsible. They give twenty talks per year to various groups, including schools.
Pest control is another responsibility of the council and he gave a list which included rats, mice and cockroaches which is done free. Another group including fleas and flies are charged for. He said that they had been very busy with wasps this year, with a 170 cases in one week. They also have an ongoing campaign to stop people from feeding seagulls and pigeons.
The subject of seagulls attracted some interest and in reply to questions from the floor Mr. Jones said that a bid is being prepared to try and deal with the seagull problem, especially in Llandudno. They used to do work with nesting seagulls such as nest removal or proofing, egg oiling or pricking.
There is only one trained operative at present and he cannot go on a roof by himself for safety reasons. This particular issue is very costly and much research has been done into humane methods of dealing with seagull problems. Scarborough was the only authority poisoning the birds but that has stopped now no one can get a license to poison. The problem has been set back fifteen years he said.
All birds are protected he went on to say, but there's a general license to the owners of property to kill or otherwise deal with a seagull problem, as long as it is done humanely. To the owner is given a general authority to employee someone to deal with the problem on his or her behalf.
The department also deals with health promotion projects such as their breast feeding policy mothers can go into premises to feed the babies naturally there is a list of premises and Conwy have been commended for their policy.
Another project is the stress and smoking policy of the Council workplace.
There is a Smoke Free Register which lists premises where a strict no smoking policy is enforced (gold). Some premises have segregated areas for smokers and non smokers (Bronze). This is all voluntary to do with the owners of the premises concerned. It is very helpful to an increasing number of the public who want information of this kind to manage their lives.
Child Safety is an area where there are various schemes, nutrition projects, safety gates which is a government scheme.
Mr Jones then spoke of the subject of noise which is a subject that can affect peoples' comfort and quality of life a great deal. The Department gives advice on the process which is involved and sometimes it can be quite simple. For instance with a noisy neighbour, the Department would send a letter to both parties. To the complainant they send record sheets and an instruction of how to demonstrate how the noise is disturbing, for instance if the complainant cannot sleep at night. A letter is sent to the alleged offender with no release of information about the complainant. On occasions this letter can make the difference and end the problem.
Mr Jones went on to say that if the complainant felt particularly threatened, the Authority can go to court instead of the complainant although the normal course of events is that the complainant would give evidence. The Department waits for the log to be completed and when the complaint has been assessed over a period, they can make spot checks to gain evidence. They have two pieces of very sensitive equipment which can be left in the field to record the noise levels. Usually evidence will be assessed over a week to ten days, at the end of which time if the evidence is conclusive, the Authority will serve a statutory notice on the offender to be quiet, with immediate effect in all probability. Certain establishments have a right to appeal within 21 days and can carry on until after that period. If the disturbance is proved beyond all reasonable doubt the Authority will go to court. Mr Jones said that they have won every case that they have taken.
Mr Jones the related a recent court case, CCBC v Godfrey which was appealed to the High Court and involved countryside noise where the background levels were very low. The case had the effect of stating a case that Authority Representatives can now in similar situations go in and listen and say there is a problem, rather than having to resort to the lengthy process of gaining evidence by noise meters in the first instance.
A Resident asked what happens if a load of rubble is tipped on someone's property. Mr Jones replied that it is fly-tipping and the owner has to pay to have it removed. The cost is £15 for a small load ranging through £30 to £60 for a large load. The resident had had such a case where he had started to move the load himself but had then found two invoices proving the source of the rubble. The police had responded and with the evidence had interviewed the alleged source. He said that he had paid two men to move
it. The resident went on to say that the Council was looking into it six months ago and he had still heard nothing so he had moved the rubbish himself. His only issue was the lack of response he said, it is unfair that in the case of illegal dumping, the complainant has to pay.
Mr Jones was asked about radioactivity checks and replied that they do quarterly checks at 10 sites since the Chernobyl incident. There are steady levels.
In reply to a question about water quality he touched on the awful brown scum that is found on the sea at certain times. It is widely thought to be water polluted by sewerage but he assured the meeting that this was not the case. Natural algae bloom in a warm spell and multiply but when the temperature cools it dies forming a sludgy mess. It is a natural phenomenon.
There was a question about smoke free environment ~ it related to the Bay View Centre which is often chokingly full of smoke, not least of all in the area near the entrance at the café.
Mr Jones replied that they had noted it in the Department and it appears to be quite a problem. At present it is a voluntary system ~ they cannot enforce as there is no offence. It was commented that it is a problem to people passing through the Centre.
A Resident asked about air quality monitoring sites at hotspots and in particular asked if the roundabout near the Marine was monitored because of traffic that was present at the time of children walking to the various schools in the area. This is made particularly worse in the cases where the promenade is closed. The government is trying to encourage walk to school initiatives but this particular site is highly populated by vehicles at the same time as the young people are walking to school.
Mr Jones replied that it is not one of the hotspots; there is one at Theatre Colwyn which is a worst case scenario known as an "urban valley" which tends to hold the pollution. He detailed various sites and said that Highways Department is asked for traffic flow reports and Environmental Protection targets the sites that Highways highlight.
The Resident queried how we could apply for the roundabout to be monitored given the walk to school messages of the government. Mr Jones replied that we would have to seek attention in writing. If it was thought to be badly affected tests may be conducted. If a problem was found it would be made into an air quality management area and be subject to traffic management.
The Chair then thanked Mr Jones for his very interesting and informative talk and there was a round of applause.