To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public and replies thereto.
Minutes:
The following questions were received from members of the public:
Mike Stoneman – stated that he was Chairman of the Riverside Club in Tiverton which is adjacent to the development that is happening down by the river. He continued…I have a number of questions here all relevant to the 3RDL Company.
If the contractors, presumably Three Rivers, have accepted the responsibility for managing the Environment Control Plan, why aren’t they fulfilling their obligations to actually follow that plan? Secondly why aren’t the Council policing and enforcing this? I have a question about Right of Way, the residents for this new development have access through a driveway from St Andrews Street, will they also have access or ROW through the archway next to the Town Hall? I would like this clarified because at the moment it does tend to be a rat run for the contractors themselves and as far as I understand it the contractors have been told they cannot use the archway as an entrance to the site. Finally, we have a security issue at the club, there is a new retaining wall built adjacent to the existing retaining wall at the rear of the development which is about 2 feet away from our wall and it effectively compromises the security of our building, so much so that at 1.30am the previous Monday we had to call the Police because we had people that were on the site presumably looking for something to steal.
Ana Hendy – I am on Tiverton Town Council and I chaired the recent meeting for local residents regarding the St George’s Court development. Following that meeting, Tiverton Town Council has been made aware of several complaints and concerns which they have submitted to the company. A document has been issued with 15 different questions which I won’t go through one by one. Residents say they have previously raised most of these issues before but have not received a satisfactory response. I would like to ask when we might expect a reply to the issues raised and would MDDC Cabinet be able to submit a request to Three Rivers, as a company wholly owned by Council, that these items be addressed quickly and fully? Thank you.
Debbie Winter – I am a Steward at the Riverside Club and also live in the building which faces Three Rivers. Obviously I am one of the residents so some of these questions are from all of the other residents and people from the club. First question is, why is there no security on site at night? As you have been informed we have had break ins or attempted break ins and obviously the site is very dangerous especially when the young ones are walking across the scaffolding from building to building. My worry is for the young children that are up there. There should be someone there to at least watch the site. Second question, how many visits have been to the site from MDDC Health and Safety? Have they been recorded? Have residents complaints been recorded? Thirdly, the entrance from St Andrews Street is a dusty mess, it is a health and safety hazard for residents and workers. Why was there no road constructed from St Andrews Street before works commenced? Why are builders coming in and out through the archway, one comes in driving like a lunatic, in a minute somebody is going to be killed. My husband and I on two occasions have either been coming in or going out and he has only just missed our car. I did speak to Mr Sanderson this morning who did come and have a look with somebody else, he said he wasn’t aware of this but I did mention it to the site manager.
I did also put some questions in but have not had any replies. The scaffolding is adjacent to our patio area, the amount of debris that we have had to clean up from the building site is incredible, there should have been some sort of netting put up? We had an incident with a scaffold pole coming down from the top. My boss was putting up a gazebo for a function we were having in the evening, it bounced off two stones, which I do have pictures of, and damaged the cottage front door so I have had a new door put in. That could have been avoided if the netting had been put up, luckily nobody was hurt but again the health and safety doesn’t seem to be very strong on the site.
The builders are throwing blocks from the top of the scaffolding down to the ground. We do have elderly people that come through with mobility scooters. We have the builders blocking our disabled access gate with scaffold poles, wood, bricks, sand and cement. If you ask them to move it the abuse you get from some of them is unbelievable. The only one who is any good is the man who drives the forklift, he will come and move it for you but disabled clients have struggled to get in and out of the disabled access. I understand it is a building site and I understand that you do need to put things in places but there are other places you could put it without blocking a disabled access?
The Leader thanked the speakers for their comments and stated that he did have two emails from Cllr Elstone which had a number of questions which he did not propose to deal with now, they would be dealt with after this meeting.
The Leader further stated that the questions posed all related to the operational function of Three Rivers, not directly the responsibility of this Cabinet at this meeting. The item on the agenda this morning was regarding the annual report. Notwithstanding he did appreciate the public’s attendance and all of the questions. There were others which had been received would be forwarded on the Three Rivers Company for them to address pdq.