Agenda item

The Superintendents to be heard.

The Superintendents were heard relative to current issues at each of their sites.

Billingsgate

Car Parking

The Superintendent reported that in excess of £400k of income had been generated by the car park this financial year. He reported that a permit system was currently in place. Members were informed that car park users had previously been permitted to pay for parking via mobile phone but there had been some problems with this. Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology had recently been introduced to the site. This would allow officers to specifically target people with penalty charges.

Finally, the Superintendent confirmed that online renewals were to be introduced in the near future.

Early Trading

The Superintendent reported that this was a matter of concern to market tenants. Trading at the site commences at 4.00am, however, some were trading ahead of this. Members were informed that Tenants had called a meeting to rule that there should be no trading on site before 4.00am and had since issued a notice to all along these lines. They were therefore currently policing this matter amongst themselves.

Waste Dumping

The Superintendent reported that waste dumping, of polystyrene boxes and trays in particular, was an issue at the market. He reported that vehicle registration was being logged to monitor and tackle the problem and that Officers were hoping to hold a meeting with Tower Hamlet’s Environmental Health team in the near future to discuss how best to tackle this going forward.

Smithfield

Condenser Water System and Pumps

The Superintendent reported that this had been identified as one of the top three areas for him to manage and control following his appointment. He went on to report that he was currently working alongside colleagues in the City Surveyor’s to replace the pumps. Members were informed that this was the most pressing issue at the market for both officers and tenants at present.

SMTA Meetings

The Superintendent reported that he had developed a positive working relationship with the SMTA and that some fruitful meetings had recently taken place. He informed the Committee that they were now looking to ‘wind down’ the Joint Specification Committee Meetings as a number of items were ‘ticked off’ of the list of service specifications to agree.

Waste

The Superintendent reported that a review of waste was being undertaken and that officers had recently emailed the SMTA regarding the use of cardboard cages and incentives around this. Officers would now be looking at other recycling opportunities and at littering on the site.

Deputy Mayor of London Visit

The Committee were informed that the Deputy Mayor of London had recently visited Smithfield Market at the invitation of the SMTA – unfortunately, the Superintendent had not been given any notice of this visit. The Superintendent stated that he had since received an apology for this oversight and had now also been invited to attend a number of follow up meetings.

New Spitalfields

Forklift Trucks

The Superintendent reported that, following receipt of the ‘Labyrinth Report’ there was no intention to ban fork lift trucks on site but that a barrier system would be introduced to control the exposure of the public/pedestrians to the trucks. There were some concerns regarding space but these were currently being looked at. The Superintendent went on to report that a compound would be provided to a forklift training provider – the Market were now looking to appoint one provider to ensure consistency across the board.

In response to questions from the Deputy Chairman, the Superintendent confirmed that the review of forklift trucks on site would also include the potential to change all trucks from diesel to electric. With regard to the appointment of a single forklift training provider, the Superintendent reported that he was currently engaged with a company to have a presence on site. The training provider had been selected from a choice of four. He stated that he would be actively seeking feedback from the tenants on the level of training provided. He clarified that, at present, the training provider had not been engaged for any period of time and was not a formal agreement. Nor was there a plan to review the preferred provider. The Superintendent was asked to consider this.

Opening Times

The Superintendent reported that the market’s opening times had last been reviewed in 2002. He added that it was now proposed that HGV’s on the site be controlled after midnight with a grace period of 2 hours for them to offload before the market opened at 2.00am. The idea being to avoid the market becoming a ‘lorry park’. The enforcement aspects of this would need to be looked at with the market constabulary.

Barrier System

The Superintendent reported that he was currently looking at a new enrtry barrier system via Procurement and that a full report would be presented to this Committee in due course. He stated that he envisaged a five barrier system where vehicles were required to pay the full charge on entry. There would be a set rate for cars using the site for 24 hours with HGV’s charged according to a timed system.

Members were informed that Automatic Number Plate Recognition was already operational on site.

Self-Surrender

The Superintendent stated that he was proposing that the monthly threshold for waste per tenant be abolished and that a fee be set for self-surrender. The Committee were informed that, at present, tenants were permitted a monthly level of waste beyond which they are charged. However, some tenants currently had larger allowances than others and this had created an issue. The concern was that some tenants could, potentially, become traders in waste.