LAT Minutes 12th June 2018 – draft

LAT Minutes from 12th June 2018

1. Welcome and introductions

Apologies:

– Rowan from last time,  Katie Blood, St Bartholomew’s school,  Andy Winter (clash of dates), Janice Beckett (fire station), Tom Walby,  Pete West – looking after his children, Elsebeth away in south of France

Present:

P.Wells, Corinne Lamb, Mark and Daphne de Boisiere, Natasha (Rosehill), Lucy (Vice-Chair), Rowan (Equinox), Lucy Walker (UOS), Andy Keeffe (UOB), Cath Prenton, Giselle, Mike Hedgethorne, Tony Firmin, Richard Baraball, Allan Briggenshaw, Mike Gray, Alex, Kirsty Munro, Maureen Winder (Level) (19)

Welcome:

• Lucy Walker (University of Sussex). Mentioned that there is a Community day on campus on the 24th June. There is more information is on their website

• Mike Gray mentioned there is a parking issue, in this area with builders who are converting houses they are taking up space. (Shaftesbury Road)

• Mike has been in touch with the council.

Action point: this needs following up.

2. Minutes of last 2 meetings and date of next meeting.

• Minutes from the last 2 minutes have been accepted

• Next meeting 10^th July

3. Policing and Licensing – update on rearrangement of Neighbourhood policing

• There is a change to the Chief Inspector (Rachel Swinney). Rowan Mitchell (Equinox) stated that there have been some operations and they continue with her support Such as:

  • Operation doorways. This is to reduce beggars, who are already being housed and reduce presence of begging, which involves looking at people getting people housed and into rehab..

  • Proactive policing on the level: Drug and organised crime and there has been arrests, there was something in the Argus about it. [http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16248352.Police_chief_vows_to___39_get_a_grip__39__on_crime/]

  • One other change is that Insp. Brian McCarthy and has swapped areas with Insp. Paul Ransome.

  • Action point: Invite Paul Ransome to speak at the LAT in September.

4. Updates

   1. Viaduct Road/ Beaconsfield Road communal bins.

• The bins are now in place on Viaduct Road and on Beaconsfield Road. (Hurray!)

• City Clean have been emailed regarding when they will come and collect the rubbish, possibly for now for 5 days a week for now, as City Clean get round the intake of rubbish.

• The planters are going soon but are waiting to be updated on this.

1. 2. Graffiti – any follow-up points from Emma Daniels’ visit?
      There is a operation centred on policing to do with graffiti.
      Multi Agencies are in place to help the police.

There is a article in the Brighton Independent about the graffiti. This is to do with the Community Safety team and the council, which is starting to work jointly with police.

1. 3. Planning application – “Leyland Paints/ Tile Shop” 220 dwellings – consultation update

• The meeting was shown the PDF of planned development, which will be put on the website

Action Point: To ask legal and general person to the July meeting. Gabrielle Kyriacou

1. 4. Parking in zone J – a petition is in process. Progress and timescale

Hi Philip,

I would suggest you set the petition up to run for up to 6 months. You can always close it sooner when you present it, or let it run further as the publicity you will receive from the first presentation of the petition may generate further interest. So you could for example present to July council. You will get to speak for 3 minutes. The petition will then be referred to ETS in October where you will be invited to listen (but not speak) to the response. Committee will get to debate it and decide what to do about it; which could be just to note it or call for a report or other action. By October you may have more signatures, the total can be updated…

Alternately if you are confident of raising a lot more signatures, you might hold out for a petition debate at  Council in the autumn. This would I think require a total of 1275 signatures to qualify. That may be more work than it is worth putting into this – depends on activist time and the rate of yield door-knocking will give. I strongly recommend a calling card that can be given to those that are canvassed to share with others in the household the on-line details, plus left if no one is in. That could also be dropped as a leaflet to all doors. We are currently delivering a ward newsletter and expect to have another leaflet to deliver by the beginning of July. I’d be happy for us to double drop a leaflet for you in July if you want.

• At the meting the total of signatures completed totally 323.

• There is an online petition that residents can complete.

• The council needs a time scale.

• Pros and cons of the online petition is that people can only vote once but sign up electronically.

• The result of the petition needs to be completed 10 days ahead of the Environment Committee June 26th or the Council meeting in July or the other Environment Committee in October.

• The decision of the meeting was to go for the meeting on June 26^th and keep the online petition going.

1. 5. Fire service bollards – progress?

“no Tom is still waiting for the Council to get back to him”

1. 6. Oxford Street Alley – funding – via Inspector Paul Ransome

• Paul Ransome has offered to endorse this with money from his fund but have heard nothing more.

1. 7. Loss of bins near London Road station – reply received but has anything happened?

• The bins have not reappeared. An email was sent to the council, and they have been ordered.

• The streets that the bins came from are from the bottom of Shaftsbury road and next door to the Signalman.

Action Point: Need to chase.

1. 8. Pavement parking on Baker Street

• We have had a reply, which will be put on the website, along with the statistics
  Action Point: Need to be followed up.

1. 9. Consultation on BIG development of 119 London Road (Co-op)

• The meeting was shown the PDF for this planning application.

• Ther is also a plan for Pelham Street Re-development of the MET

Action Point: Philip to write to get more information on this

1. 10. Complaints about noise from events on the Level

Loads more events than have ever been and last longer- 6 months of the year

Kirsty: we are not consulted

Varies the day and night

They can hear the noice in the day then illegal raves come which people don’t realise

Maureen: lots of complaints

The residents want a bit more control on what’s going on.

Park cresent residents also concerned.

No one is consulted and there is no way to influence this

Ian Taylor has a list of events but not all events are on it. There is the October fest coming up .

Events need licensing? There needs to be a application process and why isn’t it open to comment.

We need to be ready when the application goes in and how do we know when the application goes in.

We need to go to them now.

It’s not fair on the residents, maybe there should be a cap on it and a review, the illegal raves are not covered. Noise can beheard from park crescent. This is the result of cutbacks and loss of PCSOs

Kirsty: I am of the opinion that at The Level we have to tolerate more loud events than any other green spaces in town over the year. The fairground alone runs for at least 16 days per year.

Here is a summary of the events we have to tolerate, with what I believe is little or no consideration towards the impact on local residents:

• Fairground: 8-10 days over 2 long weekends twice per year (totalling 16-20 days).

• Summer markets: 4-5 Sundays

• Vegan festival: 2 consecutive weekend days

• Level communities festival: 1 weekend day

• Take Part day: 1 weekend day

• Brighton Bike Ride: 1 Sunday

• Skateboarding tournaments: 2-3 weekends per year

• Oktoberfest Bier Tent – 3 days and 3 nights

• The unofficial Pride parties – 1 Saturday

• Other random events, e.g. Jeremy Corbyn speech – 1-2 weekends

• Not to mention the illegal raves we suffer night and day that nobody comes to shutdown, even when they start fires next to vehicles and the unofficial parties after Pride!

ROUGH TOTAL: 30-40+ days of noisy events on the doorstep from April to October and these are just the events which I can remember!!!!!! 

On average we tolerate loud music and noise from The Level for a minimum of 3 out of 4 weekends, if not all weekends, and it goes on all afternoon. Yesterday the loud live music went on until 7pm. Today has been from 1pm onwards.

5. Any other business (please notify before the start of the meeting)

Cath sent an update on HMOs – this is to be put up on the website.

Meeting ended around 19:45