Councillor Stephen Alambritis, will provide an update on key issues with the Council and take questions

Councillor Stephen Alambritis provided an update and responded to questions. Finances across local government remain stretched and Merton was no exception. The latest Medium Term Financial Strategy shows that there is a budget gap of £19m from 2019/20 to 2022/23. This would be met through a mix of savings and income generation. Much of the cost pressures relate to Adult Social Care where the Council has a statutory duty to provide for some of the most vulnerable people in Merton. The Council has invested an additional £9m in Adult Social Care to help meet these challenges.

Children’s services where the Council is a corporate parent to 135 children and young people are also a high priority. The recent Ofsted inspection found that the Council was good with outstanding features and one of the top ten authorities in England.

Working in partnership with other boroughs has also helped reduce costs. Merton leads a legal services partnership on behalf of four other boroughs; shares regulatory services like licensing across three boroughs and has even let out three floors in the Civic Centre to colleagues in the NHS. Renting out parks has also brought in additional revenue but can cause residents concern which the council is sensitive to.

The new dementia friendly library in Colliers Wood was recently short-listed for the 2018 Library of the Year award.

The Council has created an additional 4400 extra primary school places since 2010 by extending 23 schools and a new secondary school, Harris Wimbledon, has opened in the former adult education site at Whately Avenue. The school will then move to a new building on High Path in South Wimbledon for the 2020 intake. There are now 15 outstanding schools in Merton, including the most recently Harris Morden, a school which had previously rated as inadequate. The Council’s School Improvement Team continues to work across the borough to support schools. In last year’s GCSE results Merton had the highest scores for the Progress 8 school which measures progress from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4.

There a number of important regeneration projects underway. Clarion Housing is investing £1billion in improving three estates, that will result in better quality homes and no loss of social housing. The More Morden regeneration is back on track, with a new local plan being developed in 2018, and a development partner being appointed to begin works on improving the public domain in 2021. The new £13m Morden Leisure Centre is due to open later in the autumn with a six-lane pool, diving pool, café and gym. The old leisure centre will then be demolished and returned to park land. On Plough Lane work is progressing on the new football stadium for AFC Wimbledon. The club will hopefully move in for the 2020/21 season. There will also be 600 new homes, at least 30% of which will be affordable.

Cllr Alambritis thanked all those who volunteered in Merton. Volunteers are an essential part of life in Merton and he was pleased that the Cabinet had just agreed to continue to support the voluntary sector through a new Strategic Partner Funding Programme.

Residents asked about wheelie bins. Cllr Alambritis said that the new scheme should save £1.6m in the first year and more thereafter as well as increasing the amount of waste being recycled. The new service was not radical in any way but based on successful schemes used in councils across the country and shared with three of our neighbouring boroughs. For some properties wheelie bins will not be appropriate and other alternatives will be provided. 64,000 out of the 82,000 households in the borough will move over to wheelie bins but there will be some flexibility with larger bins for bigger households and neighbours are welcome to share bins. The wheelie bin for paper/card means that the material stays dry and will therefore have better resale value. An assisted service is already provided to more than 500 residents and anyone who needs assistance can apply at any time. Some mistakes have been made in the delivery and they will try to sort these out quickly. Additional resource is being put into the call centre to deal with these issues. There is guidance on the Council website but residents should not refuse the bins now, and after a period of time the council will be able to be more flexible. The council is looking into the possibility of collecting older bins but there is a cost associated in doing so.

Cllr Alambritis agreed that the performance from Veolia has not been good enough. The contract is for 8 years initially but deductions will be made for the poor performance. The move from an in-house to outsourced service has been challenging but the expectation is once wheelie bins are in place there should be an improvement in street cleanliness.

Air Quality is taken very seriously by Merton Council with a new Air Quality Action Plan. We have introduced a levy on diesel cars as well as increasing the number of electric charging points.

Crossrail 2 is unlikely to make any new announcements until spring 2019 and whilst we support the project the Council is not supportive of extra Council Tax to finance the project.

Cllr Alambritis said he was happy to join residents who raised concerns about high dropped curbs for pavements causing problems for wheelchair users. Cllr Alambritis was also happy to check on lip-reading courses at Merton Adult Education.

Cllr Alambritis confirmed that the travellers had left Cannon Hill Common earlier today. When travellers arrive there is a set process for checking the welfare of any children that can take four or five days. The Council is looking into an injunction process being used elsewhere.