Paul Bellotti, executive director of communities and environment:
Paul Bellotti: Hi, I'm Paul Bellotti, executive director for communities and environment here at the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. And a bit about the directorate; well there are five directors reporting into communities and environment, and together we cover most of the place-based services that the public, the residents, our businesses and visitors experience on a daily basis, so, we're all about the operational delivery on the front line. That's what you'll find in our directorate of upwards of 3,000 staff, with a total budget amounting gross terms over £200 million, so and a capital program, that we're delivering on the ground over the next four years, of just over 400 close to £500million in total capital costs, that we're delivering the ground.
So for those five directors that report under communities of environment; Carl Skelton heads up our street scene services, and under Carl you'll find a huge range of different teams; waste and recycling services and proudly that team is amongst the best recyclers in the country, so a number of other services, really critically important services, our highways team as well as our winter maintenance team, that are out there in all hours making sure our roads are safe and fit for purpose during those winter conditions. And there are other teams too from forestry, fleet management and traffic and road safety services, this huge, huge range of services, grass cutting, cemeteries and also, we've recently opened our crematorium too.
And Gill Barley heads up our, is our director for revenues and procurement services. The third director which comes to mind is Angela Deering and Housing, transportation and public protection. So Angela's role covers what it says on the tin; housing, transportation, public protection. This council has all of the Housing services in-house, that means that we are landlord for 11,500 homes that people live in. In addition in our transportation services, we run a vehicle fleet of about 100 vehicles; minibuses and other types of vehicles too, in
addition to that of course we are there to help and support the volunteer community sector; our Community Transport Services that are run by volunteers, really really successfully here in the East Riding it's a really positive thing that they carry out but we do our best to help them to ensure that people have a door-to-door service; especially if for example if they have a disability and they need to access services and facilities then we'll help where we can.
Public Protection Services; this covers a whole host of different types of teams; environmental health and control, licensing services, to ensure that everything from food and our
night time economy is safe, we've also run trading standards, to ensure that there aren't rogue businesses taking place. And just before we move on from Angela's services, more recently that team's been making a huge effort to ensure that the private rental sector housing is in really good shape.
Our fourth area in communities and environment covers culture and customer services. And culture and customer services run our Leisure centres, our libraries, our museums, our archives, our destinations at BridSpa, Sewerby Hall, countryside access, and also our public rights of way are maintained for the enjoyment, and you know, to attract visitors into the East Riding so that they spend their money happily and it creates jobs and prosperity, so a real massive team effort there. You'll also find services here which engage with the public, so we'll be taking, as a council, 200 - 250,000 calls per year, from the public into our customer service centres, and they'll get triaged and helped at that point, and if more details are
needed we'll passport and signpost those people off to the right services to get more detailed help should they need it.
The final director that we have under communities and environments is Adam Holmes. And Adam runs our infrastructure and facilities services, so under Adam, again a big range of teams here primarily, delivering the almost £500million capital program that we have over the next four to five years, a range of different schemes being delivered from property to highways, flood alleviation schemes, and to give you an idea of some of the things we've got in train, at the moment, we have a proposal for a £17million refurbishment of Goole Leisure Centre. And this leisure centre will just be like a leisure centre plus; it's going to be a super place; we plan to include in there our library services too and customer service centre, so there are other reasons to go to the leisure centre; it's a one-stop-shop type place, that people could go to, really high quality. In addition to that, we've got flood alleviation schemes that are in train to help protect the public and also businesses, from the impacts from heavier rainfall. And our biggest projects in progress at this current time is the dualling of the A164 and the improvement to Jocks Lodge interchange, which you know is a really big scheme, it's the biggest capital project that we have currently, topping £80million, estimated costs, which we hope to be delivering over the next few years.
So a whole host of different services, which I've not been able to cover everything, apologies to my teams that I've not mentioned, but hopefully it gives you a really quick insight into the range of services that are provided under the communities and environment.
