Questions from County Councillors

Noted · Received for information; no decision followed.

This document contains written questions from county councillors to Lead Members, with responses, covering waste sites, highway drainage, verge cutting, roads, the Exceat bridge, parking design and children's homes. p1p3p15p17p23p24p29

The Lead Member for Transport and Environment said the booking system for household waste and recycling sites has taken around 223,000 bookings since it began on 24 November 2025, and overall tonnage at the sites has fallen by about 10% compared with the same period last year. p1p2

On highway drainage, the responses said forecast investment for 2026/27 is £800,000 for routine and reactive works and £1,000,000 for capital works, with schemes prioritised using a risk-based methodology. p8p10

On grass verges, the response said the County Council cuts verges twice a year and cannot afford more cuts after Eastbourne Borough Council handed the service back, though residents can report impeded visibility at junctions for the local Highway Steward to arrange cutting. p16

The Lead Member for Children and Families said the County Council is caring for around 692 children and young people, of whom 107 are living in private children's homes, with those placements projected to cost £36.413m in 2025/26. p29

Show the 11 passages this is based on

• p1WRITTEN QUESTIONS PURSUANT TO STANDING ORDER 44 1) Question from Councillor Field to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. The booking system for the Household Waste and Recycling Service (HWRS) works well for those who use it. There are however many who for whatever reason do not. The result of this is charity shops reporting that items which should have been disposed of at the HWRS are “hiding” under a few legitimate donated items which means that the charities have to pay for their disposal. Parish councils are also reporting additional waste being left in or near their bins so that the Parish Council which pays for waste removal by weight is paying for items to be disposed of which would otherwise have gone to the HWRS. What are the comparative figures for waste disposal at the HWRS before and after the booking system began? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment The booking system is straightforward and simple to use. Since its introduction on 24 November 2025, it has facilitated approximately 223,000 bookings. Residents are neither limited nor restricted in their ability to bring waste to the sites and are able to make same day bookings, subject to slot availability. I am aware that the third sector, and the textile recycling industry in particular, is currently experiencing significant challenges. Several national textile recycling companies have recently ceased collections, which has had an impact on the flow of donations to charity shops. This can be observed at many supermarket car parks, where textile and bric-a-brac containers are full and often overflowing. The decline in the quality of donations to charity shops is a longstanding trend driven by several factors, including the rise of fast fashion, low-cost manufacturing, increased consumption of inexpensive goods, and the absence of producer responsibility for the disposal or recycling of many of the items most commonly donated.
• p2To date, the Council has not been made aware of any increase in waste collected by Parish Councils. Waste collection services are primarily delivered by district and borough councils, and none have reported similar issues to the East Sussex County Council Waste Team. One of the reasons the booking system was introduced was to prevent traders from accessing the sites. It is unlawful to dispose of trade or business waste at household sites; such waste must be taken to a licensed commercial waste facility. Since the system was implemented, we have recorded an overall reduction in tonnage of approximately 10% at our household waste recycling sites, compared with the same period last year. This reduction is consistent with the original expectations that limiting trade waste would decrease the volume of material entering the sites and therefore reflects the intended purpose of the booking system.
• p32) Question from Councillor Taylor to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. Across several parishes there appear to be numerous unresolved problems where water is running down carriageways and damaging the road surface. In many cases, the drainage assets intended to remove water from the highway—such as gullies, grips, ditches and associated pipework—are either blocked, broken or obstructed. As a result, water is not being properly discharged to watercourses or designated outfalls, which contributes to the deterioration of the road fabric and the formation of potholes. Simply clearing gully pots is often ineffective if the connecting pipework or wider drainage infrastructure is not functioning. In one parish alone there are at least twelve outstanding drainage issues of varying scale, including at least two cases that have reportedly been known about for more than five years, have been investigated, and for which schemes were identified but not delivered. Residents are increasingly concerned that without proper maintenance of drainage assets, road conditions will continue to deteriorate and lead to higher long-term repair costs. Could the Lead Member please explain what action the County Council is taking to address the growing number of long-standing highway drainage issues within the ward? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment In 2025, the County Council reviewed and updated its Highways Asset Management Strategy. This included the Drainage Asset Management Plan – please find the following link for ease of reference:
• p8b) What work the County’s drainage team is undertaking to address known failures in drainage infrastructure? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. To maximise the impact of limited resources, the Council prioritises drainage works based on risk, asset condition, and strategic importance. Investment planning focuses funding on schemes that offer the greatest benefit in terms of safety, resilience, and network performance. Drainage maintenance schemes are selected using a structured, risk-based methodology. Key criteria include:
• p10The forecast investment into drainage infrastructure for 26/27 is £800,000 for routine and reactive works and £1,000,000 for capital works. The programme seeks to address existing drainage issues prior to carriageway schemes being delivered as well targeted work picked up from drainage investigations resulting from internal observations or public inquires.
• p153) Question from Councillor Wright to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. Current ESCC verge cutting policy is to do two cuts per year. Eastbourne Borough Council policy was to do an additional 5 to 6 cuts per year but they have now withdrawn that service, saying that they can no longer afford to do so and that the County Council is the responsible authority for verge cutting. Grass verges in Meads, Eastbourne Division are particularly affected by the reduction in verge cutting due to the extent of grass verges in Meads and the fact that many trees (on the verges) have had to be cut down due to disease. The result of less cutting results in verges packed with weeds and tree suckers (coming up from the cut tree’s roots) which is unsightly and provides a safety risk for residents queuing at bus stops and for car drivers exiting the many driveways from flats and houses. At the end of last year residents reported to me that they were having to step out into the road to attract the attention of buses and could not see if there was oncoming traffic when exiting driveways. In addition, two cuts per year produces an abundance of vegetation debris following the cut. The debris composts on the pavements and in the gutters. This provides a growing medium for grass and weeds to grow which will eventually cover the pavements making them inaccessible and blocks drains creating water pooling on roads so adding to the problems of potholes and further deterioration to the already declining fabric of the roads. A change of ESCC policy is required to deal with the issues raised above which will affect residents this coming growing season 2026. Could the Lead Member please advise on how ESCC intends to deal with the problem of out-of-control verges in Meads, Eastbourne which will form an unsightly and risk provoking, dense scrub of weeds and tree bushes plus grass/weed covered pavements if only two cuts per year are maintained without other action?
• p16Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. The County Council policy on cutting grass verges is to cut grass verges twice a year, reflecting the decision by Lead Member in May 2018 to reduce the grass cutting service to two grass cuts per year as part of the RPPR cost-saving measures at that time. However, the revised grass cutting policy includes the ability for lower tier authorities to either pay ESCC for additional cuts, or to take on the grass cutting themselves where this is a local priority, and until this year Eastbourne Borough Council had elected to take on the grass cutting across the Borough themselves and in doing so, fund additional cuts. EBC has elected to no longer do this and handed back grass cutting to the County Council, but regrettably the Council cannot afford to provide more than the standard two cuts per year that is provided across the county. Whilst the Council cannot require residents to do so, a number of residents do cut the verges outside their properties of their own volition. Where visibility at junctions is impeded, this can be reported via the East Sussex Highways website, and the local Highway Steward can arrange for the visibility splay to be cut back.
• p174) Question from Councillor Wright to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. The current state of the roads in Meads, Eastbourne and greater Eastbourne is appalling with very many potholes and the fabric of the local roads disintegrating. Car tyres are being shredded, the roads are unsafe and residents are desperate for a solution to the problem. One solution would be for ESCC to raise emergency funding and to schedule emergency work to tackle the potholes and resurfacing of local roads as soon as possible starting April 2026. Could the Lead Member please confirm what action the Council is taking in this regard? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. With regard to potholes, it is important these are reported via the East Sussex Highways website or perhaps arrange to meet with the local Highways Steward. Councillors will know that the Highways Act does not require us to repair every pothole or defect on our roads, to do so would be prohibitively expensive and place even greater burden on Council Taxpayers. Instead, the Highways Act requires us to publish and work to maintenance policies that set out the Council’s intervention criteria that our Stewards use to determine when a pothole repair is required and the repair timescales. With regard to resurfacing, the resurfacing, patching and surface dressing programmes are published on the East Sussex Highways website. As the weather improves as we go into spring the combination of reporting potholes and our activities to repair potholes, and establishment of our resurfacing and patching programmes will improve the condition of the highways network. Councillors will be aware that in recent years the Council has borrowed additional funding for highways maintenance but can no longer afford to do so. As such investment in planned highway maintenance is limited to DfT funding only.
• p236) Question from Councillor Lambert to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. East Sussex County Council have now contracted Jackson Civil Engineering to deliver the construction of the new bridge at Exceat. a) Can the Lead Member confirm that their tender came in either below or at the County Council’s budget? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. We can confirm the Jackson tender price came in within the project budget, and whilst this is commercially confidential, details were shown in the Tender Report that the Director reviewed when awarding the contract to Jackson in November 2025. b) Will the contractor put up an information board showing the design and proposed route for the new bridge at Exceat? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. The design is available on the ESCC website online as part of the planning application documentation. The contractor has a comprehensive stakeholder and engagement plan, that will include an ‘info hub’ to provide regular project updates and information, focussed on reducing impacts on residents, businesses, road users, pedestrians, public transport and other key stakeholders adjacent to site and in the wider area.
• p247) Question from Councillor Lambert to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. Residents with mobility issues have contacted me regarding an issue with Design Note 12 regarding space on either side of a disabled parking bay. The Design Note does not provide for a space for transfer zones on both sides of a single disabled parking bay. Can the Lead Member please ensure that the appropriate Design Notes are amended to allow for transfer zones on either side of single disabled parking bays? Can the Lead Member please also ensure that an audit is carried out on single disabled parking bays across the county to see what remedial action may be needed to make these fully accessible? Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment. Design note 12 relates to Lewes District and Eastbourne Boroughs accessible design notes for car parks. Requests for changes to the design note will need to be put forward to LDC and EBC. The ESCC parking team manage car parks on behalf of Lewes District, any instruction to audit or make changes to their car parks will need to come from LDC. On- street parking restrictions are required to meet the regulation set out in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, all formalised on street bays meet these regulations.
• p299) Question from Councillor Lambert to the Lead Member for Children and Families. Investment firms, private equity-backed companies, and hedge funds own a significant portion of children's homes in England, with studies showing they manage roughly 25% to over 40% of private residential care places. These for-profit providers have grown rapidly, focusing on lucrative, high-cost placements, often sparking concerns which I share about profiteering and the commodification of vulnerable children. The number of for-profit, private-equity-owned homes in England has more than doubled in the last decade, from 903 in 2014 to over 2,200 in 2023. These investments are considered "recession-proof," with some firms achieving profit margins exceeding 20%. Some reports have suggested that a significant portion of these providers are owned by firms based in offshore tax havens. How many children does East Sussex County Council have in private children’s homes? What is the annual expenditure? Response by the Lead Member for Children and Families East Sussex County Council (ESCC) is currently caring for around 692 children and young people. While most children live with foster families, 107 children (15.7%) are currently living in private children’s homes, with these placements projected to cost £36.413m in 2025/26. ESCC’s Home Finding and Commissioning Team applies rigorous quality assurance to ensure children’s homes deliver high‑quality care and value for money, while balancing the need for constructive relationships with providers in a competitive market. Oversight includes scrutiny of staff training and safer recruitment, Ofsted ratings and compliance, Regulation 44 reports, location risk assessments, and multi‑agency matching discussions to ensure homes meet children’s needs. Costs are examined in detail, with providers required to break down children’s home running costs, staffing levels, therapeutic or educational inputs, and profit margins.