To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Cllr. M .R. Cunningham, Mrs E. Newman (HALC), Mr P. Thomas (NFU), Cllr P.G. Turpin, Cllr R.V. Stockton (Cabinet Member – Community & Social Development).

To receive details any details of Members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a Member of the Committee.

Councillor Mrs P. A. Andrews substituted for Councillor M. R. Cunningham and Councillor G. Lucas substituted for Councillor P.G. Turpin.

To receive any declarations of interest by Members in respect of items on the Agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Committee will consider the economic impact of recent events in Hereford City and invite comment on possible ways forward.

(a)   the Chairman will outline the context to the meeting.

(b)   The Committee have invited a number of representatives of the business community to give evidence to the Committee on the economic impacts of recent events.

(c)   The Chairman will invite contributions from the floor of the meeting.

The Committee considered the economic impact of recent events in Hereford City and invited comments on possible ways forward.

The Chairman explained the remit of the Scrutiny Committee and outlined the format of the meeting.

The Chairman invited Mr A. Tector, Head of Environmental Health and Trading Standards, to report upon the first notification of the outbreak of Legionnaires disease and subsequent events.

Mr Tector reported that the outbreak had been notified on 6th November with 4 confirmed cases.   He briefly described the method of contracting the disease and likely sources.  He stated that Legionnaires disease was not a ‘notifiable disease’ to the local authority.  However, having been informed of the outbreak the Authority, which had some level of expertise in this field, had worked jointly with the Primary Care Trust (PCT), the Health Protection Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

He informed the Committee that a large inspection and sampling programme had commenced on 7th November which had included cooling towers at Bulmers.  Results from the samples had only taken up to one week to get back from the laboratories.  During this time the Local Authority had brought in a leading microbiologist and Bulmers had also employed a leading expert.  Bulmers had been extremely co-operative throughout.

A cooling tower at Bulmers was identified as a suspected source and was closed down on 12th November. However, the tower could not be confirmed as the source until the results of a second sample were known.  The outbreak was controlled through the Local Authority Emergency Planning Team and a press contact centre was established at a very early stage.  Except for one or two press releases specific to the Local Authority, all press releases were co-ordinated and issued as joint statements with the other agencies.

When questioned about the attitude and level of the press involvement, Mr Tector reported that from the outset the various agencies were conscious that the facts should be made public.  Generally the press reporting had been good and supportive.  However, a number of regional articles and radio broadcasts were less helpful.

He thought the other agencies had worked well, particularly as this had been the first major outbreak for the newly formed Health Protection Agency to deal with.  He did, however, express serious concerns that the Legionnaires disease was not a ‘notifiable disease, and that new legislation may move the control and co-ordination of such an outbreak to a regional body.  He commented that the IT expertise in the Council, particularly the use of the Geographical Information System (GIS) system, had considerably reduced the time searching for the source.  The Cabinet Member (Rural Regeneration and Smallholdings) commented that this contrasted with the national action in relation to Foot and Mouth demonstrating the benefits of local management.

Recognising that the first few hours of such an outbreak were crucial the Committee questioned how soon the emergency policy had been implemented.  Mr Tector replied that the Local Authority had reacted within hours in getting inspections and testing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.