Click here to complete the questionnaire and have your say on these topics.

Below shows the highlights from the questionnaire responses.

- 83% of respondents were satisfied with Yarborough Leisure Centre services

- 78% of respondents were satisfied with the standard of sporting events organised by the City of Lincoln Council, including the Lincoln 10k, Dance Factor and Fair Play Football

- Almost 46% of respondents undertake 30 mins of exercise, on three occasions a week throughout the year and an impressive 30% of respondents undertake 30 mins of exercise, on five occasions a week throughout the year.

- Disappointingly between 45% and 68% of respondents were not aware of the Health and Wellbeing services available

- 81% of respondents were satisfied with the cleansing services provided

- Over 79% of respondents were satisfied with all Public Open Spaces, with an impressive 90% of people enjoying the flower beds within these spaces

 For the full list of results, please click here

This form of tenure tends to be classified as houses in multiple occupation and the law requires that the higher risk properties shall be licensed. Lincoln has 173 licensed houses in multiple occupation.

The Council’s policy for licensing houses in multiple occupation is being reviewed. We would like to receive opinions on the proposed policy. This will enable us to consider and respond to any suggestions for change before the policy is formally presented for adoption.

The council would like to seek the views of all interested parties before deciding.  You will need access to a copy of the policy in order to complete the questionnaire.

Please click here to view the draft policy

Please click here to complete the questionnaire

Please complete the questionnaire by 7th October 2011.

Please click here to view the draft strategy.

Please click here to view a map of proposed play sites

This consultation is now closed.

THIS CONSULTATION HAS NOW CLOSED.

Following the government’s Spending Review, the City of Lincoln Council needs to save £2.25million from its budget by 2013/14. To achieve this, the City Council is reviewing the future delivery of some of its services; CCTV is included in the first phase of these reviews.

As part of our commitment to listening to the views of our customers and to help us make any decisions about the future of CCTV, we’d like to know what you think about the service provided in Lincoln and what value you place on it.

We would appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to answer the following short questionnaire. Your views will be taken into account in the decisions we make about the future of the CCTV service in Lincoln.

Your answers will be treated in confidence and will be used for research purposes only. This means that it will not be possible for any person to be identified from the survey findings. This survey will close on Thursday 14th April and we will publish the overall results of the survey on the council’s website www.lincoln.gov.uk

A final decision on the future of the CCTV service in Lincoln is expected to be made in July 2011.

Thank you in anticipation for your help with this survey.

If you would like this questionnaire in a different format or language please contact Caroline Pritchard via email: carolinel.pritchard@lincoln.gov.uk, or call 01522 873405.

Some background information about the City Council’s CCTV service

The CCTV service provides a 24/7 staffed control room, which receives images from 133 City Council and third party owned cameras, and audio signals from 200 radios located around the city. The images from the cameras cover public areas only, mainly roads and streets.

Signals are digitally recorded and stored for a limited period, during which time incidents can be recorded to DVD to be used as evidence by the police and other enforcement agencies. Live incidents and images can be tracked, recorded and transmitted to the Police Communications Control Centre and various locations within West Parade Police Station to enable the police to use the system when allocating resources to respond to a particular incident.

Control room staff communicate directly with Lincolnshire Police to report incidents as they are occurring so that the police response is directed to incidents and to suspects who have left the scene, to search for suspects, and to ensure that incidents are recorded in accordance with police wishes. CCTV officers review footage following incidents, and provide copies to the police and other enforcement agencies as required.

As well as monitoring anti-social behaviour and criminal activity on the streets of the city, CCTV is also used to address matters of general public and environmental health and safety, such as helping to find missing people and calling emergency services to accidents and incidents.

In addition to maintaining telephone and radio contact with Lincolnshire Police and the Shoplink radio, CCTV operatives communicate with staff at City Council car parks and public toilets, the Urban Rangers and environmental enforcement staff. They also monitor CCTV security cameras located in City Hall reception. This provides assurances for staff, including night time door staff, customer services staff and lone working staff who might be in confrontational situations. It also means the CCTV team can contact the emergency services very quickly if required.

Locations of CCTV cameras in the city

Each red dot indicates where a camera is placed in the city. You can zoom in and out and pan the map for a closer look.

How much does it cost the council to run the CCTV service?

The CCTV Service is operated by the City of Lincoln Council and the total cost of operating the service is £509,309 per annum* (equivalent to £5.76 per city resident).

These costs include the following:

• £248,000 employee costs (the service is staffed 24/7)
• £108,000 on supplies and services (equipment and line rentals etc)
• £102,000 on support services (accommodation, payroll etc)
• £46,000 on capital financing costs.

The City Council receives no income from the police or other crime prevention agencies to support the CCTV operation, but does provide a CCTV monitoring service for one other local authority and a number of other organisations in the city, which generates income of £75,000.

The net cost to the City Council in operating the service is £434,340.

* based on the 2011/12 budget estimates

The SDU has been invited to submit a bid to the Big Lottery Fund and to that end we want to consult with as many people, both the young and the not so young, to find out what types of activities they would want to be delivered within their local communities and neighbourhoods.

Should the bid for Lottery Funding be successful, this consultation will assist in developing the project and ensure that the activities and sports that we deliver are what the local communities have requested and will meet the needs of residents at a local neighbourhood level.

We would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for taking the time to complete our online questionnaire and assisting us in this consultation exercise.

Click here to take the consultation

 A new policy has been drafted after the government created a new definition in law for entertainment such as lap dancing, pole dancing, table dancing, strip and peep shows.  Venues offering these forms of entertainment will now be classified alongside adult shops and adult cinemas as ‘sexual entertainment establishments’.

 To view and comment on the draft policy, which sets out how the council will handle applications for and variations to licenses for sexual entertainment establishments and how it will monitor them, click here,  or contact the licensing team 01522 873564 or email licensing@lincoln.gov.uk

Please be aware that this consultation has now closed.

The Government has recently published plans for changing the way social housing will function and create a more flexible system. As part of the consultation on the Government’s plans, we would like you to tell us what you think about the changes that the Government would like to make.

A full copy of the proposals are set out in the consultation document “Local decisions: a fairer future for social housing” which can be found at www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/socialhousingreform.

What the Government would like to change

These are the key changes from the Government’s plans that we would like your views on:

 1.  Changes to tenancies

• The Government would like to give Councils and other social housing providers, more choice so that they can give people lifetime tenancies where they are needed, but also give people shorter fixed-term tenancies, with a minimum of 2 years,  where it makes more sense.
• A flexible tenancy regime means that landlords will have an opportunity to take stock of the tenant’s financial and other circumstances and assess whether social housing is still appropriate. This will be in addition to, but not replace, secure tenancies and introductory tenancies.
• In doing this the Government will ensure that the rights of existing tenants in a secure tenancy will be protected and ensure that those who take up flexible tenancies have similar rights to secure tenants.

 2.  Allocations of Council and Housing Association Homes

• The Government also wants to give the Councils and Housing Associations the power to manage their housing waiting lists better and make it easier for current tenants to transfer to another home.
• At the moment the Council is required, by law, to keep an open waiting list whereby almost anyone is able to apply to go on the housing waiting list and be allocated social housing.  The Government wants to change this by giving Councils the power to decide who can go on their waiting list.
• The Government would also like to keep the same rules that we currently use to decide who should have priority for social housing. This priority group is also called a reasonable preference group and will include people who are:

      . homeless, or owed certain duties under the homeless legislation

     . living in statutory overcrowded, unsatisfactory or insanitary conditions,

     . in need to move on medical or welfare grounds

     . in need to move to a particular area to avoid hardship to themselves or others.     

• Existing tenants seeking a move will be removed from the allocation framework so that they are no longer required, in effect, to compete with general applicants. The intention is to make it easier for existing social housing tenants to move.

3. Mobility                    

The Government wants home swap providers to agree a data sharing approach to make it as easy as possible for social housing tenants to find a more suitable match if they wish to move.

4. Homelessness

The government proposes important changes to the local authority’s homelessness duty by giving increased powers to discharge their duty by an offer in the private rented sector (whether or not the applicant is willing to accept this). Such an offer would have to be suitable in terms of size, location and affordability to the applicant and it would need to be on a fixed term tenancy of at least 12 months

Have your say

We would like to find out what the people of Lincoln think about the proposals and if you would like your views to be taken into account when the Council responds to the consultation, you can forward your views to housing@lincoln.gov.uk by no later than the 13th January 2011.

Alternatively you can respond direct to the consultation by email to housingreform@communities.gsi.gov.uk

or in writing to:

Frances Walker

Department for Communities and Local Government

Eland House, Zone 1/G9 Bressenden Place,

London,

SW1E 5DU

 If the answer is yes? We want your views on private sector housing in Lincoln.

 Council’s are under a duty to keep housing conditions in their area under review with a view to deciding how best to use their powers. To help fulfil this duty City of Lincoln Council commissioned a Private Housing Stock Condition Survey in 2009. This told us a lot about the city’s 32,000 privately owned homes. We want to use this information together with our experience and other knowledge of the housing market to define our areas of action and priorities for resources. To make sure that the council is tackling the right problems it would help if you gave us your views.

 If you live in private sector housing (i.e. rent from a private landlord or own your own home) in Lincoln we want your views on how we as a council aim to tackle the issues identified within the city’s private sector housing. This includes prioritising the areas of concern and giving your views on some proposed actions which the council could take within private sector housing in the city.

 We would be grateful if you would complete our questionnaire. To access the questionnaire please click here.