Agenda item

To receive a report from the Climate and Sustainability Specialist which documents progress against the Climate Action Plan.

Cllr Natasha Bradshaw (Cabinet Member for Climate Change) addressed the PDG.  She said that Climate Change affected all departments across the Council and all Councillors and everybody had a part to play. The Council was committed to get to Net Zero by 2030, she had been impressed at how far the Council had come already and wanted to thank the officers. There was an enormous task on the Council’s hands, however, she was aware of the great enthusiasm throughout the Council. Partnership working would be a key to achieving this and the Council was looking at Climate Action in two ways; within Council Services and also across the District. The latter was extremely challenging but progress included two extremely impressive projects to decarbonise heating and cooling systems at Exe Valley and Lords Meadow Leisure Centres.

Following this the Group was presented with, and NOTED, a *report to update on the Climate Action Plan (CAP) and the wider Climate and Sustainability Programme.

Consideration was given to:

·         The Corporate Project Manager had applied for funding for Culm Valley Leisure Centre for a detailed design for decarbonised heating and cooling.

·         Passive House Social Housing and Affordable Housing at Post Hill.

·         Working with community groups was very productive and inspirational, for example the Mural at the Pannier Market, tree planting and other various initiatives.

·         The Climate and Sustainability Specialist has been running training workshops and getting officers up to date with energy use and data. The Council has cut electricity usage at some of its key buildings by about 21% since 2018/19, unfortunately gas usage had not gone down so there is still work to do there.  The decarbonisation project would hit that figure very squarely.

·         Officers would be running workshops on various projects and topics such as planning policy and decisions, renewable energy, Energy Champions etc.

·         The Net Zero Advisory Group will be reconstituted. The Clerk observed that Member Services awaited parties to put names forward for that group.

The Officer then answered questions from Councillors:

·         Carbon footprint. The Annual GHG Emissions by Category (Annexe A figure 1) – the orange dashed line was the “hoped for” trajectory i.e. what we need to achieve to hit net zero by 2030. The black line showed how we were actually doing including a rise in emissions for the year 2021/22.

·         Item 3 on table 3 of Annexe A to the report – The Climate and Sustainability Specialist was arranging a project group update for the relevant Cabinet members on renewable energy e.g. the hydroelectric scheme. An update would follow that.

·         Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme (3.4.1). The Council were working in partnership with other agencies such as Exeter Community Energy, the peoples path to free advice about retrofitting of insulation etc. On the Council’s Climate and Sustainability Website there were a whole range of links to places where you can get information. Of the 149 home installations, councillors asked what percentage of the properties that equated to? The Officer replied that the figure was being tracked, at the moment it was a low percentage, but they hoped to scale it up.

·         Would closer dialogue with Town and Parish Councils assist?

·         At Table 2 (H02) Modern Methods of Construction and Self Build Opportunities, Councillors asked if we could track how the Council was doing as a district to encourage more self-build? The officer answered that it was being tracked and the Council had run workshops (Forward Planning).

·         Could the Council look for Case Studies and for good and best practice from other housing authorities so that could can learn and look to be the best it can? The Climate and Sustainability Officer said that was already being done and that they worked with developers, giving them check-lists of a whole range of things that they should / could consider and that was their preferred way of getting feedback on how they were addressing climate change etc. (Reference: MDDC Climate Emergency Planning Policy Statement and resources) The Corporate Manager for Finance, Property and Climate Change observed that the Planning Team had been on an “Away day” to a fellow Council to learn about self-build, property and planning practices.

·         Single Use Plastics at Phoenix House – Councillors asked if there was a policy? What was the update? Was the Council avoiding single use plastics? The officer replied that there was a policy, the previous update had looked at our use of single use plastics at places like our leisure centres. Some things were external and that was more difficult. When it came to enforcement then Trading Standards would be monitoring the new rules coming from Central Government. Matthew Page - Corporate Manager for People, Governance and Waste - commented: The Council were awaiting forthcoming national guidance from Central Government regarding future practice and funding arrangements.

·         National Grid Energy Distribution (NGED) power infrastructure, a councillor asked if there was a Cabinet member responsible for looking at this matter. The Climate and Sustainability Specialist said that he tried to keep abreast of the situation; officers such as Forward Planning feed into NGED consultations.

·         Retro-fitting measures (Table 2) ENV01 – Councillors asked where the Council was and what were the barriers? The Climate and Sustainability Specialist answered that with regard to renewables it depended upon the ambition the Council had in this direction. He said that the Council were increasing the solar array hosted on the Leisure Centres and on Phoenix House and that these ideas were looking a long way into the future.

·         Councillors asked if Electric Vehicle charging could raise funds for the Council? Property Services need a response here.

·         Recycling rates and Education of the Public – a Councillor asked about recycling rates and how the Council were doing and mentioned Cllr Taylor’s plans relating to recycling of pots and pans and coffee pods etc.

The Corporate Manager for People, Governance and Waste mentioned that at the next meeting of the PDG there would be a review of the BIN it 123 scheme and it would make comparisons between April/May 2022 and April/May 2023. Councillors commented that some members of the public were putting food waste into black sacks which were then being accessed by seagulls and creating a mess – how do we deal with that? Matthew Page, Corporate Manager for People, Governance and Waste commented that when Bin it 123 was introduced they had shown some leniency to help embed the scheme, but now there needs to be further education and if necessary the Council would need to enforce good practice with regard to waste and recycling. Councillors commented that allowances needed to be made for those in flats who did not have access to storage facilities.

·         The Corporate Manager for People, Governance and Waste said that they were still getting requests for recycling containers so that was encouraging in terms of the public being committed to supporting the scheme and increasing our recycling rate.

·         A member mentioned that the consultation for developing local partnerships for onshore wind was closing on 7^th July, REGEN has information online.

Note: *update previously circulated and attached to the minutes