Cllr Paul Skinner
Councillor’s
Column n.co.uk
info@simplybosto
Hello I’m Paul Skinner, Boston Borough Council’s cabinet member responsible for the regulatory portfolio. This year since May a number of additional responsibilities have been added. Climate change is one such item, extremely topical politically and according to the Mori Polls in the minds of a high number of the population (85%). Climate change is a neverending, natural process and has been happening since the formation of the atmosphere around the early earth. However, we’ve experienced record temperatures this summer, as well as floods and storms. The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than at any point for 400,000 years, and going up fast. Climate change threatens life as we know it, the encouraging news is that the people of this country recognise the crisis for what it is, we are remarkably united on the fact, and we want action in response. I was delighted this week to attend and
6 | SIMPLY BOSTON | www.simplyboston.co.uk
Each month a different member of Boston Borough Council’s Cabinet writes about the issues which they have responsibility for. This month Cllr Paul Skinner, Boston Borough Council’s cabinet member responsible for the regulatory portfolio talks about climate change and other topics.
support a working group set up by the council to look at how we can do as much as we can to reduce our carbon footprint to ZERO. Many councils have already declared climate emergencies as a symbolic commitment to do something to address the biggest challenge the world has faced in 100s of years. What is different in our approach is a desire across the council to have a meaningful and realistic plan with actions that can measure our progress. As council we have already reduced our carbon emissions by 49% since 2008 but we want to do more. We want to ensure that we not only lead from the front by demonstrating and practicing excellent environmental initiatives but we do it in a way which encourages others to do their bit. We will be moving away from single use plastics, we will be using renewable energy sources, we will be rolling out EV charging points across our car parks, we will be reducing our vehicle and building emissions and much more but we cannot do this alone. Every business, every organisation, every individual
can do a little which can achieve a lot. Boston Borough Council CCTV has now been upgraded to an Open Source system, this enables us to purchase better performance cameras at more competitive rates while giving other operational benefit’s, our staff and services being called upon by a number of partners including Lincolnshire Police, East Lindsey District Council and South Holland District Council. Anti-social behaviour and evidence packages requested have decreased suggesting a drop in both crime and anti-social behaviour. I applaud both our staff and those in our partnerships efforts in achieving those figures, but I can reassure the public that we strive constantly to build upon our knowledge and methods to improve further. Our licensing services continue to perform well, this is quasi-judicial and the choices made by committee and officers are down defined paths. The building regulations department continues delivering a professional service that competes well with commercial services in the area. Health and Wellbeing continues to work well to raise the importance of all taking responsibility for ourselves. The area has improved against other areas of the UK showing real progress. We are working with the other district councils sharing best practice while tailoring the approach to the needs in our area. An example is gaining Central Government funding to support the government’s strategy to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027. This will not happen overnight but we are putting together a wider rough sleeping team to support those vulnerable members of our community. This will include on the ground street support, opportunities for intensive and focused support, e.g. for mental health and substance misuse, as well as working with rough sleepers to increase their confidence in dealing with securing and maintaining longer lasting tenancies and accommodation.
