Residents care about green agenda and we are making progress

THE new Council’s first budget consultation received over three times the response rate for last year, a positive sign of its commitment to public engagement and transparency. Part of that response demonstrates that our residents care about the climate and want our Council to provide a dedicated budget for carbon reduction. In 2019 the Borough Council recognised that we are living through a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, a step that most local authorities have now taken. However, we differ to many other authorities in that our ambitious target is to be carbon neutral in the work the Borough Council does by 2030. This target was proposed by Labour councillors, wanting to achieve our environmental goals even faster.

Goals

The new Council administration of Labour, LibDem and Alliance members has inherited a situation from the Conservatives that has not helped us achieve these goals. They left the Council in deficit, did not take the necessary steps to reach the 2030 target, wasted an eye watering £10.8million of council reserves on the defunct Calverley Square project, and failed to develop strategies to increase local biodiversity. One of the Council’s five focuses now is carbon reduction. Since taking on Cabinet responsibility for this policy area, I have been working with officers to deliver a project to significantly reduce the emissions of one of the Council’s largest carbon emitters, the Weald Leisure Centre. We are doing this through a combination of making building efficiencies and installing heat pumps.

Since the election last year, I have been working with my team to produce a Borough wide ‘Carbon Reduction Strategy’ to provide a framework for us to reduce the whole local authority area’s greenhouse emissions, not just the Council’s own. This will further increase our ambition and responsibility to reduce carbon emissions.

Equally, I want local biodiversity back on the

Council’s agenda. We can do this by reducing our use of harmful chemicals in our green spaces by producing a Pesticide and Herbicide policy. This would be a first for our authority, and a significant step to renew our ‘Local Biodiversity Action Plan’.

Like anyone working to act on climate change I have experienced both hope and frustration. Most of the answers to the climate crisis exist. We have amazing new technologies and our understanding of sustainable living improves by the day but we are obstructed by lack of resources to deliver the job.

Local government should be at the forefront of our country’s transition to a sustainable UK.