Issue - meetings

To introduce Members to the climate and sustainability work ongoing at the Council.

The Climate Change and Sustainability Project Manager, the Policy and Strategy Team Leader and the Policy and Strategy Trainee provided a presentation to introduce Members to the climate and sustainability work ongoing at the Council.

Audio recording – 26 minutes 18 seconds

The Climate Change and Sustainability Project Manager, the Policy and Strategy Team Leader and the Policy and Strategy Trainee provided a presentation to introduce Members to the climate and sustainability work ongoing at the Council.

The Policy and Strategy Trainee advised that:

·       The Council had declared both a Climate and Ecological Emergency and set out actions which needed to be taken to address these.

·       There was a commitment to place environmental responsibilities at the centre of policymaking at the Council, and this meeting would focus on this area, rather than financial sustainability.

In response to a question from Mr Roger Lovegrove, the Policy and Strategy Team Leader advised that the Sustainability SPD was not specifically on the agenda, but that a work scoping item was, and the SPD could be discussed as part of that.

The Climate Change and Sustainability Project Manger advised that:

·       His role was to pick up some actions contained within the tracker and ensure that these were worked on, and implemented, where possible.

·       Most actions at the Council are driven by the Climate Change Strategy, which had three main focusses, taking action on the Council emissions, enabling actions to support residents and communicating and engaging others.

·       An Officer group had been established to ensure cross-Council representation, feed into strategic work and to identify gaps in current policies.

·       This group included representation from key areas, such as Property Services, Planning, Enterprise and Community/Partnerships.

·       A major source of emissions from the Council was the leisure centres in the district and several actions had been taken to address this.

·       Any changes in nation planning policy would be reflected in the SPD when adopted.

·       Changes had been made to the fleet at the Council and this was now predominantly electric vehicles, with infrastructure also installed to support this.

·       The Green Spaces team, along with contractors, had been implementing policies across the district, including the introduction of bee corridors.

·       The Solar for Business pilot scheme had been introduced and it was hoped that 5 businesses would sign up to this initially.

The Policy and Strategy Trainee advised that:

·       The North Herts Climate Hive was established in March 2023, and was a platform to update residents and Officers of ongoing relevant actions, funding streams and sustainability tips.

·       Monthly briefings were provided to the Executive Member, and this was shared through the Members Information Service (MIS) and at the Staff Consultation Forum (SCF).

·       Further internal updates were provided through the Hub, new starter inductions and as sessions delivered as part of ongoing Officer development.

·       That Council had been successful this year with a £7.7million bid to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) to decarbonise the leisure centres in the district. This scheme would include replacing existing boilers with air source heat pumps, retrofit energy efficiencies measures and installation of solar panels. The project was expected to be completed by March 2026.

·       A review of the Climate Strategy was started following the all-out elections in May 2024  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7