Agenda item

To consider any questions submitted by Members of the public, in accordance with Standing Order 4.8.10 (c).

In accordance with Standing Order 4.8.10(c), Mr Philip Devonald had presented a question for Councillor Martin Stears-Handscomb (Leader of the Council).

Audio recording – 5 minutes 5 seconds

In accordance with Standing Order 4.8.10(c), Mr Philip Devonald had presented a question for Councillor Martin Stears-Handscomb (Leader of the Council) as follows:

"What progress has the Council made in addressing the climate emergency declared at the Annual Meeting in May?"

The Leader of the Council provided the following response:

“Thank you for your question.  Our administration sees addressing the climate emergency as a very high priority.

Since May the council has taken a number of steps towards addressing this:

We have set up a cabinet panel to gather the views of interested and informed local people and groups to help the council identify the steps it should take in the areas of cutting its own emissions, and enabling and encouraging others to do so.  This panel met for the first time last evening and, having listened, this will inform how we progress the work we have already started, including updating the Council’s Climate Change Strategy.

This includes first assessing the Council’s current carbon footprint. Although this in itself will not reduce our carbon output, it is important to identify the scope for savings and where the biggest rewards can be obtained quickest.

Early progress has included beginning the process of switching the Council’s own gas and electricity supplies to renewable sources, investigating the installation of solar panels on as many Council buildings as feasible and looking at ways of reducing energy use in swimming pools and leisure centres.

Of course, the Council’s footprint only represents a small proportion of the carbon footprint of the district. In addition to reducing its own carbon emissions to a net zero by 2030, the Council has an important role to play in enabling residents and businesses to cut their own emissions, where the council can influence these directly.

It must also encourage residents and businesses to do this more widely, which is where the biggest dividends will result.

Responding to the emergency has implications for all Council areas and so, for example, we have begun the process of looking at planning policies relating to the energy performance of new homes and other buildings, examining what we can do to require performance in excess of that required by the building regulations and the extent to which we can require renewable energy technology to be incorporated.

We plan more electric vehicle charging points, both on street and in Council car parks and wherever possible new Council owned vehicles will be ultra low emission.

And we are engaging with the Woodland Trust to look at ways in which we can encourage both public and private sector land owners to plant more trees.

Another initiative has been to provide an incentive to taxi operators to use hybrid vehicles by offering reduced cost licences for these vehicles.

These are just some examples of action we are taking. 

I note that you will also be asking a question at the next Cabinet meeting and that will be an opportunity for my colleague Steve Jarvis to go into more detail.

We are conscious that other Councils have been making progress on these matters for some years, I could mention Oxford and Plymouth as outstanding examples. We will also be drawing on their experience through the network of Co-operative Councils to build on best practice.

We very much value the work of groups like Transition Town Letchworth, Friends of the Earth and now Extinction Rebellion in campaigning for real change. This administration sees you as partners, each of us with a positive role to play in addressing the climate emergency and ensuring that not just the Council, but all our residents and businesses take the necessary action.”

Mr Devonald thanked Councillor Stears-Handscomb for his response and the officers for working hard on this issue and asked the following supplementary question:

“An emergency is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as something serious or dangerous that requires fast action in order to avoid harmful results. There was no greater emergency than the climate emergency as a fundamental existential threat. In the view of the North Herts Climate Action Group, the Council needs to fundamentally transform that that it operates, this cannot be tackled at the margins for example you need to tell taxi drivers that, within a number of years, only hybrid or electric vehicles will be acceptable.

You cannot add the onerous tasks relating to climate change to the existing work of officers. A fundamental review of everything is needed, therefore where are the resources coming from to achieve that?”

Councillor Martin Stears-Handscomb responded:

“This was an important issue and this emergency goes across all of the Council’s services.

We are just beginning our budget process and are producing a Council Plan in consultation with all Members of the Council. During that process one of the key priorities will be looking at Environmental issues and the emergency.

There are some things that we can’t do. There are limits to what we can to in respect of the example given regarding taxi, but we will do what we can do.

During the process described we will ensure that this subject is right at the top, bearing in mind there are some things that we have to do. The climate emergency has to be done within the resources we have available.”