To hear from Wiltshire Council and Salisbury City Council on the work they are doing to tackle Climate Change.
Followed by a workshop where we will consider project ideas on how we approach climate change as a community in Salisbury.
Minutes:
The Chairman thanked everyone for coming for this themed event, and handed over to Councillor Richard Clewer, Deputy Leader of Wiltshire Council, for a presentation on Wiltshire Councils commitments and progress on tackling Climate Change.
Key points of the presentation were: -
In February 2019 Wiltshire Council resolved to:
· Seek to make the county of Wiltshire carbon neutral by 2030
· Establish carbon baseline and renewables baseline
Wiltshire Council Cabinet committed to make Wiltshire Council carbon neutral by 2030.
A Global Warming and Climate Emergency task group has been established to consider: Renewable energy generation, energy use and efficiency in the following areas: -
· Planning
· Transport and air quality
· Waste
· Land use
· Business and industry
· Carbon baseline and renewable energy baseline
Residents requested to consider a Green Pledge and act on some of the following:
• Leave the car at home and walk more
• Take shorter showers and turn off taps when brushing teeth
• Try and use as little single-use plastic as possible
• Use a reusable cup
• Use bags for life
• Recycle as much as you can
• Turn off lights when not using them
• Install a smart meter to help you manage energy use
The Chairman then introduced Cllr Jeremy Nettle, Leader of Salisbury City Council (SCC) gave a presentation on what SCC was doing to tackle Climate Change.
Key Points were: -
Cllr Nettle thanked all who had been involved with the Eco Fair prior to the Area Board and recognised those local groups supporting to include Salisbury Transition City, Salisbury LETS, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, Co-Cars, Extinction Rebellion, Salisbury Area Greenspace Partnership, Salisbury Community Energy, The Pantry Partnership, Salisbury Repair Café, Wiltshire Warm & Safe, Wessex Water, Community Fridge and South Wilts Biodiversity Group.
· SCC declared a Climate Change Emergency at Full Council on 17 June 2019, budgeted £56,000 funding in support and resolved to:-
ü Work to make Salisbury as carbon neutral as possible by 2030
ü Work with partners to achieve “clean air” in Salisbury by 2022, in particular by taking action to reduce vehicle emissions, supporting public transport, cycling and walking
ü Replace or convert all council-owned or operated vehicles to electric powered vehicles as soon as is practically possible
ü Encourage the rapid phasing out of diesel-powered buses in the City by bus operators and their replacement by cleaner or non-polluting alternatives
ü Increase wherever possible the extent of pedestrianised areas within the City centre
ü Undertake a comprehensive programme of improvement of the insulation of all council-owned property,
ü Ensure that such property shall be fitted with solar panels wherever possible
ü Do everything within its power to ensure that such standards should also apply to any new buildings which are permitted within the City
Actions SCC had already taken:
• New recycling bin in the Market Square
• Recycling of domestic waste in kitchens/staffrooms
• Green waste recycling from our parks/open spaces
• Annual Tree planting programme
• Introduction of Wild Flower areas
• Installation of the bottle refill/drinking facility in the market square
• Promoter of the cycle to work scheme
• Staff using bikes to get around the city
• PV solar panels on roof of Guildhall
• Use of mulch on flower beds to reduce watering frequencies
• Policy statement restricting the use of glyphosate weed killer
• Use of LED energy efficient lighting in Shopmobility refurbishment
• Paper recycling
• Introduction of plants in the office to improve air quality
• Home/flexible working
• IT systems in place to reduce paper usage
• Use upcycled materials for our art groups
• Recycling point for ink cartridges and phones
• Use social media whenever we can instead of printing leaflets
• All heating thermostatically controlled
• Updated IT suite using recycled equipment from Guildhall
• Motion sensitive lighting in Guildhall
A copy of the presentation slides are attached for information.
The Chairman then asked those present to work in groups in a round table exercise to come up with their top 5 climate change projects for Salisbury, which could be delivered over the next 12 to 18 months.
The project felt to be the most important from each table included: -
· Education - ask whole communities change their behaviour by educating the children.
· Food - more meat free options in schools.
· Transport – reduce parking capacity in the city centre and increase use of park and ride, improve the train station frontage, ban idling vehicles in the City centre especially trucks and buses, change / better bus routes to go where buses are needed, more car free days,
· Development - New planning applications should not be granted unless they include solar panels, grey water tanks, and are south facing to optimize solar energy.
· Air quality - pedestrianisation of large areas of the City
· More greenspace and use of electric maintenance vehicles.
· Tree planting
· Youth - Support for the strikes and the global impact and youth to be included in the conversation, public signage around climate change.
· Cycling - Improved cycle routes with better signage
· Food Wastage – open a “community fridge”
· Promote solar renewable energy and electric cars through a bulk buying scheme.
It was noted that: -
Wiltshire Council was engaging with other local authorities.
The public proposals would tell Central Government what the people were expecting
The Chairman thanked all for coming, and noted that the lists of ideas would be collected after the meeting and collated into a report which would inform the direction of work moving forward and that the public would be updated of progress generally.