To receive presentations from:
· Tracy Carter, Waste Management and Carbon Reduction Lead for Wiltshire Council
· Stourhead - Local Biomas Estate
· Local Initiatives and Groups
Minutes:
Wiltshire Council
Richard Clewer, Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Heritage, Arts, Tourism, Housing, Climate Change and Military-Civilian Integration gave a presentation on what Wiltshire Council was doing to tackle Climate Change.
In February 2019 Wiltshire Council resolved to:
· Acknowledge that there is a climate emergency
· Seek to make the county of Wiltshire carbon neutral by 2030
· Establish carbon baseline and renewables baseline
Cabinet committed to make Wiltshire Council carbon neutral by 2030
County of Wiltshire:
• Strategy development – county of Wiltshire carbon neutral by 2030
• Local Plan review
• Local Transport Plan 4
• Air Quality Strategy
• Swindon and Wiltshire Local Economic Partnership – Local Industrial Strategy and Local Energy Strategy
All to contain policies and actions in support of carbon reduction
• Establishing carbon baseline and renewable energy baseline
Carbon and renewable energy baselines
• Further work required to ensure baselines are robust
• Wiltshire Council in discussion with
o Local universities
o Anthesis Group (SCATTER)
o Swindon and Wiltshire Local Economic Partnership
o Local Government Association
o Other local authorities
SCATTER – setting city area targets and trajectories for emissions reduction
• Total level of emissions for county of Wiltshire 3,465k tCO2e or 7 tCO2e per head
• Highest emissions from on-road transport and residential buildings
• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy publish renewable energy statistics by local authority area
• Total renewable energy from county of Wiltshire 684.5MW with 593.5MW from solar farms
Wiltshire Council
• SCATTER – setting city area targets and trajectories for emissions reduction
• Total level of emissions for county of Wiltshire 3,465k tCO2e or 7 tCO2e per head
• Highest emissions from on-road transport and residential buildings
• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy publish renewable energy statistics by local authority area
• Total renewable energy from county of Wiltshire 684.5MW with 593.5MW from solar farms
• Investment in energy efficiency and energy generation on the council’s estate of £5.2m
• Investment of £3.5m for canopy based solar panels
• Investment of £12m to convert street lights to LED lighting
• Reduction in waste to landfill from 56% in 2008-09 to 16% in 2018-19
• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from council’s estate and operations from 26k tCO2e in 2014-15 to 16k tCO2e in 2018-19
• Friends of the Earth found Wiltshire Council to be the best performing local authority in England and Wales – but we know even the best performing need to do much more
Green Pledge
• 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
People were urged to have a think about the changes they could make, and to sign up to the Wiltshire Green Pledge.
Visit
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/green-economy-climate-emergency
to make your pledge – it only takes a couple of
minutes.
Questions and comments included:
· You quoted Co2 – it would be good to see another slide which details how much could be saved by carrying out the suggested green pledge tasks.
· Why does Wiltshire not do food waste collection? Answer: It is expensive because of the large rural area, it will be covered in next item. Cllr Wayman added that for those that disposed of food waste could buy a subsidised green Joanna for composting.
· Street lighting, if you are going to invest in LED’s, starting in Chippenham, how long will it take to come down here? Answer It is a two-year programme. The new LED’s can be dimmed at 8.30pm and further dimmed at 10pm or programmed to be switched totally off. In the forward work programme, it states the work will come down here towards April 2020.
· Reducing carbon emissions and renewable energy – are you able to do anything about carbon soils and trees. Answer: We need to look at the whole picture, I would much rather make significant changes in reducing the amount of carbon going out.
· You need to consider the colour of the LEDs as some colours affect people.
· Planting trees and protecting other eco systems – you also need to think in terms of broader eco services that nature provides, it is vital you include this in your Strategy, and should be a core part of it. Answer: We are having discussions with the military in where we can put trees back on the plain.
· Maybe you could have a steering group with all of those organisations in the community?
· There is a certain amount of self-help we can do, like saplings for communities to plant themselves. The recycling centre for Salisbury is atrocious is there a plan to replace that? Answer: The plan is to move the depot when an alternative is identified, this is part of the Depot Strategy.
· Bearing in mind this is an emergency, you are talking about this time next year, but there are things you can do now. There are two companies that do 100% renewable energy. Answer: We have done this.
· There’s no point in burning the heat in a house that hasn’t been lagged, you need to enforce the same restrictions and requirements on the extensions and existing buildings too. Answer: We need to look at how we can make the government framework work for us.
The Board was looking to existing local groups to share their work, with the aim of spreading the word of what could be achieve locally.
Local Initiatives and Groups
Nadder Community Energy
We have 16 buildings so far; our first project was farm buildings and the second was solar panels on schools.
Electric car club – This is a rural area car club. There will be an installation of an electric parking bay at Nadder Centre, people can sign up and use the car.
Tisbury Mobile Refill Shop
This is where people can bring their own container to refill products from our vehicle which will travel through the villages.
Nadder Centre
This building is virtually carbon neutral, there is a charging point outside for electric cars.