Issue - meetings

Caroline Toplis, Programme Manager – Climate Change introduced the report, which had been circulated in advance of the meeting and presented the Climate Change Programme Dashboard for Quarter 3 2022-2023. The Dashboard had been developed to provide details on performance against delivery of the Council’s Climate Change Strategy: Achieving Net Zero (2021-2025) (the ‘Strategy’).

The report was accompanied by a presentation that highlighted the key points.  It was noted that no priority actions had been allocated and the focus areas being concentrated on being:

·        Council estate and operations;

·        Low carbon economy – a lot of work was being done around skills alongside the D2N2 LEP;

·        Decarbonising the domestic sector – using avenues such as signposting;

·        Transport, travel and infrastructure – funding had been secured and emphasis was being placed on improving access to charging points; and

·        Waste – a great deal of work was being undertaken with district and borough councils.

Steps were being taken to bring the 15 Review-rated actions back on track, in particular those that had the potential for the biggest negative impact on achieving net zero.  Many of the 27 targets in the Strategy were outside the direct control of the Council, with progress being reviewed annually.  Interim targets were introduced where possible and would be reviewed again in Autumn 2023.

Committee posed a number of questions.  No date was available for the publication date of the Local Energy Plan however it was imminent.  Concerns were expressed around the scoring of some of the actions provided; these were taken on board by officers.  The retro-fitting  and carbon reduction of homes was currently influenced by what was available locally.

The Committee agreed to look into how to further reduce emissions and ‘the grey fleet’; these would be included to the Committee’s work programme.

RESOLVED to note the content of the Climate Change Programme Dashboard detailed in Appendix 2.