Agenda, decisions and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Robin Bastable and Malcolm Cavill.

It was noted that Councillors Hayward Burt, Nicola Clark, Karl Gill, and Tricia O’Brien would be joining the meeting later.

To approve and sign the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday, 15^th October 2020.

The minutes of the Council meeting held on 15^th October 2020, copies of which had been previously circulated, were approved as a correct record of the meeting and signed by the Chairman.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the Agenda for this meeting.

Members are reminded that they need to declare the fact that they are also a member of a County, Town or Parish Council as a Personal Interest.  Where you are also a member of Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council within South Somerset you must declare a prejudicial interest in any business on the agenda where there is a financial benefit or gain or advantage to Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council which would be at the cost or to the financial disadvantage of South Somerset District Council. 

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

There were no questions from members of the public.

The Chairman advised that former-District Councillor John Farley had passed away earlier in the week.  He had been a District Councillor for Milborne Port from 1995 until 2007, holding positions as Vice-Chairman of Area East Committee and a member of District Executive.  He was also a County Councillor for the Blackmoor Vale Division and he served on the Milborne Port PC from 1987 to 2015, being the Chair for a number of years.  He said that many Councillors remembered him as a true gentleman and their thoughts were with his partner at this time.  On retiring from SSDC in 2007, he was one of the first retiring Councillors to be made an Alderman. 

The Chairman also thanked the Members who had recently attended the two planning workshops, the officers for arranging them and the Portfolio Holder, Cllr Tony Lock.   

He noted that the country was once again in a lockdown period due to Covid-19 which once again put a strain on the Council, local residents and businesses.  He paid tribute to SSDC staff who had risen to the challenge and asked Members for their patience in dealing with them.  He asked that Members encourage local businesses in their Wards to apply for the new business grants and also to look out for vulnerable residents.

Finally, he reminded Members of a workshop being held on Monday 30^th November at 5.15pm to discuss the Stronger Somerset business case, followed by District Executive and Full Council meetings on 3^rd December to agree the submission to the Secretary of State by 9^th December 2020.

The Chairman’s engagement was noted.

The Portfolio Holder for Environment introduced Tom Jennings from Kiwi Power, who were the business partners to the joint venture company SSDC – Opium Power Ltd.  She said they were energy storage optimisers to maximise the return on the investment and the asset performance.  She said this was a fast growing market and was pleased to welcome Mr Jennings to explain this green energy provision.

Mr Jennings provided a power point presentation and advised that:-

·         Battery stored energy would help towards supporting the net-zero carbon future

·         Electricity demand must equal electricity generation on a day to day basis

·         The changing sources of electricity generation from 2000 were nuclear, coal, gas, energy from France and hydro-electricity.  By 2010, wind power was increasingly important. By 2020 coal was switched to bio-mass and there was a huge increase in wind power.

·         By 2025 it was anticipated that off-shore wind would generate a greater amount of the required electricity and solar energy generation would peak during daylight hours to create excess energy. Therefore the storage of the excess generated energy would fill the gaps in demand.

·         The use of batteries to store the renewable energy to when it was required would help to achieve the net-zero carbon future.

·         The increased use of electric vehicles would increase the demand of energy overnight and this needed to be managed.

·         Increased use of electric heating would increase demand for energy during the day and particularly in the evening in winter.

·         Electricity had become as important as food and the security of supply was equally important.

·         There was a huge opportunity for growth in the battery balancing and energy trading markets.

·         It was estimated that there would be a 20% increase in energy demand which would be driven by electric heating and electric vehicles and there was 150 GWh to fill, predominantly by battery storage of energy.

In response to questions from Members, Mr Jennings of Kiwi Power and Tim Humpage of British Renewables advised:-

·         Large localised energy storage units would be built across the country to meet demand

·         The smallest units for a residential property battery storage could be 20KWh which would take solar energy through the day to use the power at night.

·         The battery storage site in Taunton was 30MWh.

·         Life cycle of the battery storage sites was 7 to 10 years and all of the batteries were fully recyclable.

·         Capturing the energy from the solar array across the South West would be a huge move towards net carbon zero.

·         The electricity meters at the storage site in Taunton were read remotely every 30 minutes.

·         The batteries used at the Taunton site were lithium and they had a regular maintenance cycle and information on this could be provided.

·         Battery installations were the same as any power plant with a maintenance contract.  Testing would be carried out each year to ensure the batteries were within warranty parameters.  The batteries had a degradation curve and they did not all fail together so systematic replacement was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 192.

(Voting: unanimous in favour)

The Portfolio Holder for Environment advised that this was a county-wide strategy which set out the ambitions of the 5 Somerset Authorities to tackle climate change.  She said it would also take the commitment of every resident, organisation and business in Somerset to embed the ambitions and achieve carbon neutrality.  A significant amount of work had gone into producing the document, the goals were ambitious and not all the answers were known but it was a significant step towards achieving net carbon zero in Somerset.  The strategy would evolve and would probably be very different in 5 years time.  She noted the 3 goals of the strategy:

·         To decarbonise Local Authorities, the wider public sector estates and reduce our carbon footprint

·         To work towards making Somerset a Carbon Neutral County by 2030

·         To have a Somerset which is prepared for, and resilient to, the impacts of Climate Change

She concluded by thanking the officers and Members of the Scrutiny Task and Finish group who had helped to guide the strategy document, and she proposed that the Somerset's Climate Emergency Strategy be adopted by Council.

During discussion the following points were made:-

·         The accompanying Equality Impact Assessment had identified that some groups of people would be disadvantaged by the Strategy, but, there were mitigation measures in place.

·         The breadth of the tackling climate change was enormous but the strategy document was very impressive and had embraced the subject well and in fine detail and was a great example of co-operation between the Somerset Councils.

·         The Strategy document needed some ‘poetry’ to engage and sell it to the community.

·         There was a climate emergency grant for Active Travel available for Parish Councils to link droves and footpaths and cycleways.

In response to questions from Members, the Portfolio Holder for Environment, the Lead Specialist for Strategic Planning and the Leisure and Recreation Manager advised:-

·         Health care providers had not been a key stakeholder involved in developing the strategy to date but when it came to delivering the actions they would be involved.

·         The Portfolio Holder was working with 3 Active Travel groups across Area East to implement some multi-user paths across the district.

·         There was a new Lead Specialist for Communities who was discussing with health providers the green referral system and this could be linked with rights of way and footpaths being accessible and our wider green tourism offer.

The Leader of Council congratulated the Portfolio Holder and the officers involved from the 5 councils for producing the detailed document and seconded its adoption by Council.

A named vote was taken and the Somerset Climate Emergency Strategy – “Towards a Climate Resilient Somerset” was unanimously agreed by all Members

(Voting: unanimous in favour)

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services introduced the report which was the mid-year review of the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy.  He noted that external borrowing was reduced and some investments had matured.  He said the Treasury team were already working to meet the future needs of the Council and there was still uncertainty in the markets caused by the pandemic.  He asked that Members note the actual and forecast treasury performance and approved the updated Treasury Management Strategy Statement and Investment Strategy for 2020/21.

The proposal was seconded by Councillor Martin Carnell and Members were content to confirm the recommendations without dissent.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services paid tribute to the finance team for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic as they had administered the government grants scheme whilst keeping Treasury Management and other finance operations going.

(Voting: unanimous in favour)

(Voting: unanimous in favour)

The Leader of Council advised that although Councillor Cavill was improving, he would not be able to attend meetings for the foreseeable future.  She wished him well in his recovery and asked that Members support the recommendation to grant him a dispensation from attending meetings until June 2021.

This was seconded by Councillor Adam Dance.

Councillor Linda Vijeh advised that Councillor Cavill was now able to cycle to regain his fitness and was in good spirits.

Councillor Peter Seib thanked the two Councillors who were dealing with Councillor Cavill’s case work during his illness.  He said it was a tribute to how SSDC worked that this was being done on a cross-party basis. 

Members unanimously confirmed the approval of the dispensation for Councillor Malcolm Cavill until June 2021.

(Voting: unanimous in favour)

The report of Executive Decisions was NOTED.

The Chairman of the Audit Committee noted that Council had agreed the Treasury Management report and the next meeting would discuss the Council’s Annual Governance Statement and the Statement of Accounts.  He noted that they were due to undertake training the following week prior to looking at the Statement of Accounts.

The report of the Audit Committee was NOTED.

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee advised that they were pleased to see how well the Council’s Treasury Management had performed and the finance team should be congratulated for this.

The report of the Scrutiny Committee was NOTED.

There were no Motions submitted by Members.

There were no Motions submitted by Members. 

The following questions were submitted by Councillor Colin Winder under Procedure Rule 10:

The council received a letter on the 1^st of October from Natural England about the levels of phosphate pollution effecting large areas of Somerset.  This pollution was causing problems within the planning system, both for agricultural development, and development for housing development.  There appeared to be a diversity of agencies responsible for areas of control, but no overall body with the legal backing to ensure total  pollution control.

The Environment Bill is at present at the committee stage in the House of Commons.  I searched this week through the list of written submissions and could find nothing from South Somerset, or the joint Somerset district councils.  The Bill proposes the formation of “An Independent Office for Environment Protection” which I would expect to control pollution and provide the overriding body to deal with cross departmental problems, which is at present missing.  It is essential to understand that Nature does not read policy documents, or abide by district or county boundaries.

My question is:-

(1)     have SSDC made representation to the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs to ensure that pollution of our rivers and streams is covered by the proposed Office for Environment Protection (OEP).

(2)     if you have not submitted a written representation to the committee on the Environment Bill can you do so?  This is a critical problem throughout the district.   

Councillor Tony Lock, as Portfolio Holder for Protecting Core Services responded:

1)    The Council had not submitted representations on the Environment Bill.

2)    The Somerset Local Planning Authorities have been proactively working together to address the phosphates issue in relation to the Somerset Levels and Moors and the impact this is having on development within the catchment. A cross-departmental meeting will be held in due course to include MHCLG, Defra, Natural England and the Environment Agency. We aim to seek assurances that the condition of the Somerset Levels and Moors is able improve over the longer term with ‘fair share’ contributions to minimising phosphate pollution, from all sources.  The Authority were working with other Somerset Councils who were similarly affected to raise the profile of the phosphates issue with local MP’s, Government Departments and the Local Enterprise Partnership to name a few.  The Chief Executive had sent a letter to the 2 local MP’s to raise concerns, therefore it was considered that the Council was communicating effectively with Government on this issue. 

Councillor Sarah Dyke, as Portfolio Holder for Environment responded:

3)    The Commons Library analysis of the Environment Bill 2019-20 explains that the role of the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) is to replace the function of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in respect of environmental laws once the UK leaves the EU.   The Environment Bill therefore proposes to create an independent body to monitor progress and establish an effective approach to environmental regulation.

The principal objective of the OEP is to contribute to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 200.

The Chairman thanked Councillors for attending the meeting, at which important decisions had been taken.

Members noted that there would be a Special meeting of the Full Council on Thursday, 3^rd December 2020 as a virtual meeting using Zoom meeting software commencing at 6.30 p.m. to discuss the Stronger Somerset Business Case.