Agenda item

The Portfolio Holder for Environment thanked the staff working in the Community of Practice for their work and the projects which they had brought forward.  She provided the following verbal update on the progress of the Council’s Environment Strategy:-

Energy audit

It has been recognised in the Environment Strategy work that in order to meet our target of being carbon neutral by 2030 we need to significantly reduce our energy use.  It was decided earlier this year that to enable us to make some informed decision about how to do that we would need to engage some expert help to assess our options. Following a successful tender process we appointed Engie to carry out a detailed energy audit of our top 10 energy use sites to provide us with the basis for that options appraisal.

Despite all the challenges of the Covid pandemic, the survey was carried out week commencing 22^nd June. The draft report on our buildings was received last week and we have already started conversations with Engie and our property team to think about next steps. We will shortly be working up some business cases for further consideration. The final report is expected by the end of August and this will give a us a road map to getting our buildings to carbon neutrality.

Electric Vehicle charging

Following some amazing work by the team an opportunity was identified to partner with the DELETTI (Devon Low carbon Energy & Transport Technology Innovator) project to deliver a network of EV charges points across the district in SSDC car parks and estate.  In order to join this project we needed to secure funding and this was approved by District Executive at their July committee.  The tender is due to go out in September.

The project will allow SSDC to extend the EV charging network to meet the increasing demands and will link up with private enterprises, parish and town councils, neighbouring District Councils and Somerset County Council.

The initial plan is to have a charging points at a minimum 17 locations with two connectors at each completed by December 2021.  SSDC will partner with DELETTI – (Devon Low-carbon Energy & Transport Technology Innovator), Devon County Council and most of the Devon District Councils to facilitate this project.

Future phases could expand this network still further in a range of locations based on feedback from our communities and usage data from the initial sites.

Further details can be found in the District Executive report and associated business plan.

Environment Champion survey

As part of our engagement work we have developed a network of Environment Champions throughout our towns and parishes.  We had planned a workshop in April to develop and share ideas however, the pandemic prevented that from taking place.  To keep momentum going we therefore switched to a survey which was sent to all our champions.  We had a great response and are now collating the results.  Much of this is capturing all the good work that is taking place already in our communities, along with ideas for future work and requests for help and support. 

Once we have collated all the information we will share this with Members and other stakeholders.

Following the success of this, and our desire to capture positive environmental outcomes of the pandemic, we will shortly be issuing a members survey. 

Tree planting

Tree planting across the district exceeded our 1,000 per year target for last year with SSDC planting 3,560 on its own estate and a further 3,050 being planted by parishes as part of the Great Parish Tree Giveaway. Work is ongoing to secure further grant funds for the coming planting season and this includes applications to the Urban Tree Challenge for projects across the district and confirmation of £7,000 of grants for planting at Yeovil Country Park in partnership with Friends of the Country Park.

Open Spaces Strategy

Officers from across the CoP are pulling together an Open Spaces Strategy that will set the direction and priorities for green space management in our district. This will introduce themes around resilience, healthy and liveable South Somerset and ensure key elements like climate change are well handled in our future management of spaces. The strategy is delayed due to officer availability at the beginning of this year but with support from Strategy and Commissioning the draft document should be with members by the autumn.

Newsletter

The first environment e-newsletter was issued in mid-July. This new monthly newsletter will include details on progress of SSDC led projects, best practice case studies both locally and nationally and links to consultations where we are keen to harness a local response. The newsletter will be sent to environment champions both in our parishes and internally and all Members for your information. If you have subjects you would like included, or suggested case studies, then please contact the team.

Carbon Footprint

Finally – the updated carbon footprint for SSDC and its operations will be with you for the next Full Council meeting. Giving a comparison between last year and the first year of calculating our carbon impact. We have actually seen an improvement in our carbon footprint, which is great.  We believe this year it is probably largely due to reduced heating demand following a warmer winter.  With all our plans evolving hopefully we can continue this downward trend over coming years.

The Chairman thanked the Portfolio Holder for Environment for her update on a wide number of environmental activities

In response to questions, the Portfolio Holder for Environment and the Leader of Council confirmed:-

·         a written response would be provided to the question of the Council’s intentions regarding building on existing play areas or public open space owned by SSDC. 

·         feedback on the Great Parish Tree Giveaway would be provided.

·         Monitoring the use of the electric vehicle charging points when installed should be possible and information on this would be provided.

·         SSDC were part of the active travel cell with SCC and were working with SCC to encourage school students to walk or cycle to school.

·         Provision of schools within walking distance of homes was within the planning system and walking routes to schools through built up areas, linking footpaths with crossings allowed students to walk or cycle to school.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members were pleased to note the verbal update on the progress of the Environment Strategy.