Agenda item

Councillor Sarah Dyke, as Portfolio Holder for Environment, noted that it had been a number of months since Council had received an update on the work being undertaken as part of the Environment Strategy and she invited officers to make the presentation.

With the aid of a power point presentation, the Lead Specialist for Environment and the Leisure and Recreation Manager updated Members on some of their key achievements over the last 6 months.  They thanked Members for their support, including from the Scrutiny task and finish group to deliver on the Council priority.  Some of their key achievements over the last 6 months:

Carbon footprint -

We have previously reported that our baseline carbon footprint in 2018-19 was 1650.42 tonnes CO2 equivalent. Our annual target to get to carbon neutrality by 2030 is 105 each year. You will remember we met that last year and we are confident we will do so again for 2020-21.  We do not yet have the figures available but we are now collating energy and fuel use data and would hope to be in position to report that at our next update at June Full Council

Energy retrofit and supply -

In order to continually drive down our carbon footprint we need to find ways to cut our energy use.  In October we reported that we had received the energy audit report from Engie on some of our buildings.  After that meeting an opportunity became available to apply for a grant under the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.  The deadlines for pulling for application together were very short but with the work we had already with Engie we were able to partner with them to submit an application for energy improvement measures across our own estate.

After some nail biting weeks were finally heard we were successful in securing £3,993,846.  Work is now underway to complete the detailed design phase of that project.  Work is due to be complete by end September this year.  There is a whole project team working on delivering this right across the organisation. The main works will involve decarbonising heating to ground or air source heat pumps, solar PV installation, LED lighting and some insulation work.

At the same time we have exploring how to switch our energy contract to a fully renewable supplier. This proved more complicated than was first anticipated and so we now have a Scrutiny Task and Finish group working on a project to assess the available options and make some recommendations.  This is a crucial part of the work to meet our sustainability and carbon target as we move away from gas use.

Community Climate Activity  -

Whilst much of our work has been around our own carbon footprint we are also looking at ways to support our community to become more carbon neutral as well.  As part of that work we also submitted an application to the Local Authority Delivery Green Homes Grant.  We were again successful in being awarded a grant of £803K to deliver retrofit insulation to hard to treat park homes across the district.  This project is also now underway and we hope to start works on site over the next couple of months.

We are working on a checklist as part of the planning validation checklist to help ensure climate impacts are picked up at an early stage for any new developments.

Green Transport -

We are continuing to work with the Devon Low carbon Energy and Transport Technology Innovator (DELETTI) EV charging project to deliver the 25 charging sites for electric vehicles across our district.  This work has unfortunately suffered delays due to covid but the tender process has now been completed and the main contractor has been appointed.  Works are due to be complete by the end of the year and we are currently a more specific timeline for South Somerset

In association with Co-Cars we have issued a short online survey to gauge interest on establishing a community-led electric car club for South Somerset. Results will be analysed when the survey closes at the end of April and further work completed on viability and feasibility if there is sufficient interest in such a scheme.   

In October we had just heard we had been successful in our application to take part in the DfT e-scooter trial.  After a few teething issues the trial in Yeovil has been a great success with 330 users having taken 8,452 journeys across the town.

The trial has just been started its second phase and been expanded to Crewkerne and Chard. Whilst we have again seen some teething issues – mostly with inappropriate riding of the scooters, the team are working hard to resolve these and hope it will see the same success as in Yeovil. The trial is part of helping us to research and develop a broad portfolio of active and electric travel options for our residents as we seek to provide alternative non fossil fuel modes of transport.

Community Engagement & Communications  -

Our communications plan continues to deliver a range of environmental messages on a weekly, seasonal and thematic basis. Since we last updated in October there have been a total of 31 social media posts across a range of subjects from Christmas tree recycling, e-scooter roll out, the Great Garden Birdwatch, energy switch campaigns, the Solar Streets project and how to collect and grow trees from seed. Most popular have been the e-scooter trials, particularly the heat maps showing usage. 

In addition to online media we also issued press releases across a range of subjects including car share schemes, Green Flag Awards and our own South Somerset community grants scheme.

After targeted communications the South Somerset community grants scheme has seen an increase in applications across a range of environmental themes including support for land purchases where it is of nature conservation importance, supporting work on threatened species and green energy, in the last year £29,434 has been awarded to help towards the realisation of 7 local community environment projects (total cost of projects £266,478).

The team continues to engage with the growing network of Environment Champions (57 at the last count) that we are fostering across the district. Zoom networking events have successfully run covering the topics of Nature Recovery and Community Energy, and next week we have a session programmed in about Recycle More with Somerset Waste Partnership. The team have been developing working relationships with the Champions to give the bespoke support that is required in each of our very different parishes, whether that be a focus on waterway management or EV charging points.

We created a spring resource pack that has been well received, with some basic principles of ecological management and a number of helpful links on how to start surveying and monitoring habitats and species in your area. The idea was it provide that first step for Champions that want to start understanding the ecology of their area so they can consider future management and how to influence it. In the pack we have set out information about verge management, explained the basics of managing for wildflowers and suggested routes in to influence the owners and managers of verges.

Get Sussed continues to be created and issued monthly. It has evolved and grown as a publication to include case studies from our own parishes and feedback remains overwhelmingly positive. It even has international reach now! It is now sent to 773 recipients and has an average open rate (over last 6 months) of 34%. Across the months our most popular articles have been October; Zwings e-scooter launch, November; The big clean switch, energy saving advice from CSE, December; Entrade Somerset Catchment Market, January; the County Climate Emergency Carbon Reduction Grants, February; the CoCars Electric Car Sharing Scheme Survey and in March our Spring Resource Pack was most popular.

Finally on communications, a new South Somerset Environment website is well under way, construction is complete and the team are populating the pages with a range of local resources and information plus details and links to national schemes. This will become the home of the Green Directory and that content is gathered from our businesses across the district. We aim to launch the new pages by the end of June.

Trees and Woodland –

In line with the Strategy work continues to enable tree planting across SSDC land and out in our communities. We delivered the Great Parish Tree Giveaway (under more difficult circumstances for our communities this year) with 15 parishes taking part and 775 trees given out and now in the ground. A further 2,225 trees were handed out to community groups, local farmers and our own Environment Services team who using them across a range of projects to provide further woodland in Ilminster and for hedgerow enhancement.

At Yeovil Country Park 570 trees have been externally funded and planted at the bottom of Wyndham Hill and in Pit wood at Ham Hill 100 trees were planted as part of the Countryfile ambition to plant a tree for every reception child.

Three Urban Tree challenge sites in Martock and Chard received plantings in March totalling 900 trees.

This means that this year a total of 2,270 trees have been planted on SSDC land with a further 3,300 enabled on community land. This bring the totals, since the adoption of the Strategy, to 7,266 on SSDC land and 6,360 community plantings.

Open Spaces Strategy -

The Open Spaces Strategy is progressing but is delayed from our initial delivery estimates. We are currently awaiting data back on tree canopy cover for the district and for a play and youth facilities audit; all of which will feed into the strategy and make its recommendations truly data driven. The outputs of these audits will also feed into the Local Plan review. Discussions across the Environment CoP and other councils have shown us that we can integrate thinking around green infrastructure into this strategy; meaning we think more widely than our greenspace islands (parks) and more holistically, at the bigger connected picture which is vitally important for both plants, animal and humans!

In the coming weeks we will be launching a resident’s survey to understand their current views of our greenspaces and what their aspirations may be for the future. Surveying at this time will also enable us to ensure our recovery work is informed and pertinent as a response to the huge increase in use of our green spaces during the pandemic. 

Joint Working -

The work of the Local Nature Partnership continues with new work streams for Nature Recovery Networks and food and farming. We are actively engaged with this work and expect to see more detailed maps later this summer that identify high quality biodiverse areas of nature conservation priority versus spaces that could provide important links or extensions, thus creating the desired networks for nature. Once we have maps for the South Somerset area than we can work with our environment champions to explore and explain how to conserve, survey or extend the spaces in their areas.

We are leading on the coordination and submission of a grant application to the Green Recovery Fund in partnership with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group. The project would seek £250,000 to install nature based solutions e.g. tree planting, to mitigate flooding and nutrient run off from higher ground in various areas of the district. Combining the data of FWAG, our community links and expert knowledge from both sides, has built a successful project that now needs project funding. 

We continue to actively work with other local community groups like Reimagining the Levels and organisations like CSE to ensure we are presenting the best opportunities to our communities and securing grant funding wherever possible.

The Leader of Council asked that a copy of the presentation slides be made available to Members and asked that the environmental achievements and projects be publicised more widely.

In response to a question, the Lead Specialist for Environment confirmed that the grant received for energy improvement measures would be used on the main SSDC buildings which had been identified as the highest energy users, including the Jon O’Donnell building, the Ninesprings Café and the Ham Hill Rangers office.

At the conclusion of the debate, Portfolio Holder for Environment thanked the Lead Specialist for Environment and the Leisure and Recreation Manager and their teams for their work during the year and the grant funding they had been successfully gained for various projects.  In response to a question, she confirmed that officers worked closely with all key stakeholders across the district, including the Blackdown Hills AONB. 

The Chairman also thanked the officers and their team for the work they were doing and for their grant success and the number of trees planted.

Members were pleased to note the verbal update on the progress of the SSDC Environment Strategy.

NOTED.