Agenda item

(Voting: 33 in favour, 0 against, 1 abstention)

The Chairman reminded Members that he had agreed this item would be brought forward as an urgent item of business under Part 4 of the Council’s Constitution: Access to Information Procedure Rules, Point 15: General Exception, and Point 16: Special Urgency.

The Portfolio for Environment advised that a report had been presented to District Executive the previous month to request additional funding to complete phase 1 of the decarbonisation programme.  She said the overall cost of the programme had not changed however, due to the design issue with the air-source heat pumps, the programme had slipped and most of the works would be completed and invoiced after 30 June.  It was also unlikely that an upgrade to the electrical supply to the centres would be undertaken as the electrical network operator could not guarantee to quote and invoice before mid-July.  The 30 June was the deadline by which the majority of works had to be completed in order to be able to pay them from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) grant of £3.9m.  If a short extension to the grant period was allowed then the request would not be needed however, the Government had indicated an extension would not be granted.  She thanked the officers for their work in compiling the report and said the proposals would contribute towards the Council’s target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.  She outlined the options considered as listed in the report and said the recommendation was to proceed with the decarbonisation works with capital funding from other decarbonisation projects in order to complete the project by September 2022. 

In response to a questions from Members, the Director for Service Delivery and the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services confirmed:-

·         there would be no increase in rent for the tenants of the buildings due to the decarbonisation works being undertaken.

·         The risks were owned by SSDC and not the contractor and the carbon footprint of the building needed to be neutral.

·         Numerous representations had been made to the Government to extend the deadline for the grant funding beyond 30 June without success.

·         The proposal was to draw on phase 2 contingency funding rather than from the general contingency budget.

·         The financial impact was high but the works would lock in the energy savings from decarbonisation.

·         The operator had also suffered increased costs and were keen to progress the works as they had also contributed towards them.

The Portfolio Holder for Environment confirmed that a separate report would be presented to Members for the phase 2 decarbonisation works prior to going out to tender and there would be sufficient funding within phase 2 to carry out the urgent works.  She proposed the recommendations and they were seconded by Councillors Peter Seib and Mike Best.  A vote was taken and the recommendations were confirmed by 33 votes in favour, 0 against and 1 abstention.

(Voting: 33 in favour, 0 against, 1 abstention)