69
Ben Plummer, Climate Emergency Project Officer, attended the meeting to present
the report and assist the Panel with its enquiries. The Officer’s report provided the
Panel with an overview of the progress which had been made in the preceding
municipal year.
The Panel were advised that as part of declaring a Climate Emergency, Colchester
Borough Council (the Council) had resolved to reduce its emissions to net zero by
2030. The Council had established a baseline of its emissions in 2018/2019, and the
most recent calculations, which had been completed for the financial year
2020/2021, showed that there had been a 17.4% reduction in emissions compared
to the baseline figures. The net zero target included gas, electricity and water
consumption in all the Council’s buildings, and work had recently been undertaken to
estimate emissions associated with working form home. Fuel consumption from the
Council’s fleet was also considered, together with the emissions associated with staff
commuting and business travel.
Considered separately to the Council’s net zero emission target were what is known
as ‘scope three’ emissions, which were indirect emissions associated with goods and
services procured by the Council. Also included in scope three emissions were
buildings which the Council owned and leased out, and the Council’s own housing
stock.
The Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan consisted of eight themes and over
fifty actions, and the themes were:
1. Reducing emissions from our buildings and fleet to help achieve a net zero
carbon footprint by 2030
2. Produce renewable energy
3. Enhance biodiversity and protect our environment
4. Facilitate walking, cycling and sustainable transport around Colchester
5. Provide sustainable waste management and support residents to reduce,
reuse and recycle
6. Enable partnerships and community action for sustainability and low carbon
development
7. Ensure sustainable planning and development
8. Change the way we work to achieve our climate commitment
Highlights of achievements under each theme over the preceding municipal year had
been set out in the Officer’s report.
Officers had identified key areas of priority for the forthcoming municipal year. Work
would be carried out on a new Carbon Management Plan for the Council in
conjunction with a consultant to examine the Council’s estate to determine whether
improvements in emissions, energy efficiency and carbon reduction could be made.
Work with key partner organisations in the borough would continue, for example
Essex County Council and the University of Essex to ensure that any synergies in
the work of partner organisations could be taken advantage of. Examples of joint
projects included oyster conservation and the reduction of single use plastics by
business in the town centre. Communities were to be encouraged to take action on
environmental issues, in line with the Council’s approach around asset based
community development, through the use of existing projects such as local bicycle
hubs and bicycle kitchens.
Several strategies would be developed through the forthcoming year, including the
Blue and Green Infrastructure Strategy, and the Council’s Waste and Recycling
Strategy. These Strategies would be carried forward with the input from the Council’s
Environment and Sustainability Panel and the Policy Panel.
Active and sustainable travel was to be promoted through the introduction of secure
bicycle parking in the town centre, together with shared travel hubs where e-bikes
and e-cargo bicycles would be available for use on a pay per use basis. These
projects were innovative and their success would be monitored very carefully.
Electric car charging points would also be available for the public to use in the
Council’s Priory Street car park, and consideration would be given to other suitable
sites for the installation of additional charging points. Areas which had been
identified in the Council’s Positive Parking Strategy would be explored to determine
whether or not alternative parking locations could be identified away from the town
centre, and it was intended to develop a Supplementary Planning Document on
Climate Change and Sustainability, which would provide additional guidance to
developers.
The Council was aware that emissions would remain which still needed to be
reduced by the 2030 target, and work to understand these was to be undertaken in
conjunction with a consultant, Anthesis Group, who had been developing a concept
called Authority Based Insetting which could allow a Council to reduce carbon
emissions by offsetting these locally.
A Panel member noted that one of the aims of the Council’s Community
Engagement Team was to support residents carrying out tasks such as weeding of
paths and they wondered how communications in respect of this would be managed,
so that residents were aware that the Council may not be clearing certain areas.
How would the Council’s contracts with grounds maintenance contractors be
managed to ensure that good value for residents was still being delivered if some
pathways were no longer being tended to? Mandy Jones, Assistant Director Place
and Client Services confirmed to the Panel that a variety of methods would be used
to control weeds, with a varied cutting regime used for shrub borders and tree bases.
The use of non-glyphosate herbicides had been trialled on hard surfaces and the
efficacy of these methods would monitored. It was accepted that communicating the
Council’s maintenance policy and the reasoning behind this effectively to residents
may pose a challenge, and careful consideration was being given to the provision of
effective communications in the future. A Panel member noted that the Council’s
current grounds maintenance contractor was under contract for a further three years,
after which time it had been the recommendation of the Council’s Policy Panel that
the work be brought back ‘in house’, subject to the necessary Cabinet approvals.
A Panel member enquired about the use that had been made of the Council’s Park
Active scheme, and it was proposed that more comprehensive information about the
project be provided to the Panel as part of the Active Travel and Electric Vehicles
Update which was scheduled to be an agenda item at the January meeting of the
Panel.
In response to an enquiry from a Panel member, Ben Plummer explained that the
Council used a methodology published by a consultancy called EcoAct when
calculating emissions associated with working from home. It was possible to
estimate emissions associated with working from home by using a series of average
energy consumption figures, and the Council had also undertaken a staff survey to
gain further insight into staff behaviours. Obtaining this information would enable an
informed estimate of energy consumption to be made, and a comparison with the
emissions associated with staff commuting to work suggested that there was a slight
benefit in staff working from home in terms of the emissions generated.
At the request of a Panel member, it was confirmed that the survival rate of the trees
which the Council had planted in eleven different green spaces was between 75%
and 94% as at September 2021. The Panel heard that once the trees became larger
then it would be necessary to thin them out as part of the management of the green
spaces. Site visits were offered to Panel members who wished to obtain more details
on how areas of planted woodland were managed. The use of glyphosate
weedkillers had now been phased out completely on green spaces owned and
managed by the Council, and Colchester Borough Homes had also ceased using
these chemicals.
The Panel heard that work had been carried out with one primary school, the Unity
Primary Academy in Greenstead, using funding provided by the Local Government
Association to support a project designed to champion environmental engagement
activities. Funding had been obtained to enable the school to continue to work with
the organisation Together We Grow in the future to create green spaces at the
school. The Council did carry out regular engagement with schools around issues
such as air quality, and was supporting The Essex Schools Green Day in July 2022,
which was a county-wide day devoted to learning about environmental issues, and
celebrating the progress made by schools in reducing their environmental impact.
Additional resources would be shared with other schools during the week of the
Essex Schools Green Day. Additional project work had been undertaken with
schools across the borough, for example in relation to the Woodland and Biodiversity
Project when schools had designed signage to explain to the public the new
methods of land management which were being adopted. The Panel offered its
support in the future with encouraging schools to become involved with future
projects.
A Panel member praised the educational materials that had been provided to
schools in conjunction with the Council’s CARless scheme, and confirmed that they
had shared the videos provided by the Council in support of this scheme. There was
discussion around the CARless signage which had been placed at pollution hotspots
around the town encouraging motorists to turn off their engines, and it was confirmed
to the Panel that signage had been removed and replaced during the scheme in
order to test the effect that it had on engine switch offs. At the conclusion of the
scheme, work would be undertaken with the University of Essex to assess whether
the project had achieved its aims. The Panel was very supportive of the continued
use of signage, and additionally thought that consideration should be given to
attempting to obtain countdown traffic light timers which showed motorists how long
they would have to wait at a set of traffic lights, with the aim of encouraging engines
to be switched off. Interim data which had been collected demonstrated that more
car engines were switched off when the signage was displayed, and engine switch
offs had also increased around schools as a result of the campaign. The Panel
would review the campaign in more detail as part of the scheduled agenda for its
meeting in November 2022.
The Panel requested clarification from Officers around the difference between
emission offsetting and insetting, and were advised that the difference between the
two terms was that insetting was emission offsetting work which was carried out
within the local area, and therefore remained more under the control of the Council.
The idea behind insetting work was that local emission reducing projects would be
created which could include tree planting, the provision of e-cargo bicycles and
working with the private sector and other organisations as potential funding sources
for the projects. It was not anticipated that this work would be able to be undertaken
in the near future, however, the preparatory work which was taking place would be of
key importance to making the projects successful. Work was planned to take place
with the Kent Wildlife Trust on a pilot site within Colchester to gain an idea of the
potential impact a project such as wetland restoration may have on reducing
emissions.
A Panel member had received comments that the voltage provided to the Council’s
Priory Street car park electric vehicle charging points was inadequate, and
additionally had noted that emissions associated with staff business travel were
higher than those associated with commuting. By way of response, Ben Plummer
confirmed that the power provided to the Priory Street charging points was 22
kilowatts, which should be sufficient to fully charge a car in under 4 hours. It was
possible that if all 3 charging points were being used at the same time then there
may be a dip in the power provided, but nothing of this nature had been reported as
yet. The difference between emissions could be explained by the fact that during the
financial year 2020/2021 staff commuting had reduced dramatically due to the Covid19 pandemic, meaning that required business travel, for site visits for example, had
overtaken commuting in terms of emissions generated.
The Panel supported the 8 core themes which had been outlined in the Council’s
Climate Emergency Action Plan, however, it was suggested that an additional theme
could be added around communication. The additional theme could be split into 2
parts; encouraging local residents to get more involved in the Council’s ecological
projects such as tree planting, and communications explaining why the Council was
taking the action that it was taking, and highlighting the successful results of projects.
Mandy Jones confirmed to the Panel that the issue of communications was currently
being considered as part of a wider strategic narrative, and this area of work could
be referred back to the Panel in the future.
RESOLVED that: the contents of the report summarising progress on environment
and sustainability be noted;
AND that: the Council’s related priorities for the coming year had been reviewed and
approved.