Agenda item

MGaynor noted that the report covered the national and international context including the government’s 10 point plan. There was information on the survey Learning from Lockdown that had been done, and on progress with their work within the community. The addendum proposed a move away from a very outdated ISO 14001 environmental management tool to a process delivering far more by work on challenging the climate emergency.

Cllr Birnie considered the report to be exhaustive. However he found it difficult to follow the thread. Whoever wrote the report kept jumping backwards and forwards between different strands of the argument.

Cllr Silwal referred to item 5.3 and the Green Community Grant scheme where applications could be made for up to £2,000 out of a total pot of £10,000 and asked whether, if there were more demand , that would be added to the total pot.

MGaynor said that the proposal was to double the pot to £20,000 this year from within the existing budget, which will allow more schemes to start off. The scheme had encouraged a huge amount of interest from lots of groups and played a crucial part in getting the community to take ownership and a lot of people were desperately committed to these issues. He had the authority to double the budget for this year, which did mean a reduction in other monies available on other issues like corporate research, but if more money were needed, the team would ask for it.

Cllr Silwal said double is fine, but demand may go up

MGaynor hoped that it would.

Cllr Birnie asked if this concerned the Green Home Grant vouchers

Cllr Silwal advised that it did not.

MGaynor explained that this initiative encouraged community groups to bid against criteria that had been established to carry out works which would have a lasting effect and probably stimulate more action from these groups.

Cllr Stevens welcomed the report updating efforts  to counter the climate emergency, but he needed some clarification on, for example,  the current Climate Action Network on page 65 referencing a number of working groups, one of which was a Sustainable Transport group (item 6).

MGaynor clarified that there was a proposal to work towards establishing the Community Action Network within the community, which had nothing to do with the Council’s own work. These were Council Officer subgroups working on specific themes, so the Climate Action Networks were not yet developed but were part of the plans in terms of community action. Subgroups were the particular strands aiming to ensuring we reach zero carbon by 2030.

Cllr Stevens said that in Berkhamstead there were also a number of subgroups looking at the same topic areas. He suggested that something should be done about liaison to avoid duplication and encourage cross fertilization.

MGaynor said the aim of the network was to get all of those groups communicating with each other. The Council’s focus within its subgroups was to deliver the pledge that had been made specifically that the Councils activities become zero carbon, to which had been added encouraging work taking place in the community. The Network was trying to make all of the groups that did exist aware of each other and helping them perhaps to help each other.

MParr added that having a group or a network of the town and parish Councils was something that she was going to look at to see if there was any interest.

Cllr Birnie said surely these ideas should be publicised in the Dacorum Digest and the website.

MGaynor confirmed that would be part of the process as well as social media.

Cllr Stevens found the survey very helpful but he wanted to know what was being done about actually getting some electric charging points into place.

Cllr Birnie said that if they had read the addendum which was published today and filled in the survey then Members would be au fait with this. However, perhaps Melanie had a response.

MParr responded the Council was working with a number of consultants to look at where the best places for charging points were. Around a third of households did not have their own driveways so it was necessary to plan carefully where to put them, one of the barriers being the method of installation. For example, there was a company that could install them into lampposts but permission would be needed from Herts County Council, so these were the sorts of discussions that were taking place behind the scenes, although it may not appear to the public that there was any immediate action. She hoped that the survey showed that the Council was trying to get information to work out where the charge points would be best suited before putting forward a funding application.

MGaynor said that they were also looking at speeding up the installation of EV charging points in the car parks by which they could access £100,000 worth of grants but what had been found within the car parks was that the biggest element of expenditure was ensuring that there was sufficient power to handle the increased demand imposed by the charging points. Electricity supply problems often increased the cost of installation and that case would be made to cabinet so that the installation could hopefully move forward this year.

Cllr Birnie said the report mentioned the car wash site on the magic roundabout as a possible EV charging location, but it seemed that there may be a clash with residential development plans for the site.

MGaynor responded that it may possibly constitute part of a much bigger development site but having a rapid charging garage forecourt on this location would have a huge impact in terms of carbon reduction because it would help enable the increased take up of electric vehicles. There was interest in it from two or three larger companies that were involved in installing EV charging points. Their ideal was a location up at Breakspear to pick up traffic from the M1. But if Dacorum wanted a message of ”look you’re in the centre of town and there is a rapid charging point”, he did not think many people would be upset.

Cllr Timmis had 2 questions, regarding local groups. Flamstead were setting up their own climate change group involving parish councils and local residents which were more focused on the smaller things that people can do, in other words, a change of behaviour which she felt was important. This very comprehensive report, which she thought was brilliant, contained a list of what the UK was doing including nuclear energy, greener maritime and public transport. But these were things that would not immediately influence Flamstead village or be things that the residents could have a lot of impact on. There needed to be support and encouragement for the smaller things that people can do to change behaviour generally, which will add up in the longer term to better climate change awareness.

She asked whether part of the programme was that all the planning permissions for new houses required them to have high levels of insulation and to cut carbon or be carbon neutral, with water saving and so on.

Cllr Birnie intervened to allow the member of the public to ask her question, saying they would return to Cllr Timmis’s question afterwards.

Janet Rook was speaking on behalf of Tring in Transition. They welcomed the report and wished the items within it every success  Regarding the Council’s ambition on building social housing and given that they understand that social housing stock was the largest source of carbon emissions, could they be assured that all new social housing would be carbon neutral and preferably be passive house standard and also that solar PV and solar thermal would be installed as standard? Although the grid was progressively being decarbonised many social housing tenants were likely to be in fuel poverty and as such solar PV and solar thermal would reduce their energy bills. For a typical social housing unit Solar PV installation was under £3,500.

MGaynor responded that the Council’s aim was to make social housing as energy efficient as possible and some recent projects had come quite close to this goal. The passive house was one technique, but not the only technique to move towards zero carbon. But the intention where feasible and practical was that they would have solar PV and thermal. For new build in the future it would be crucial that the government in its Future Homes Standard went for the highest level possible so that homes are as close to zero carbon as they can get. One must be aware, however,  that existing capacity for certain technology like air source heat pumps was quite limited in this country and it would take time for things to move forward.  But a mandated standard which developers cannot go below was absolutely critical and that standard should be as close as possible to zero carbon. One of the Council’s major developments in the future would be Hemel Garden Communities where the Crown Estate was committed to zero carbon across all 11,000 homes. So, gradually the Council was  improving the energy efficiency of its new build Council housing. In particular those in Bulbourne were as close to zero carbon as any they had done so far.

MParr responding to Cllrs Timmis’s earlier question said that she appreciated that community initiatives would be very important in helping to address climate emergency actions. Covid had produced a very frustrating year where she had not been able to really get out to engage with community action. However the Green Community Grants had been one way Officers had been able to invite groups to kick start initiatives but going forward she wanted to launch the Climate Action Network and have all sorts of events throughout the year with training opportunities and an active website that was full of different resources. She would be keeping everyone posted as soon as those resources were available.

MGaynor said they would be vastly improving the climate action elements of the Council websites. At the moment most of the work from IT had been on keeping the systems going well while people worked from home but they would have to make significant progress on sharing of information ensuring that groups were getting in touch with each other about how to take things forward and what they would like to do. It should also be the best place to go where they knew they were going to get objective, scientific and accurate advice on things to do. The community was absolutely key to any success that we would have in the future.

Cllr Riddick was trying to get his head around the numbers under the heading United Kingdom The 10 Point Plan For A Green Industrial Revolution. Under item 7, it stated that the intention was to make UK homes, schools and hospitals greener and more energy efficient, including a target of installing 600,000 heat pumps every year from 2021, implying over 4,000,000. He asked if that was going to be on new build development only and a new requirement under planning because that was going to be twice the number of the government building targets of 300,000 per year.

MGaynor replied that this was the government’s plan which was not for him to support or defend, but given that the annual rate of installation currently of air source heat pumps was 37,000, it might be a somewhat optimistic ambition. However he thought that government needed to be optimistic in ambition to make a significant impact on achieving zero carbon. He had made a slightly rash comment that there were not additional funds put in the budget to stimulate green industries over and above the 12 billion that was already pledged by the government. There had been a House of Commons Environment Audit Committee report which indicated that the government really needed to up its game in terms of the amount of resource it thought it was going to cost to decarbonise the total housing stock and to be honest, it was not possible as it was nearer the £60 to £90 billion. He thought there was a link in Google, if Government’s 10 Point Plan is typed in, you should get the report to read.

Cllr Ransley welcomed the fact that Officers want to work with all the different parishes and she invited them to come to Tring where they have had a climate committee for the last 2 years. What that committee would like to know was what the carbon numbers are for the town. She understood there is a Dacorum figure and members of their committee would like to know what it is for Tring. Because they had signed a pledge to reduce their carbon they needed to know what it was at the moment.

MGaynor said Mel would advise how easy or not that is to get hold of.

MParr said it was hard to get numbers because the base information that they work from was two years behind. For example, it involved so much data that even Officers did not have anything fresher than that. However, someone was sharing online a new data base that she thought was a calculator specifically designed for councils smaller than local authority level. She had it bookmarked ready to come back to and now she had some interest she would revisit it and get back to Cllr Ransley

Cllr Birnie asked that she get back to the whole committee.

Cllr England asked what the projected out turn for CO2 would be when calculating the effect of the Dacorum population increase between 20% and 30%, commensurate with the ESfG.

MGaynor responded that it depended very much on the nature of the new properties that were built and the example he gave about Hemel Garden Communities was one where the aim was that it would be zero carbon, certainly in the built environment and the biodiversity gain that would be achieved from the green areas.  People would obviously still be using cars and some of those emissions would be offset but issues like transport could not be dealt with by a district council or even a County Council. That would be a matter for central government where legislation should mandate a move to vehicles or fuel sources that are non-fossil fuels. So the Council could not undertake to get the whole district or even the borough down to zero carbon. In fact inevitably, with population growth, there would be an increase, but this would be minimised by reducing the impact made by the nature of the new built environment and by other mitigating measures that the Council would adopt.

Cllr England asked if it would be an idea for the committee to recommend that DBC writes to ministers to lobby for progress on the points Mark was raising here.

Cllr Birnie said that was not a decision that would be made by this committee but one that could be made at Council level.

Cllr England asked how unparished areas could coordinate a community response to the climate emergency: could they perhaps use adventure playgrounds or community centre as climate emergency hubs or could neighbourhood action groups be relaunched and supported by DBC to achieve this, he asked.

MParr felt that this was something that would fit well with the Climate Action Network that she wanted to set up. She would be happy to work with any kind of community group and look at ways that everyone could circulate information, whether amongst local schools or local faith groups, or local residents or local allotment holders. She was eager to engage in more brainstorming to identify the different ways to get information into many different areas no matter what people’s interests were, or the way they engaged in society

MGaynor said that places that people focus on already, like community centres, were a good place to start and a lot of it would be done online, It was certainly something that should be encouraged as it would put more pressure on action. If other places in the country were doing the same it could build up a national commitment to do the right things to achieve the ends that they all sought.

Cllr England made a statement on behalf of Cllr McDowell and Tring in Transition.  Given that the bio-diversity emergency was increasingly being recognised as even more dire than the climate emergency, he asked whether Members shared Cllr McDowell’s strong concern about planting more non-native trees and the implication for bio-diversity as stated on pages 10 and 11 on the 2^nd February meeting minutes. They recognised with both pleasure and interest that the paper for agenda item 9 section 8.2 page 71 stated that the 1300 trees planted in February included hazel, holly and full native species and their question was; could these native species be used instead of the non-native species in the tree policy and could progress on achieving this please be reported back to the committee?

MGaynor could not speak with great authority in terms of committing one of the services that he is not responsible for to do something about it.

Cllr Birnie asked who was responsible for it.

MGaynor said ultimately the Council are responsible for the tree policy, which was implemented by Clean Safe and Green under Craig Thorpe. The report showed that a lot of work had been done to determine the best approach in maximising carbon reduction and bio-diversity gain that could be achieved through both planning, new developments and also their own tree maintenance and planting. It was important to make sure that the sites chosen for additional tree planting were ones upon which a genuine bio-diversity gain would be seen because an area which was already strong in its bio-diversity could actually be diminished in bio-diversity by planting trees. He did not have an issue with this request not to use non-native trees and said he would pass the information on to Clean Safe & Green and would report back in due course. He also mentioned his intention to suggest to Cabinet that a carbon offset policy be established as part of any local plan whereby there would be payments from developers who could not achieve the bio-diversity gain that they were supposed to.

Cllr Birnie asked if this was the Carbon And Bio-Diversity Offset Fund that occurs in the report.

MGaynor confirmed that it was

Cllr Anderson said technically this was Cllr Williams portfolio. However he got involved when it was his portfolio. First, he was the one that thought of turning the car wash place into a charging station as the goal here had to be to turn as many old petrol stations into new charging stations because he did not see how cables from street light columns were practical. He also thought of it in that location because it was important to target local journeys. There was still an issue over the reliability of the technology over longer distances and he thought it important to target local journeys in the middle of the town by having a high visibility brand of a very well-known oil company right in the middle of town, setting an example of the way forward in terms of trying to pioneer this conversion of petrol stations. If the parties that were interested in Breakspear went after Breakspear and the ones that were interested in the Plough roundabout went for the plough, then hopefully they could get both going. Before he left the environment portfolio he had had meetings with UK Power Networks about their plans for the future. They have also had to produce their equivalent of local plans in providing the electricity networks of the future and one thing that they were looking at was providing the infrastructure for EV hubs.

With regard to trees, this topic was discussed at the last scrutiny meeting. Cllr McDowell did speak passionately about native and non-native trees, and Cllr Anderson agreed that ideally beech, oak cherry and other native species would be preferred.  But Luke, the tree Officer, was at pains to say that there was no point planting trees that were not going to survive under the likely climate change conditions because the native species were not weathering well under present conditions.

In relation to his new portfolio he wanted to follow up on earlier comments in relation to planning policy. Members would have seen from the new regulation 18 local planning consultation a policy encouraging developers to have sustainable houses built. Admittedly, the Council was reliant on whatever building control regulations come out from government, but one thing he wanted to do was to try and beef that up and actually physically require it.  Planners would have a lot of developers whinging about the viability of their schemes and not every roof would be south facing and practical for Solar PV or Solar thermal but he would love to see if the Council could beef up as much as regulations allow to really ram home the message that it wanted these things to happen as part of its strategy to do something about the climate problem.

Cllr Birnie referred to the fact that we had to improve existing buildings to achieve carbon reduction and we also had to improve bio-diversity. Both of these aims were going to require lots and lots of money. But one of the big problems that people may have missed from the earlier part of the report, was that on most of the grants for which the team had applied to support the excellent work that was being done, they were turned down. So there seemed to be a shortage of government financial support. This report also suggested that a carbon and bio-diversity offset fund should be set up with the means to provide funding for that kind of thing. Cllr Anderson had also spoken in favour of such a fund and someone else earlier mentioned that Milton Keynes have had such a carbon offsetting fund which has raised a million pounds over 10 years. Whilst he believed that the idea of tapping up developers in this way was an entirely justifiable plan for raising funds towards zero carbon and increased bio diversity, Cllr Birnie did not feel that generating, on the evidence of Milton Keynes, only £100,000 a year in this way would go anywhere near meeting the  major costs both of increasing bio-diversity and retro fitting DBC’s stock of council houses

MGaynor explained with respect to the government grants that they tend to be in relatively small pots with a requirement to have spent them within 2 or 3 months which was not entirely helpful and they also came with all sorts of conditions. There did need to be certainty over grant funding over a longer period of time which accepted that it was not a competition between areas because there were needs to be delivered across the whole country. Additionally, it would be crucial to think about a bio-diversity offset fund. It would apply only where developers did not meet the required improvements that are set out within the local plan or within the current planning legislation.

JDoe added that that was correct. It came back to development viability and as members may be aware, Officers were testing that through the local plan process. The things to be looking out for are the bio-diversity net gain proposals which were going to feature in the environment bill later this year. He believed that it was an important principle that they try and meet the bio-diversity issues on site where they can, but where developers put forward high density developments where there was not much space for planting or open spaces and so on, that was where the offset fund could actually work.

Cllr Birnie  proposed that the report be noted and the committee would like a repeat report at least annually.

Cllr England suggested, in view of what they have heard, the correct response from this committee would be to recommend that the council as a whole try to improve the environment they find themselves in.  Mark Gaynor had set out that there were huge obstacles in achieving the objectives, that had come out as a result of scrutiny. So he felt that the correct response of this committee would be to raise that up and point out that that was what this committee recommends right now.

Cllr Birnie replied that he did not see the difference as his proposal meant that there would be an annual report that went to both this committee and also to Cabinet.

Cllr England wanted to note the report but also to recommend that the Council writes to the minister.

Cllr Birnie said he was not prepared to put that forward. Dacorum was a district council, not part of central government. If Cabinet or Full Council wanted to scribble letters to Ministers, then he was happy for them to do so but it was not within the competence of this committee.

Cllr England asked if he put down a motion would Cllr Birnie be supportive?

Cllr Birnie asked where he would put down the motion.

Cllr England responded; at full Council.

Cllr Birnie said that it would depend on the nature of the wording. He was not opposed to anything that can be done to improve the environment in which they live. He was very much in favour of all that the Council was trying to do to ameliorate the climate emergency. However, there were limitations which they must recognise. They were not an arm of central government to come up with new regulations around which they could base their planning policy or their strategic planning policy and also their climate policy, so he did not think he would ever agree with Cllr England that they should be trying to do the job of the central government.

Cllr England said he was suggesting they were a voice for their residents

Cllr Birnie said that the amount of material that had been discussed this evening about community involvement did show that all Members were very much in favour of trying to represent their residents. If Council decided to approach central government on the matter then he would be all in favour of it, but he did not think that it was within the competence of this committee alone to prosecute that view. Cllr Birnie then ruled that the report be noted and the committee would like a repeat report at least annually.