The Council is asked to note any statements made by Members of the Cabinet (Portfolio Holders).
Councillors may then ask questions of the Portfolio Holders on their statements.
Minutes:
Action on Climate Change Update
The Environment and Public Space Portfolio Holder (Councillor Talbot) made the following statement:-
“Good evening, colleagues. tonight, barring emergencies, is the final Full Council Meeting of this four year cycle, and nobody knows at this stage who will be elected or re-elected to form the new administration from the 4th of May onwards. Therefore, I must treat this as my ‘Swan Song’ today, with what is my 13th statement.
I am pleased that data for 2021/22 shows that while Council carbon emissions rose as expected in coming out of the pandemic lockdowns, emissions from electricity, gas and fuel oil are lower than the pre-Covid 2019-20 year.
Clearly in this coming year, the new administration will put in train the process towards a new ‘Climate Change Action Plan’, to aid us as a Council, from 2024 onwards in our progress towards Tendring’s Net Zero carbon emissions target by the end of this decade.
Many have said that the Government should be more involved by directing what they perceive to be the best way forward to achieve the Government’s National Target of Net Zero Carbon by 2050, with the cash to actually ‘prime the pump’ to get that work done.
I have attended a number of Climate Change webinars with Net Zero Carbon as their target, including those dealing with the provision of Electric Vehicle charging points, many of which voice the good work done in other authorities, but one thing most convey is the large initial cost of almost turning the clock back to the days before the internal combustion engine, or before wide spread travel became a way of life, or before the mass production of consumables such as household equipment that use electricity, the same electricity that uses the old infrastructure, into which we now seek to install home charging points for domestic electric vehicles.
Moving from the ‘General’ to the
‘Particular’ is the answer, prepared by Officers, to
the question I received from Councillor Mike Bush, who was asking
about ‘Pay Back’ benefits of the proposed pool covers,
to which I had referred in my last Council report. We expect the payback period for pool covers
to be around two years. This is due to high
energy costs and the high level of energy to heat pools. We
expect that 260 tonnes of carbon would be
saved annually across the three pools with the covers in
place. The tender to purchase the new pool covers closes next
week and the Council will appoint contractors shortly after to
start installation.
Installing LED lights,
(Light emitting diodes) will save only 0.3 tonnes a year within a
typical council building and have a 6 to 7 year payback period. We
also have the chance to install sensors, so lights only come on
when people are in the building. The
tender for LED lights in leisure centres closes in a fortnight,
with work starting thereafter.
I have deliberately not spoken about new projects; these will be for the post 4th May administration to decide their own priorities.”