Basingstoke & Dean Borough Council Community, Environment and Partnerships Committee Meeting

Councillor Court was replaced by Councillor Gaskell.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no urgent matters.

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2022 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair subject to the following additions to minute 17/22:

• Concern was raised that the proposals for Aquadrome were not ambitious enough.

The Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Action introduced the report that provided the Committee with the second full annual update of progress against the Strategy and Climate Emergency Action Plan, building on informal updates presented to CEP in March and June 2022 and on-going work with the Member Advisory Panel.

The Chair invited visiting speaker Sheila Peacock to address the Committee, her comments included:

• Made reference to Carbon sequestration in the soil which had been included in the approved Cabinet report. Research had indicated that drought had a negative effect on soil carbon storage and droughts were expected to become more severe.
• Questioned how the council was encouraging growth of wetland areas and if the Council was buying credits in other areas where the soil might have dried out the credits would be worthless.

• Reference was also made to the loss of soil due to development.

• Sought confirmation that the reduction in office working space had not   impacted on staff conditions.

The Chair invited visiting speaker Miranda Chubb to address the Committee, her comments included:

• The Borough generated a million tonnes of Co2 per year and the biggest impacts were transport and goods and services.

• Most of the energy was generated via fossil fuels.

• The report did not include figures on borough-wide emissions or a path to a net zero borough by 2030.

• Horizon 2050 had aims for the borough to generate the energy it needs but this was not included in the report.

• There were no plans to decarbonise the Chineham incinerator or homes.

• The Borough continued to lose green space to development.

The Chair invited visiting speaker Martin Heath to address the Committee, his comments included:

·          The report was a positive plan that would deliver hundreds of thousands of tonnes of savings, but it was not enough and not a complete overarching strategy.

·         The Borough needed to cut 1 million tonnes.

·         The report did not mention stopping the building of inefficient homes, increased development, or investment in walking.

·         Stated that offsetting did not work

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·         The Development Control Committee had rejected applications for solar farms but had approved homes on golf courses.

The Chair invited visiting speaker Rowan Harding to address the Committee, her comments included:

• Questioned why the teams undertaking green maintenance were not trained in managing and creating biodiversity areas?

Sought clarification on the following points:

• Why was a definition of green corridors not set out in the strategy.

• Why were the Council waiting for central government to provide legislation about biodiversity in the Borough.

• Why was there not an impact officer in the borough so thar decisions are taken on environmental grounds and not just on a financial basis.

• Why didn’t the Council use the ranger team to make sure they were encouraging and inspiring residents to get involved both in council spaces and at home.

The Committee discussed the report and made the following comments:

• Would not like to see offsetting used to meet the 2025 target.

• The Council needed to ensure that cutting carbon absorption was the priority.

• Requested that a copy of the Cabinet report detailing the offsetting policy be circulated to the Committee.
• Questioned whether there were best practice principles for offsetting.

• Questioned whether the carbon created from staff working from home more often had been calculated.

• Would like to see the plan in a map format so that the process and the steps that needed to be taken to meet the 2025 target were clearly visible.

• Improving biodiversity areas were a “quick win” in the way the local environment was managed.
• Acknowledged that while it was a positive change, the majority of the carbon reduction achieved so far was due to a change in energy supplier.

• Raised the issue of Housing association properties and the importance of bringing their properties up to standard. Officers agreed to circulate the slides from a recent meeting with the associations.

• Sought clarification as to whether the Borough Council would to try and assist further if the County Council failed to adequately support public transport due to financial pressures.

• Questioned whether the Council could introduce solar panels on the roofs of car parks to help power electric car chargers.
• Made reference to community centres and how they could make the most of any opportunities such as solar panels.

• Sought an update in relation to on-street chargers.

•  The Council needed to work to ensure that Manydown was delivered to high environmental standards.

• Raised concern that the aspirations of borough and county councils for a cycle route between Manydown and the town centre were not aligned.

• Would like to see more electric vehicle charging points.

• Reference was made to the anti-idling campaign and maintaining the momentum from it to include schools education.

• Would like the comments made reflected so that there is more of an overall strategy that would feed into the other Council policies with a separate project plan on how net zero would be achieved.

• Requested that the Strengthening communities strategy be circulated to all committee members.

Resolved: The Committee

• Notes the report
• Provides its comments to the Cabinet Member.

The Chair discussed the work programme in detail and agreed the following amendments with the Committee:

• The Community and Voluntary Sector Grant Funding Review be scheduled for the January meeting.

• The Climate Change update be scheduled to the March meeting.

• The Town Centre Strategy be removed from the work programme as it had already been dealt with by the EPH Committee.

• Cultural Strategy, It was requested that the current strategy be circulated to the Committee prior to the January meeting as it was linked to the grants item. The Chair agreed to work with Officers to schedule an update on the work of the Cultural Compact for late spring/early summer.

• The Committee felt that the Local Recreational Needs Assessment (LRNA), Built Sports Facility and Playing pitch Strategy and Leisure and Community Centre review were all linked.  It was agreed that an all-member briefing would be arranged to discuss them. The Committee requested that the LRNA be circulated in advance.

• Community Assets and Needs Assessment, Officers agreed to discuss the potential scheduling of the item and agreed to circulate the previous report. The Committee would rediscuss the item in January to see if it was still relevant.

• EDI Review, the Committee stated that they would like the item to be scheduled.

• Suggested that an update on the CSPO Annual plan be scheduled if possible.

• Green Infrastructure Strategy, The Chair advised that the item would be scheduled in June of 2023 but noted that the Committee would like the item earlier if it was available.

• Requested a response on the piece of work on how all of the overlapping strategies fed into each other, particularly in relation to strengthening communities, was progressing

• Requested a response to the previous request for a workshop on the aquadrome facility/leisure park mix.