Dursley pool, Choice Based Lettings and ethical investment

Cabinet meeting - last Thursday night - this is where the Conservative Cabinet members of Stroud District Council meet, discuss and vote - there is also an opportunity to ask questions and make comments. As I wasn't able to attend that meeting I made a point of getting my points to Cabinet members before.

One of the key items was the Dursley Pool Replacement Plant. The first most councillors, including myself, heard of this was Monday - even the ward member didn't know - this seems very poor to me - particularly as there were also rumours that pool staff had already been told that the pool was closing for 6 weeks - yet the decision wasn't due to be taken until the Cabinet meeting.

Anyhow the recommendations were basically to go for a renewal of the system - an urgent need as the system was failing - the report also had a few token notes about having looked at a Combined Heat and Power system (CHP) and biomass but rejected them. I wrote an email to all Cabinet - I suspect I wasn't alone - expressing concerns that greener options were not properly being considered - indeed it seemed to make a nonsense of their recently launched Green paper on the Environment.

In the email I included a paper on CHP at Woking. The success of Woking Borough Council’s environmental and energy policies have been enormous - they include the use of a CHP system at their leisure centre and with all their policies have reduced energy consumption by an astonishing 44% between 1991/92 and 2000/01, with 72 per cent savings in CO2 emissions and a 36 per cent saving in energy and water budgets ie £4.9 million savings - these figures exclude further savings made for Council tenants and the private sector by their energy conservation programme and CHP. Why on earth can't we do all that here???!! Indeed why isn't our government rolling such policies out nationally?

As I noted in the email to Cabinet there are clearly risks in exploring options further, including temporary closure of the pool, and further blows to Dursley that would not be good for the community - read comments re supermarkets in Dursley by using the search engine on the Glos Green party website.

To give the Cabinet their due they did do more research into CHP and biomass and when it came to the vote they noted that they would try to incorporate green energy options into the plant - basically it was too late to work them in now as extra funding was needed but they would hopefully ensure the building could perhaps incorporate a biomass boiler in the future.

All this highlights to me that our Council has not got it's head around thinking green - these sort of plans need to be made months in advance - indeed why not now start looking at Stratford Park or other sites? Hopefully it is these very sorts of things that will be addressed in the Environment paper.

Another item I commented on to Cabinet members was Choice Based Lettings - I've commented before in this Blog on that - but see my brief comments this time around by clicking here. Assurances were given at Cabinet that the issue I and others raised would be considered and taken into account.

Lastly I want to applaud Labour councillors for persuading the Cabinet to look at ethical investments.