Climate Change seminar in Gloucester

Myself and Sarah Lunnon were the only two Stroud District councillors present at the County-wide seminar on Climate Change yesterday in Gloucester - a Green party Stroud Town councillor Dave Cockcroft was also there - it was disappointing to see only some 40 people attending - invites had gone to all Parish, Town, District and County councillors.

Photo: Shire hall Gloucestershire County Council Chamber, Gloucester

The train there meant there was time for a cafe before - after a double espresso we got to hear three key presentations from three Sustainable Energy Beacon Councils - the Beacon Council scheme identifies excellent councils from which other authorities can learn and acknowledge service areas that have a direct impact on local people - hence their visit to us.

It was refreshing to see that the Shire Hall Chamber had taken Sarah Lunnon's advice from a previous Climate Change seminar when she had called for the lights to be switched off and the curtains open!! Anyway here are some scribbled thoughts and notes about the three presentations - that certainly don't do justice to the actual talks!!

1. Steve Fowkes, Sustainability Officer from Shropshire - he talked about their path since 1991 - including their Carbon.org van giving advice to local businesses and their Marches Energy Agency - anyhow since then they have cut 38% of their corporate emissions on 1990 levels. They had the same mileage allowances for cycles as well as cars - something Greens have tried to get passed here - each time the motion is voted down - am sure we will get there in the end - but it is only a small part of tackling transport emissions - as Shropshire noted it is a v difficult area - they are now at 6 million miles annually by the Council - and growing!!

2. John Thorp, Managing Director, Thamesway - he talked about the cross-party support from 1990 - the strategy that was adopted in Dec 2002 and is adapted each year - he spent some time talking about Thamesway itself, the financing, the CHP, the Fuel cell, the private wires, car park lighting and Woking's plans for new developments - he condemned current guidelines by the Government - he called even the new regulations grossly inadequate and said that in 50 years we would be 'seriously embarrassed' by the houses we are building now. Indeed he went on saying: 'we have a real problem with these rubbish buildings' and how 'the houses being built now aren't even being built to these poor standards' because of poor Building Regulations enforcement (see my comment added to 30th March blog which echos much of what he said!). Most exciting is that Woking will refuse developments that don't achieve a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions against current building regs and will be carbon nuetral on greenfield developments - I'll certainly be taking those thoughts to our local Council who as noted previously on this blog are still struggling to formulate even a basic policy. Interestingly Woking were more than happy to go to an appeal to protect that policy.

Anyway Corporate CO2 emissions are down 82% and energy consumption down 52% - while the Borough has seen energy efficiency of properties increase by 33%, CO2 reductions of 21% and 4,489 grants re energy considerations given out. All inspiring stuff.

3. Tim German, Director, Cornwall Sustainable Energy Partnership - they have an energy strategy signed by 72 local organisations in July 2004 - they found in Cornwall 24% of population was fuel poor and that only2% of revenue from energy remains in Cornwall. He talked of various measures that have led to 35% increase in CO2 savings in the domestic sector - 7000 homes have received insulation and/or heating measures under their scheme 'Home Health' - in some areas they found that 91% of homes surveyed required measures! A quote given to illustrate the reasons for targetting was the famous one by Dr Hart:

'those who get are those who know and demand, rather than those in greatest need who do not know. Inequity occurs because no one goes out and finds those in the greatest need.'
Julian Tudor Hart 1971 'Inverse Care Law'

Good stuff - that should be remembered lots more when delivering services.

One question I didn't get to raise was how Cornwall can become a Beacon Council in Sustainable Energy yet can still support their airport growth. The Cornwall County Council plans to invest over £21 million on Newquay Airport, at a time when concerns are growing about the contribution of air travel to climate change. This is on top of the Council’s annual subsidy to the airport of £1 million worth of taxpayers’ money. I wont repeat all those arguments re aviation and the damage it does but cannot help but ask does the left hand know what the right hand does?

Photo: artists impression of wave hub

Anyway this last presentation also listed several other inspiring projects like Cornwall's planned Wave Hub - this hopes to be online in 2008 and supplying energy to 14,000 homes from several different types of wave enrgy providers - part actual project but also partly research to see how each functions - see more here.

There was also news of Navarra, Spain - that one region (smaller than Cornwall) now provides 6,500 jobs in the renewable energy sector - yet the whole of the UK only provides 8000 in that sector. We also heard about the inspiring example of Linz in Austria which had 1,300 homes built in a very short space of time - it is known as solar city and is designed on many key green principles like being around an electric tram route.

After the presentations there was a chance for questions - I also managed to talk afterwards with County staff and two of the speakers about Kirklees - another Council doing well - there a GReen councillor has pushed forward allsorts of initiatives - they now have 5% of the countries solar panels in that Borough and have just announced last month free insulation to 30,ooo homes!!!!! This is another issue I have raised with Stroud - if they can do it - why not us -more of that in another post - this blog entry was just intended to give a flavour of the day - more than happy to talk further locally on these issues.......

UPDATE: See Beacon Council presentations here