Agenda item

Climate and Nature Strategy Action Plan 2024

Minutes:

Kate Richardson, Sustainability Lead, introduced the report which provided details of the Council’s new Climate and Nature Strategy and Action Plan for publication. During discussion, the following points were added.

 

·       The red, amber, green (RAG) ratings that would be included in the action plan were intended to be specific to each individual action, whereas the performance measures in the strategy document were to provide a broader indication of progress. There were areas of the plan where progress would be more difficult to measure over a longer period, but those areas still had actions attached. The Strategic Climate and Nature Board would have the opportunity to scrutinise the performance of actions by exception and the performance measures would be reviewed annually.

 

·        The 86 electric vehicle charge points highlighted in the strategy were across 11 carparks in Seaford, New Haven, Lewes and Barcombe and were funded through the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) and by Connected Kerb (a 60/40 split). The funding was only available for sites that did not have sufficient off-street parking. There was a further site in Peacehaven that was noted in the action plan and was currently being costed. The majority of the Council’s own car parks had been considered, but the remaining car parks were unlikely to have installations at the current time due to their viability and/or the prohibitive cost of connection. Proposals to provide funding to town and parish councils and other organisations to enable installation of charge points were being considered. Lewes Council was working closely with East Sussex County Council on its on-street charging scheme.

 

·       The Council was leading on various elements of the strategy, for example through decarbonising its own housing stock and through the initial setting up of Hydrogen Sussex, which supported the hydrogen economy throughout Sussex. The Council’s website had been refreshed and the strategy was available on its pages. The individual schemes within the strategy were promoted by the Council where possible and a condensed version of the strategy would be considered. 

 

·       The actions within the strategy were developed in conjunction with the officers who had responsibility for enabling their delivery. Schemes such as the Car Club, were specific actions within a set timescale and were delivered as part of the Council’s capital programme, and therefore not annually reviewed in terms of further/additional actions. New targets were added year-on-year.

 

·       A carbon reduction pathway would be available in the next update of the strategy and would include narrative around previous emissions and an emissions inventory.

 

·       Member expressed concern at the wording in the action plan under ‘Water, Rivers and Seas’ and suggested that ‘seek’ should be removed when referring to working with stakeholder communities, landowners and others as it did not provide a strong enough position.

 

Resolved to support the recommendations in the Cabinet report, in full. Additionally, the Committee requested that the Cabinet consider strengthening the wording in appendix 2 to the report (the strategy action plan) around the use of the word ‘seek’ in reference to working with stakeholder communities, landowners and others under ‘Waters, Rivers and Seas’.

Supporting documents: