Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Temperton welcomed members to the meeting.

The Board was presented with a draft copy of the guidelines under which the Board and its various working groups would operate. It sets out the expectations for all members to operate under the Nolan Principles, as well as enshrining the Board’s commitment to Net Zero.

Furthermore, it highlights that each working group should be inclusive, collaborative, and informal. Where possible all work taken should be done through consensus.

The role of officers is outlined to clarify they must act under strict political impartiality. Furthermore, it highlighted that the Board cannot direct officers to carry out work without approval.

RESOLVED that the Board Approve the guidelines for the working groups.

Russell Julier provided the Board with an update on the newly established support group. The support group was established to ensure that a strategic oversight to the actives of the JCAB and ensure that work was not being duplicated by different working groups. It was hoped that this would allow the objectives of each working group to be aligned and ensure the JCAB had a fully integrated plan. The role of the support group was seen as a subsidiary role and would not have any executive oversight to the JCAB.

The Board received a copy of the support teams terms of reference. The group would be led by Councillor Temperton. Any members of the JCAB who had any ideas for the support group or could offer support were asked to get in contact.

Russell offered to come to as many subgroup meetings as possible, to best understand what work each subgroup was doing and ensure subgroups were aware off the work occurring in other subgroups.

Councillor Haffegee gave an update on a meeting that had taken place with Reading Climate Action Network (CAN), an organisation ran by Reading Borough Council similar to the JCAB. Reading CAN had been in operation since 2008 and had helped drive Reading in calling a climate emergency in 2019.

Reading CAN have had a climate strategy in place for a number of years which has sought to lead the development and coordinate the delivery of a comprehensive and ambitious program of climate action. This strategy had been active for several years and was coming up for renewal. Reading CAN saw the renewal as an opportunity to extend the strategy, including marking 2024 as a year of climate engagement with the community. To create this strategy, 3 workshops with around 50 stakeholders per workshop were due to take place.

Reading CAN was seeking to setup an alliance of climate partnerships to see how neighbouring boroughs to share ideas. As part of this the JCAB along with other similar partnerships would be invited to discuss and share ideas on tackling climate change.

The main learning points from the meeting were:

• A willingness to experiment new ideas was necessary.
• The local authority shouldn’t seek to control all actions but should support actions that are most effective.
• The Board should be aware of highlighting issues as well as successes, so that difficulties could be overcome.
• Action Plans should be practical and realistic and not theoretical.

In response to questions the following points were noted:

• Reading CAN were targeting net zero by 2050, although they would like to alter the target to 2030 if that was attainable.
• Reading CAN had great success in spreading their message at community events and festivals, and this was something the JCAB could seek to replicate.  It was noted that if the JCAB did want a stand at Bracknell Pride, the deadline for securing this was fast approaching.

Samantha Gibbons presented the JCAB with ideas to help increase engagement within working groups. Samantha and Joey Gurney had been working on ways to increase the interactivity and engagement within the Transport Working Group to ensure try and maximise the number of ideas produced.

The Transport Working Group had run an initial workshop that focused on members general climate ideas for Bracknell. This began by splitting members up into smaller groups to enable discussions for them to map out their ideas of how they saw Bracknell. This was then followed by a visioning session.

The next workshop will begin the focus of targeting specific actions for the group and determining how these actions would be achieved.

Current suggestion is Slack alongside a Google Drive

Councillor Haffegee gave an update on the proposed communication channels for the JCAB to use. The proposed platform to use would be Slack following issues with the use of Microsoft Teams. It was hoped this would be a way for members to communicate ideas between meetings, keep up to date with different various groups and continue to engage on the JCAB’s aims.

The main advantages of Slack included:

• The ability to create different channels, so that there could relevant chats for each different topic, as well as each working group.
• Each channel could create conversation threads.
• The ability to run polls to gauge views on an particular topic.
• File sharing.

Once the JCAB had Slack setup, Councillor Haffegee would run training sessions for any members who had not previously used the platform.

The next climate sector summit, hosted by 3M was due to take place on 8 July. Members of the JCAB were asked to attend if available, so they could share the progress and ideas from the JCAB and it’s working groups.

The next climate sector summit, hosted by 3M was due to take place on 8 July. Members of the JCAB were asked to attend if available, so they could share the progress and ideas from the JCAB and it’s working groups.

Officers Working Group

Damien James provided an update on the new Climate Change Strategy which was being produced by Bracknell Forest Council. The new strategy would run from 2024 to 2028, replacing the existing strategy which would expire this year. This strategy would focus on the Council’s activity and would sit alongside the Community Climate Emergency Strategy which the JCAB would work on.

The process of drafting the Climate Change Strategy has involved 4 processes: research, engagement, drafting and approval. The engagement stage was currently ongoing with the deadline for engagement being 10 May. As part of this there was an ongoing engagement survey,

(https://consult.bracknellforest.gov.uk/public/sch/bracknell_forest_council_climate_change_strategy_2024-2028_-_engagement_survey)

Working with SEEd, 2 conferences on climate change were being put together for children, one for primary schools and another for secondary schools. Any JCAB members wishing to talk at these conferences were asked to get in touch with the Officers Working Group.

Community and Faith Sector Working Group

Lauren Lee provided an update on the work undertaken by the Community and Faith Sector Working Group. Work was being done to establish repair cafés in the borough, based on one already setup in Crowthorne. Priestwood and Harman’s Water had been identified as potential venues. The working group had meetings with both Wokingham and Crowthorne groups, to learn best practice from their already existing repair café’s.

Engagement through community events had been identified as a key aim for the working group, with a new team member having joined focused on using community centres as a route for engagement.

Biodiversity Working Group

Paul Adkins and Councillor Collings provided an update on the activities of the Biodiversity Working Group. At a meeting in March the working group confirmed its terms of reference and the goals it wished to achieve. The working group was in the process of putting together an action plan to achieve these goals. The goals identified by the working group included:

• Monitoring the impact of climate change on biodiversity.
• Monitoring the levels of biodiversity and ecology over time within the borough.
• Improving existing habitats within the borough.

A full spreadsheet of the goals was being produced for circulation, as the goals would cut across all working groups.

The working group was now up to 16 members, representing a diverse range of organisations and individuals.  The working group had identified the farming as a key area and were therefore searching for an individual to represent farmers within the group.

ESDP Climate Change and Infrastructure Subgroup

Paula Robertson provided and update on the ESDP Climate Change and Infrastructure Subgroup. At recent meetings the subgroup had discussed a number of themes had emerged including:

• Businesses would prefer to not focus on carbon off-setting and instead find other ways to reduce carbon emissions.
• Businesses need to be educated on the long-term benefits of increasing energy efficiency within a workplace.
• Working with Berkshire Growth Hub to allow businesses to effectively measure their carbon output.
• Businesses would prefer any carbon monitoring to be gathered anonymously. 

The sub-group had identified  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.