Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Climate Change Panel on 27 January 2022.

The minutes of the Climate Change Advisory Panel meeting held on 9 March 2022 were confirmed as a correct record.

It was raised that a visit had taken place at the London Road site with the Minister for Pensions and MPs to talk about the possibility of putting photovoltaic panels on the site. Councillor Mrs Hayes would be arranging a visit for Members in due course, with proposals brought forward once they had been developed.

Any other items which, pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Chairman decides are urgent

There was no urgent items of business.

To receive the Climate Change Action Plan Progress Report and a presentation on retrofitting the Bracknell Forest Council Estate.

The Panel will also receive a presentation on Passivhaus School by Ben Humphries, Director at Architype.

Councillor Virgo introduced the Climate Change Advisory Panel and explained that

this Advisory Panel meeting would be looking at the Council’s Decarbonisation Plans.

The Climate Change Advisory Panel received the quarterly update from Kevin Gibbs, Executive Director: Delivery on the Climate Change Action Plan Progress Report. The presentation included the following highlights:

·       The Climate Change Strategy was looking to work with partners, schools and young people.

·       The action plan was looking to reduce carbon emissions that were under the Councils control, which was less then 2%of emissions, and to influence and lead community action against climate change through lobbying and promotion.

·       So far, the Climate Change Advisory Panel had met four times.

·       Looking forward, the Panel would be having a biodiversity update on the 25 April, a Plan update report in May, A report on local power generation in September and a quarterly update in November.

·       Corporate decision making had been changed to incorporate and ensure that carbon emissions are now part of the report matrix.

·       In the 2022/23 service plans, the climate change elements had been identified and flagged to ensure that they could be monitored and tracked.

·       The public health team had completed an exercise of funding bids.

·       A business survey had been undertaken, 51% of businesses had the intention of being more environmentally friendly, but just 12% had a specific target to chive net zero and only 5% had a deadline to this commitment.

·        Councillor Mrs Hayes had led a ministerial visit to the land fill site on London Road, to discuss a range of possible projects.

·       £154k of funding had been awarded for heat decarbonisation plans for all the Councils property stock.

·       Highways and Transport and received a grant for £160k for active travel initiatives. The funds were being used to expand cycling routes in Crowthorne and Sandhurst and had allowed for promotional work to increase participation in cycling.

·       The Council had secured £100k funding to roll out 32 residential electric vehicle charging points across the Borough.

·       The PPP had secured £259k of DEFRA funding to help implement measures to reduce the impact of poor-quality air on people’s health.

·       It was noted that the same amount of staff resource was required for an unsuccessful bid as it was successful. The Council had been unsuccessful on the Green Homes Grant Local Authority Grant, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund and a Department for Transport bid to improve cycling and walking between Crowthorne and Owlsmoor.

·       The action plan covered the full breadth of council services and there were currently 46 live projects/initiatives.

·       Parks and Countryside had recently finished a tree planting period incorporating 2795 trees over 20 sites.

·       The total area of Habitats of Principal Importance had increased by 50.97 hectors mainly due to mapping ponds across the borough.

·       The total area of Local Wildlife Sites had increased by 17.7 hectares with the re-designation of Lily Hill Park.

·       A project to finalise the installation of a ground source heat pump at Westmoreland Park was ongoing, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

25 April 2022