Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Time Square, Market Street, Bracknell, RG12 1JD. View directions

Contact: Hannah Harding  01344 352308

Link: This meeting will be a Hybrid meeting

Media

Items
No. Item

18.

Declarations of Interest

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.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

19.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 144 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Climate Change Panel on 10 October 2022.

Minutes:

Detailed sessions regarding grants had been held at previous meetings but any specific questions could be answered after the presentations.

 

Gareth Jones confirmed that all Housing Associations had been engaged with, and the Energy Officer had confirmed that they were working with everyone that they were aware that they should be working with.

 

The minutes of the Climate Change Advisory Panel on 10 October 2022 were approved.

20.

Urgent Items of Business

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

Minutes:

There were no urgent items of business.

21.

Bracknell Forest Council Annual Climate Change Strategy Update & National Management Trainee Placement Progress pdf icon PDF 3 MB

To receive a presentation on the Council’s Annual Climate Change Strategy.

Minutes:

The Advisory Panel received a presentation from Kevin Gibbs, Executive Director: Delivery, on the Council’s Annual Climate Change Strategy Q1 and Q2 2022/23.

 

The first annual report on progress had been produced, this was a comprehensive report and sat along side the Climate Change Strategy on the website. This would be produced annually.

 

Key findings within the report was that the Council’s CO2e emissions continued to drop year on year and within Bracknell Forest Borough there had been a 41.5% reduction since monitoring had begun in 2005 by Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department data (BEIS).

 

At the 9 March 2023 meeting Corporate Property would be providing an update on the £1M retrofit projects and there would be a Programme plan end of Q3 update.

 

From June 2023 the forward plan for the Climate Change Advisory Panel consisted of the below, but items would be added and updated as required.

 

·       London Road (EV charging hub).

·       Member feedback on the visits to Oxford City EV SuperHub and Basildon EV

charging hub.

·       BFC Programme plan end of Q4 update report.

·       Review draft of the Climate Change Strategy progress summary.

·       End of NMT placement update.

·       Climate Emergency Action Scorecards update.

 

Across the Council a number of teams were supporting Climate Change projects:

 

Public Health funding was supporting a number of climate change programmes.

Projects include the Eco Rewards Behaviour Change Incentive Scheme (encouraging active modes of travel), Green and Active Heroes (engaging volunteers in outdoor biodiversity / green space activities); Improving Air Quality (funding monitoring equipment and resources); and reducing the impacts of poor housing.

 

Business engagement had begun by the Climate Change team by signposting support for local businesses interested in starting their own climate change mitigation journey.

 

An Energy Group had been set up by Officer’s responsible for managing council facilities to specifically look at projects aimed at reducing levels of utility consumption and further lowering the Councils carbon footprint. The group had already met a couple of times.

 

A feasibility study has been completed for the creation of an EV charging hub with supporting dwell-time facilities and renewable power generation and storage via a solarPV farm and battery cells at London Road (Strong’s Heath) site. The work on this was continuing with hope that a planning application would come forward in due course.

 

As of June 2022 all Local Authorities had adopted updated Building Regulations (part S) which now included the mandatory provision of EV charging points on all new residential developments.

 

Once adopted the new Local Plan would tighten the expectations placed upon developers (both residential and commercial) with regard to the provision of on-site renewable generation and overall energy efficiency.

 

The new draft housing strategy would include the Council’s ambitions to ensure that homes within the borough are as energy efficient as possible. This would include working with partners such as Silva Homes who will be bidding for Social Housing Decarbonisation Funding in Q3 to enable their own efforts to retrofit their housing stock.

 

The Advisory Panel was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

22.

Walking and Cycling Strategy

To receive a presentation on the Walking and Cycling Strategy.

 

Minutes:

Neil Matthews, Assistant Director: Highways and Transport, attended the

meeting to give a presentation on the Council’s presentation Walking and Cycling Strategy.

 

Arising from the presentation, the following points were noted:

 

  • There were 530km of footway and over 100km of traffic free cycle way in the Borough. With much of that was in urban areas, specifically in the Town Centre which was planned when Bracknell was a new town such as the underpasses which would be hard to retrofit.
  • The National Cycle Network 422 ran across the Borough and linked Bracknell to West Berkshire, Reading, Wokingham and Ascot.
  • There were over 100 controlled crossings for pedestrians and cyclists with a number of schemes being developed each year.
  • 3000 school children had received cycle training in the past 5 years, under the bike ability scheme, this was funded by the Government and offered to all year 6 pupils.
  • Over the past 10 years annual monitoring surveys suggested that there was an increase in cycling of 9% and an increase in walking of 59%. This was a snapshot of the Borough.
  • The Government introduced the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy which was to show how investment and improvement would be made in cycling and walking over the future years. This strategy was to be undertaken by Local Governments via Local Transport Plans and Walking and Cycling Strategies to deliver a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure plan.
  • A key aspiration was that the majority of short trips would be undertaken by foot or bike.
  • Active Travel England was introduced to govern the funding that it was going to provide.
  • Policy TP8 in Bracknell Forest Councils Local Transport Plane detailed what the Council had committed to undertake for cycling and walking within the Borough.
  • The capital programme delivered a number of schemes across the Borough.
  • Increased connectivity had been made through strategic transport improvements to the A329/A3095/A322 so that motor transport didn’t become dominate in those schemes.
  • It was key to build on the strong urban network.
  • Walking and cycling connectivity were a key consideration for new development proposals, especially larger sites. It was important that they were high quality and direct links.
  • Developer funding contributions could be taken to support wider off site improvements.
  • There were obligations on developers to create travel plans which sought to promote sustainable travel.
  • Green infrastructure was also important, with Swinley Forest being a good example of this.
  • Developers were realising the importance of green infrastructure as part of new developments as it made them attractive to residents.
  • Pedestrian road safety was rolled out to key stage 1 and 2 pupils.
  • The team analysed any traffic accident data provided by the police and looked to tackle any road safety issues.
  • Secure cycling parking was key as locations.
  • There were 6 different funding schemes that came into the council that could be used for cycling and walking which could be used for the plan, emerging demands, safety improvements and development opportunities.
  • LCWIP was a Government initiative to identify evidence  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

 

Contact Information

Democratic services

Email: committee@bracknell-forest.gov.uk