 Cydym nhw'n mynd i'n unig? Dysgol. Rwy'n ddweud yno, y mae'r offodus, a'r hyn mae'n meddwl i'r gweithio yn gyfawr i'r fferwyr ffordd gyda'r fforddau, pan yw hynny'n cael ei gennych ar y methu yr edrych gyfathorol, ac mae'r cyfathorol yn gweithio yr Yn effeithau. Cymru, onboard filter i'r gweithio ar y methu yn eu cyfathorol i'r graddol yn y ffordd on-line and we wish you a speedy recovery. Information of members of the public, the role of this committee is to advise cabinet on climate environment mitigation and everything surrounding that. So, just for those in the room, just be aware that everything on your desk may be viewed by the camera, and the camera follows the speaker. Please, can those participating in the live stream, if you indicate you want to speak, use the chat column, but don't use the chat column for any other purpose, please. Make sure that your device is fully charged, and you switch your microphone off, unless you're actually speaking. It's better if you have a headset, if you use that, you get better clarity that way, and obviously when you're invited to address the meeting, make sure your microphone is switched on. So, Patrick, I don't know, do we have any apologies? I think we do. Yes, chair, yes. We've had apologies from Councillor Paul Bear Park and Councillor Stephen Drew, who's acting as sub. Apologies from Councillor Ariel Kahn, I believe Councillor Peter Fane is a substitute. And apologies from Councillor Pepe Helings, as you've said, Councillor Lisa Redra, and Councillor Bunty Waters as well. Okay, so, I don't introduce other members. Martin, would you? No, my name is Martin Kahn, I'm a representative for Mr Nampington's joint vice chair. Thank you. Shobona, would you introduce yourself? I'm Shobona, but I tell you, I'm district councillor of Campbell. Peter Fane, member for Shelford Award. Good afternoon, Brian Melons, member for Salson, Deputy Leader, and your linkage point with the Cabinet. Thank you, chair. Peter Sunfield, ward councillor for Caxton and Papworth. I'm Stephen Drew, ward councillor for Campbell. And I think we're lucky to have our leader here, Bridget, would you? Thank you very much. And our office is present, board day. Good afternoon. I'm Bodir, so I'll head up climate and environment. Hi, I'm Alex Nelling Day, waste policy, climate and environment team manager. Patrick will be, I think, taking a minute. Welcome, Patrick. Okay, so, do any members have any items of conflict or interest to declare in relation to this meeting? I think that's a no. Now we just need to quickly work through the minutes of the previous meeting. Those are, yes, on page seven of the agenda papers. I just go through them page by page. I think everyone's got there. Page seven, nothing much on that one. Page eight, any corrections needed there? Page nine and page 10. So I don't hear any comments there. So we can therefore approve the minutes of the previous meeting. So, moving on to the first substantive item on the agenda. We're very honoured to receive a presentation from Richard Aswell, chair of Natural Cambridgeshire. Richard, are you there? I can see you. Thank you so much for joining us today. And would you like to give us your presentation? Yeah, thank you very much. Well, first of all, good afternoon everybody. And actually, it's my honour to be with you. Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to just tell you a little bit about the work of Natural Cambridgeshire and how we are, you know, playing our part. And it's worth saying from the start that South Cambridgeshire District Council is one of our key partners. We are a partnership. Everything we do is through partnership. And our main role is around championing, facilitating, convening action for nature. We are not a delivery body in the sense that we don't own nature reserves. I'm afraid we, as an organisation, don't do much spades in the ground. That's the work of our partners. And we're very grateful for all the support we've had over several years now from South Cambridgeshire District Council. Thank you for that support. So it's very much my pleasure to be here. I have got a presentation now. I don't know how the technology works. Did you put the presentation up for me? Is that how it works, Luke, Siobhan, or do I put the presentation up? I can present it for you if you like. And if you just tell me whenever you want the next slide, if that's easy. It might be easy, Siobhan. Thank you so much. So if it's OK, councillor, to make the presentation. Yes, absolutely. Great stuff. Lovely. So, if we focus on the first slide while I make some introductory remarks, Siobhan. Natural Cambridgeshire, worth just reminding everybody who we are. We are an independent charity. We are also technically the local nature partnership for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It's very important that we remember the Peterborough a bit, not least because I live in Peterborough. Local nature partnerships were set up by DEFRA back in 2010, with the role of coordinating action or nature and to address the biodiversity crisis that the country is facing. DEFRA didn't give them much in the way of financial support or even, indeed, policy support for quite some time. So we have evolved slightly separately from local nature partnerships. And whilst we still fulfil that role, we feel our role is much greater than just being a part of the DEFRA family. We are here to bring together anybody and any organisation who has an interest in helping nature to recover across the county, whether that is a landowner, whether that's a statutory authority such as yourselves, whether that's an ecological charity, whether that's developers who have statutory obligations increasingly going forward to create green space and to mitigate for any damage they do to nature. They're all part of the partners that we bring together with the aim, as I think you're probably aware, of doubling nature across Cambridgeshire. And that has been our ambition since 2019. We formalised that ambition. And there are those who believe it's a rather modest objective. What do we mean by doubling nature? Well, the metrics we're using is the amount of land that is dedicated to nature or is nature rich. And at the moment, Cambridgeshire, depending quite on how you do the sums, but in rule of thumb, has about 8.5% of its total land that is dedicated to nature in that way. So if we were to double that, we would get to around 17%. And that would take us, Chair, to the dizzy heights of national average. So there are those that say it's not exactly the most ambitious agenda to seek to be average, but at the moment we are so far behind the curve in terms of the amount of land that we have available for nature and for people as well. This is the point here that these things can coexist. And that's partly historic, partly because the natural habitat of Cambridgeshire, much of it would be wetland, much of it would be fen. And it's partly because the soil is so fertile that it's absolutely the right place for intensive farming and we produce a huge proportion of the country's food. Food security is a very important issue too. But despite those reasons, those historic reasons, nevertheless it isn't a great statistic and it doesn't help us when we're trying to sort of advocate for our county that we are so nature-depleted. So when you could actually state with hand on heart that Cambridgeshire is the most nature-depleted county in a country that is again arguably if not the most nature-depleted in Europe and certainly one of the most nature-depleted in the world. There is a crisis in nature. I know the remit of this committee covers climate change as well. And I think the biodiversity crisis is the sort of rather underplayed sort of little sister of the climate crisis. It's very real and it really does matter. If we don't address the biodiversity crisis then many of the ecosystems upon which we depend for our health and for our wealth in terms of the economy are in danger of severe stress if not collapse around the world. But also on our own doorstep where the statistics showing just how sharp the decline in many of our native species are really very dramatic and very sad. Just putting it into sort of layman's terms when you think that something like over 50% of the country's hedgehogs have disappeared in the last 20 years when you think that iconic birds like the turtle dove which has always been very much associated with places like Cambridgeshire and Cambridgeshire have suffered a 95% decline in that period. And there are statistics that suggest that overall insect abundance is down by 75%. You're not talking about little tweaks here and there. You're talking about wholesale change to our environment. And as I often put it, if the environment around us is in danger of dying then that cannot be a great place for humans to live and we're in danger of really unraveling the ecosystems that help us create food through pollinations, through good quality soil through good quality water and clean air and from that also the environment which allows us to live out our normal healthy lives. So that's the problem we're confronting and that's why Natural Cambridge has set itself this ambition to double nature over a sort of 20 to 25 year period. And what I'd like to do in the presentation is really just to indicate how we are going about taking that agenda forward. But if I can again just go back to the point that it's not something that Natural Cambridge can deliver. This is so dependent on every individual and organisation who lives here, who works here, particularly the landowners and also of course organisations with a private or public sector. So Luke, first the next slide please if I may. So we're addressing this doubling nature ambition really at two levels. One is the landscape scale level. This is the opportunity to create large projects where we can embed nature, where we can help nature recover either by replanting or just simply leaving aside. These would be the big new nature reserves or natureful areas of the future. And we've identified six areas in which we want to focus work and these have been identified based on a number of factors. The fact that they already have significant nature reserves or nature rich areas in them. The fact that they are accessible, that people will be able to visit these places and enjoy the benefits of nature as well. And the fact that there are partners in these areas who are keen to make this happen. And these six priority landscapes have been sort of worked through and discussed with the local authorities and with the combined authority and are recognised by many of those local authorities to be fair as the areas in which we want to prioritise that big landscape-led programme. And as you can see here, at least two of these, if not certainly two, I think actually the connected fence as well is quite loosely defined. So there could be areas of south cams that that covers as well. But essentially the West Cambridge of 100s and the Cambridge Nature Network are two of the priority landscapes that we have identified and which sit within your district and therefore keep interest to you. And these are about very long-term projects. These are about large areas of land where we can work with landowners. Of course, at the evolution, this is all about working with people. So we're looking to identify landowners, farmers, organisations in those areas who want to come with us on this journey and create these landscapes over a long period of time. They're multimillion-pound projects. They are often quite complicated as land transactions and land management always is. And they will be many years in the making. In all of those areas, there's work already going on. And in all of those areas, a lot of the work is stuff we don't know about. This is about letting 1,000 flowers blossom, really, rather than trying to dictate or command everything which is way beyond our gift and not what we want anyway. What we want is lots and lots of actions in those areas brought forward by many, many different organisations and people to create that sense of landscape and to help nature bounce back. So that is in a way our top-down approach. I'm going to come on and talk about how we're going to take that forward. Just before I do, we also are very much engaged in the bottom-up. So this is the top-down working with the landowners, large, expensive, long-term projects. And the bottom-up is very much the community-orientated small projects that can make a difference to people's lives and to nature right now. So next slide, please, Luke. So just wanted to just refresh a few key milestones in our journey towards this doubling nature ambition which we launched in 2019, and then there was a sort of rather a hiatus as COVID came along and knocked us all a little bit off our feet in terms of taking things forward. But the real progress came, and again, I think very much thanks to the support within the combined authority of your district with the approval of our business case for a £1 million doubling nature fund that was last May and also within, on top of that, revenue funding for Natural Cambridge, which allowed us to increase our own capacity to help take things forward. As you can see, we are not a large organisation. 1.4 FTE is what we are now. That's double what we were this last time last year. But most significantly is this £1 million doubling nature fund that the combined authority has made available. What we want to do with this is use it to enable work on those big landscape projects. And we also want to do it innovatively. This isn't about just giving out the money and hoping stuff happens. The money has to come with a significant matched element from other financial sources from the organisations we end up working with. We're looking at innovative ways of raising that money, whether that's through government-led schemes like BiodiversityNet Gain or private finance initiatives of which there are many now as we start to see... I hate to use the phrase a market because I'm never quite sure what that means, but we are seeing the value of land and its value to nature and carbon capture now start to attract commercial interest and people are investing in land in order to get commercial return from nature-friendly practice and carbon capture practice. And I think that has to be a good thing that comes with certain pitfalls, but I think it has to be a good thing. So with that money from the Doubling Nature Fund, we've actually now gone out and asked for applicants invited expression of interest. That was in November. In December, we received 11 expressions of interest, including applicants based in South Cambridge itself. I think three of the projects are based in your district. I did check, but I'm not at liberty to say what they are. Actually, I don't know, because I've got an interest in one of the projects in Peterborough. I'm not involved in the process of assessing any of them, so I don't know which projects have come forward, but I know that there are three in the South Cambridge area. And if we go to the next slide, please, Luke. Thank you. Just last Friday, so the 31st of March, the application process closed, and it says there were those three applications. So these are applications for significant sums of money. We're looking to award potentially up to £300,000 to maybe two or three of those eight applications because we want this money to work hard. This isn't about £500 here or even £10,000 there. This is about big blocks of money that can help create the capital or, to some extent, elements of revenue to drive these projects forward. So all of the projects come through with landowners, engaged landowners who are willing to change the way they might manage their land, look at woodland planting, wetland creation, and obviously that is quite capital intensive. So we're very much hoping that over the course of the next six to eight weeks we can assess those applications and then look forward to announcing some time in the summer. I always hesitate when people put actual months in. I quite like the government policy of saying summer 2023 just in case we can't quite make the June deadline. But we are hopeful at that point that we will be handing out these or entering into contracts with these projects to help take forward significant nature recovery programmes and obviously keep you very much posted on that. I mean, it's not the end of the story there. The project then has to find other forms of money so that it can create sustainable projects, not just one-offs that then have to go and look for the next piece of grant application or funding. And then also in the summer we are looking to launch our community nature fund. This is also from within the doubling nature fund that the combined authority is made available. And basically it's a £100,000 community nature fund. And as I said, this, if you like, is not the polar opposite but it's the other end of the spectrum from the big landscape projects. This is where we really want, you know, lots of the smaller scale community projects, £500, £2,000 across the whole county. So we can support this very much by supporting the concept that doubling nature is something we can all be engaged in. You don't have to have 500 hectares on the edge of a nature reserve that you convert to wetland. You know, doubling nature, someone once said to me, well, what if I live in a house without a garden? And I said, well, have you got a balcony? And they said, yes. I said, well, if you've got one plant pot full of wildfire seeds, have two, and then you've doubled nature. And I know that's a bit trite, but it's the sort of message we want to get across that this isn't only about the big landowners, the big nature conservation organisations. We're catering for them through the landscape-led approach. But we want very much to support local nature recovery. And in some ways, you know, you can't have one without the other. They're very, very synergist and have to work together. And if we don't get the community stuff right, then we don't get the people coming with us and their sense of engagement in this campaign, because that's what it is. So we're hoping to launch that in the summer. And there will then be a, what do we call it, expressions of interest or requests for applications going out and we'll be communicating that widely. I could go to the next slide, Luke, please. This community piece builds on work that we've already done. One of the things we did, I think this was just before COVID or certainly in that very early period, was we launched a local nature recovery toolkit which is available on our website, and which we know many parishes including, as it says here in the text, one at Duxford have used. And this actually is again about locally-led, community-led nature recovery. It helps people to come together at a local level, work out what they've got in their parish or their community, because it's not just about countryside, it's also about urban areas, and how they can go about creating surveys, making maps and planning for the future. So that projects aren't just a one-off. We put up some bird boxes 10 years ago. They're actually continuous, they're linear. We put up some bird boxes 10 years ago, and nine years ago we put in a wildflower meadow, and eight years ago we planted some crocuses, and seven years ago we planted six oak trees. So that over a period of time you get momentum and you get real change in the amount of nature and quality green space that people can access locally, as I say, whether that's in a village or a market town, or even in a city as big as Cambridge or Peterborough. Next slide, please, look. And just carrying on with the community's theme. We ran a pilot project about, as you can see, October 21 to February 22, which was very similar, provided the grounds, if you like, for our launch of this 100K scheme, where we went out to parishes across the area, working with the Cambridge, and Peterborough Future Parks Fund at the time, and invited people to apply for grants and also to use the local Nature Recovery Toolkit. As I say, this was over a year ago now. Next slide, please, Luke. We ended up funding nine projects. We only had £10,000 to play with. I think it might have been slightly less than that, but we ended up funding nine projects, several of which were in the South Cambridge area, and two specifically in your district, Swavesley Community Orchard, and the Chalice Pond Barrington, I should say, before anyone says, we know we clearly funded all of this for these projects. We made a contribution to their work. Both of them are much larger projects. And that again is how we should be using this money, is to help aggregate, to help bring together. So these were contributions to both of those. And I think if you go to the next slide, we can look in slightly more detail at what they look like, Luke. And this is the Swavesley Community Orchard. I'm sure it's familiar to many of you. The orchard was established back in 2019. Community Orchard is something we're passionate about. I am myself. We planted one up here in Peterborough, and they really work. They work for nature, and they work for people. And great for volunteering, great for communities. If there's one thing I would recommend to anybody, if you've got a little bit of land, then a community orchard, particularly if you stick a pond in as well, really has great potential and ticks many, many boxes. So that was the one that we were able to help at Swavesley. And the next one was the pond. Please, Luke, I think it's the next slide at Barrington. This one was worth so much more expensive projects. So ours was only a small contribution to this. But again, you can see the difference there with those before and after photos. So yeah, two examples there of the kind of projects we'd be hoping to replicate when we launch the larger fund this June. Thank you, Luke. Next slide. Yeah, so I forgot about this slide. So perhaps before I finish on communities, these were some of the key findings. I'm very passionate about the community's piece. I mean, in my own world, I work on one of the landscape projects up here in Peterborough. But I find sometimes it's very slow, it's very detailed. There's lots of lawyers need to get involved, when you start looking at land and contracts. Whereas actually getting involved in community-based activity is real spade in the ground. You can see things happen. You can plant a hedge, you can plant some trees one year, and then two or three years down the line, you can see the results. So communities are key and they're passionate. The communities really take pride in their local area. That's something we know. So we've got this motivated audience who want to help. And they do need a little bit of hand-holding. We do need to help them build capacity. And I think this is where one of our roles at Natural Cambridgeshire, working with the District Council, is to help build that capacity, roll out the toolkit more so people know how to use it, how to find it, how to use it. And one of the things I'd like to do is be in a position where we can actually offer advice to parishes and communities. There is a capacity issue there that we don't have at the moment. One of the things we're looking at is whether we can actually apply for grant funding from some of the bigger charitable schemes to then pay for advice. So that when parishes say which trees should I plant or which wildflower seed mix should I use, there's a helpline or an advisor who can help them take that forward. Thank you. Next slide, please, Vic. I wanted just to finish on another major piece of work that we are involved in at the moment, local nature recovery strategies. This may have come your way. You may be aware of them. Perhaps what I should go back to and say is I think there's been a very defining moment for the natural environment in terms of legislation and policy, which was the DEF for a 25-year environment plan, which was published, I'm going to say 2019, but someone will correct me. That really has set out a new pathway, I think, for nature recovery and has helped put the environment very much more front and centre than perhaps it was previously in terms of policy. A key plank in how that is made to happen is the rollout of local nature recovery strategies. Everybody has to have one. It's statutory obligation. We've now received all the detailed guidance on what they are and how you go about doing them. In Cambridgeshire, the decision has been taken that the CPCA is actually the responsible body and that it has commissioned the county council working with natural temperature and other partners to create the local nature recovery strategy for the CPCA area, obviously including Peterborough. The purpose of the strategy is a bit of a local... I think it's a shame in a way that they aren't much more tied in with the local plan because it's about land-use planning. It's about saying these are the parts of the county which are already nature-rich or where there is the potential to make them nature-rich and therefore where we want to prioritise environmental outcomes. Actually, if you had proper land-use plans, you'd have a local plan that does that for housing and development and then you have the local nature strategy which ties in with that and identifies where the environmental gain can come. The nature recovery strategy, where it's finished, will show you exactly what it is we want to flourish in the county and set out the target species and the target habitats that we want to help recover. It will tell us where the existing habitats are and what sort of state they're in and then it will outline the opportunities to expand on those areas and create more nature-rich areas across the county and that will then provide the guidance and the plan, if you like, for how we take forward not only the double nature ambition but also how we align things like biodiversity and game payments with the priorities that are outlined in the local nature recovery strategy. It's a really important document. I'm desperately keen that it becomes a readable document, not just a piece of bureaucracy that never really gets off the shelf. I want it to be something that shapes the way we think about our land-use and, in that sense, therefore, landowners are one of the primary audiences for the development of local nature recovery strategies. They know a lot of this information. They work the land and we need to work with them. The Natural Cambridges is going to be playing a key role, I hope, in providing the expertise and the guidance to support the local authorities and also, I think, in trying to make sure, as I say, that it's a very accessible, hopefully really exciting document that paints a picture of what a nature-rich Cambridges could look like. I think that's probably where I would finish. Have I got one more slide? Can I just check? There's a couple more, I think there's two more. Oh, right. I'll go to the next one, shall I? Thank you. This is just a little bit more about local nature recovery strategies. To be fair, I'm just going to flick through that. That's the detail of what it needs to contain. But go to the next slide, please, then, Luke. Which I think, yeah, yeah. This is the detail. But for me, it's not about the detail. Thank you, that's the one I wanted really. The message I want to leave everybody on is, I think, this is a tremendously exciting agenda. I thoroughly believe that the needs of society in terms of housing and jobs and the needs of communities in terms of fulfilment and empowerment and the needs of nature are compatible. And that it's a gross failure of our kind of policy environment over perhaps the last few decades that we haven't made them compatible and that nature has suffered so badly as a result. But I think there's so much positive action being taken now across the country. There's a great policy framework that we can actually deliver, I think, against these different objectives and create better places to live, better places and more places to work, and really flourishing nature alongside all of that. And in a way, kind of, what's not to like about that? It requires imagination, it requires some courage, it will require more funding. But I think fundamentally it's the only way forward for us is to see those agendas actually as aligned, rather than competing. And I think that's one of the roles natural Cambridge has to play to get that message across and to facilitate the delivery of what are essentially better places to live for people and for nature. Chairman, I've probably gone far too long. I do apologise for that. But hopefully that's giving you a bit of a flavour of who we are and what we do. Yes. Thank you so much, Richard. That was inspiring. And I think the way it was inspiring for me was that, you know, as a tendency to think this is such a challenge that, you know, where do we start? And I think you've shown us that where to start is at a local level because particularly the before and after photos you showed were so inspiring. And I think if we can just replicate that all over the county, we're sort of well on the way. And thank you for everything you do in promoting this. That's a great presentation. I wonder, do any of the members either in the chamber or online have some questions? I have a little bit of confusion in a couple of areas where the application can be signed. I have a few registered charities here, the local charity. I'm also a town councillor and I also have a CIC on the well-being and I do have enthusiasm. I do have enthusiasm. I have a lot of enthusiasm because I have a CIC on the well-being and I do have enthusiasm. I do have enthusiasm. Volunteers and residents with me. But before the application I got some confusion. Like if I have a group of volunteers they are willing to work for some plantation or outside park or something. How do we, are we supposed to get, like your organisation or your group, are you supposed to give us a piece of land or we will be working on a designated land? How does it work? Yes, thank you councillor for that question. So as I say, the applications for the pot of money that we have will open in the summer. So not open at this stage and we will develop detailed guidance. But no, I'm afraid one of the things we don't have is we don't have land. Land is the commodity that is probably the most precious in all of this. So it would be about organisations who have already identified a piece of land that they can work on or have come to an agreement with a land owner or can use public land and then just need some money to buy the materials whether that's wildflower seed or trees or hedging or bulbs. But I certainly wouldn't want people to get put off by not having land. I mean, just in my own village, for instance, working with the parish council, we planted thousands of bulbs in the verges around the village. And we took advice as to what bulbs and make sure they were native, make sure they were good pollinators and that makes a huge difference to a village. We also were able to purchase bird boxes for the village hall and for other public buildings that we could then give to local villages. So I certainly don't think people should be put off if they haven't got land. There are lots of ways in which we can encourage people to help nature recover, whether it's giving people bulbs for their own gardens or wildflower seed. So yeah, just to answer your question, we don't have land that we can offer, but I think it's about projects that people have already got in their mind and they're looking for that additional funding to be done in the future. Okay, thank you. I understand that you will be supporting us, the groups or the small groups or communities or charities with the capital cost. That's correct, yeah. A procurement to buy the things and the land might come from parish council or town council or any other place. Thank you. That's correct. Thank you. Councillor Peter Fave, you had a question. Thank you, chair. I was encouraged by what you said about not being discouraged by not having land. One of our functions here, of course, is development control. A number of the members here are on the development control committee, the local planning committee. We sometimes get applications from developers who find it very difficult to meet biodiversity net gain targets on the land for the moment. I'm still waiting legislation on that. I recall one case where as a result, it was offsetting on another site some way from the... well outside the district, in fact, and we found it very difficult to assess the true benefits of that. I wondered whether offsetting a biodiversity net gain or indeed possibly a garden is something that the natural chemistry will be looking at or do you regard that as a function for others? To answer your question very directly, technically it is a function for others. We don't have any statutory powers there, but we certainly have views and we can offer advice. The issue around offsetting divides the conservation community to some extent. My own view in Natural Cambridges is that offsetting... we should always look to see what we can do on-site if it's a development that we want people to be close to nature, we want developments to be full of green open space, not just accessible, but also rich green open space. But often it's not possible to develop all of the natural obligations on-site. Sometimes it isn't appropriate. There is no two ways about it that most ponds that go into a development very quickly dry up, they're not looked after, they're not managed properly, they're not necessarily what they're supposed to be doing. There is a case for offsetting, I would say, and I think in my personal view, and I stress that, is that I think offsetting can work very well, but I think it has to be local. I really do. I think if offsetting is any distance from the development, then you've lost any sense, particularly if you're a member of a local community, of any benefit accruing back to you of that development. My own view is that I am in favour of offsetting, and I can see the benefits of it, but I think it's got to be not... I would say not only within the same district, but actually within, you know, within sort of travel time distance for the community where the development has gone. I think if it hasn't been broken part of the equation, it makes it very difficult. But I should say, I wouldn't want to... That's my own view, but I do recognise the difficulties of that, of just finding the right piece of land. I think it's council's question. Finding land is very difficult. Finding land for biodiversity net gain is proving very difficult at the moment for many local authorities. Does that answer your question, Councillor Fane? Yes, thank you very much. I entirely agree with what you say. Your personal views, what it's worth. Thank you. Thank you for that interesting answer. I think Councillor Stephen Drew, you had a question. Thank you, Councillor Harvey. Thank you, very interesting. I'm always struck in these situations when I hear people come and speak to us as district council by... Although you talk a lot about things that are very positive and things that we would like to be involved in in support and then as my two colleagues have just asked you a question we can do, but I am always struck by wanting to ask the question of what exactly would you like the district council to do in terms of what could we do with our powers, with our policies, with our funding? Obviously, I know that's an open-ended question and we have believed in the deputy leader here who is probably now thinking, oh dear, we're setting up for an endless set of asks, but in general terms, maybe sort of three specific things that you think that as a district council we are in a position to specifically do to support the work of natural temperature. Right. Gosh, that's quite a big question. I don't know if this is the answer you want, but you guys are doing a really good job, I think. I think the south temperature is setting an example on its policies, so I hope that neither offends or anybody or people feel I've taken the easy answer there, but it is true, I think within the region you're setting the example to many of how to put the nature and the biodiversity crisis front and centre. I think there is more that can be done I think getting policies right now on biodiversity net gain is going to be critical for everybody and actually making them happen. I think there's some very innovative things happening with land banking again in your area which is the right way to go. I think we've got to, we've really got to hang tough, we've got to work hand in hand with the development industry to make that happen. Make it simple for them, because that's what they want. They want a simple policy that they can implement quickly. And the other bit I would urge, and I forgive me for not knowing enough about quite where you are on your BNG policy, is that we don't just allow biodiversity net gain on any old bit of land. The developer's got a farmer friend down the road. I think consolidating our natural recovery in large areas of land rather than small pockets of land that is going to be the way forward. So I would certainly urge that, that we don't just allow any old sort of scheme to go through to qualify for biodiversity credits. And then I think the third thing I would say is, and again, it's not that you're not doing it. I really do believe in this community stuff and I'd like to work very closely, we already are, I'd like to work even more closely and more tangibly with the council to really raise the levels of community engagement with the biodiversity agenda. When I say engagement, they are engaged, it unites people. I think this is one of the great things about working in the biodiversity world. What's not to like? You really don't find many people so I just don't want nature. I mean, most people, whether it's more trees, whether it's more birds, whether it's more flowers, we recognise the beauty in nature and I think helping communities really take control of that agenda at a local level, empowering them with the tools we talked about and with the small grants we talked about. But also I think with just that kind of moral support and the leadership role that local councillors can play, I think would be vitally important. So what have I just said that? Something around biodiversity net gain and being really strong on that about where it happens and how it happens and enabling the communities as much as possible would be my main thoughts on that one, councillor. So I think it's anything else. No, I think that's probably what I would say. Thank you. Yes, thank you for that. So we've got Peter Sandford. Peter Sandford, would you? Actually, councillor Fein already posed the question that I was going to ask so you can happily move on to the next question. The next one is the leader, Bridget Smith. You have a question. Thank you very much. Hello, Richard, nice to see you. So I think we're really lucky having Natural Cambridgeshire and I'd like to think that with my lead role on environment at which I have for the CPCA that I had a small part to play in ensuring that this significant sums of money were passported down to Natural Cambridgeshire who I absolutely didn't believe because of the nature of their partnership which is a really wide-ranging partnership where we are actually very well placed to deliver on behalf of all of us. So, though the little community projects are really exciting and we as councillors like nothing more than a little wildflower meadow built in our patch, the reality is that the biggest bang for our buck is when stuff is done at scale. So I'm very pleased that Richard started off talking about these major landscape interventions and I think we as an authority need to start thinking strategically about the two of those that are in our patch and how we through our local plan and through any other interventions we have can actually start to move those forward because I don't think we're quite there yet. There's other opportunities for us again. None of us can do this alone because we're very restricted as a local authority what we can do but working together with like a Natural Cambridgeshire and the other game changer is the Oxford-Cainbridge partnership where again I lead on the environment there and that provides real opportunity to do some very, very exciting stuff over a regional geography. So I took a group of people involved in the OCP up to OUSFEN at the second time we've been to visit that to look at the potential there for significant major wetland creation not in restoration, wetland creation and a model that can work with the development of things like East-West Rail so as aggregators extracted from the ground to build major infrastructure projects so restorative work goes on that creates wetlands that hasn't been there for millennia or maybe never. Very, very exciting opportunities there and I think for us as a local authority taking as a lead role in that is actually really exciting and a great privilege for us to do it. But again it's working in partnership with the Lights of Natural Cambridgeshire who we provide small amounts of funding to help them a bit as well which I hope is recognition of the importance that we put on them. So it's not a question it's just a position statement really to show it to our support. Thank you. Thank you councillors. So yes, councillor Brian Milms. Thank you. Just continuing that discussion about offsetting and I notice that Cambridgeshire County Council is one of the largest municipal landowners in the country and they've established a unit or a development at Lower Valley Farm near Folbourne specifically for providing local offsetting capabilities. We've got a thousand biodiversity units for sale and certainly I think it fits Richard with your request to have something local and right in the middle of South Cam. So that's certainly something I think we ought to applaud and hopefully I wear two hats on the Cambridgeshire County councillor as well and I'd be very supportive of the county doing more projects like this if this succeeds. So I just thought I'd mention that. Thank you. My vice-chair, Martin Carlaw. I'm very keen about the work that you're doing in terms of setting up projects but what I am concerned about is that we're accepting that this is what we can do with the resources that are available and there is a need to look at the scale of what we need to do to meet the target of doubling nature. The target of doubling nature is to increase from I thought it was 7.5% to 50% you now say it's 8.5% to 17% but it's roughly that, roughly 7.5% of land which is to be converted from other intensive use to natural use basically that's the objective. I thought it was worthwhile to look at the scale that would be needed to achieve that by 2050. So I did a little calculation and looked at the amount and it came to the 7.5% which is a little bit less than you say. It came to 254 hectares a year in South Cambridge Now the best control land it's nice to do it with farmers and when you've got an enthusiastic farmer it will work but a farmer is basically a food producer that's their objective, that's their motivation so the best way to do it is to have it under control of organisations which specialise in natural land and conversion and there are organisations, RSPBB a good example of organisations which have converted land into land of very high-image conservation use but to do that they've got to buy the land so I thought it was a useful exercise to think what it would cost to buy the land every year and it came out at 5.5 million per year in South Cambridge for the next 27 years which is, I thought it's a bit of a shock when you work that out it's not something that we can obviously do neither the county nor the district in a situation where we've got problems with care crisis or the other crises we've got so many hotels we're not going to be able to find that sort of resources so it has got to come from a higher level it's got to come to a change in national level either through, the various ways you could do it you could pay organisations to buy up land and I absolutely agree with you it's much more productive if you do it in larger blocks and if you do it with a bit some pieces around here but either you could do it by that or you could do it by paying farmers to do the land but it's that sort of money that you're going to be looking at that's 5.5 million is without the management land that you do on the land afterwards another way to look at it was to look at the profit that they're making on the farmland that you're taking over so maybe you would subsidise the profit that's also an interesting thing I looked at the farmers weekly to look at the margins that you're making per hectare on agricultural land and it came out about £200 per hectare times £254 you come out about £50,000 a year but you're doing it each year so the first year it's £50,000 the second year it's £100,000 the third year it's £150,000 in five years you build up to a quarter of a million it's a lot of money that you need to change that use to have an incentive to change that use and it's important that we emphasise the government but if that's what they want and if that's what we want that's the sort of money you're going to have to find in the long term and maybe you're going to find it from industry but there are limits to what you can find in industry in terms of all setting there are limits to what they will pay in terms of what private enterprise will give up in terms of potential benefits an organisation like the county council for instance can do it to a certain extent but it is also liability of its trust it has to get a good return for its tax payers so it can't unless it can justify it it has limitations about what it can do this is land which was bought for such which was bought for it wasn't bought for nature conservation there are procedures to go through so we do need, I think it's important that we also have what you might call a promotional role in emphasising the scale of the problem and the scale of the needs the one million is very nice but you're talking about basically 300,000, 400,000 in South Cambridge of over three years it's a bit over 100,000 pound a year compared with five and a half million it puts the scale of what we need to do in question the local projects are very good in terms of promotional or getting local people doing things but they're not actually conversion of land from other land to naturally natural inheritance which you're improving there was actually a third project in South Cambridge of the Orchard Park project Orchard Park is actually in South Cambridge and not the city that you may have thought it was it seems like a city and that's a very, very motivating group of people co-housing there and very worthwhile but we've done a project in my ward where in history we've bought land about 17 hectares of land but that was already converted it was set aside and a wet meadow so these were already lands it wasn't a conversion of land it was an improvement and making it available for local use so it's very good on a promotional role it doesn't actually contribute to the doubling nature in the sense of increasing the area of land and therefore to do that we need something on a larger scale and we do need to actually make people realise the scale of what we need to do which I think is a somebody good objective and it also means we need to think what we do, we need to maintain food production where various reasons why it's become more of a problem now with Brexit meaning that we're lower down the priority scale in importing our vegetables we're going to have to do more for ourselves that was a decision this country made we're all for bad but that's where we are now and therefore we have to make sure that we've got productive farmland and so some of the land is going to have to remain intensive and we think how do we manage that in co-ordination with this increased natural area it's better than it was larger blocks it's easier to separate if you have lots of small blocks they're going to be influenced by the intensive farmland around them whereas you've got larger blocks you've got a better scope for protecting them so we need to think also about how we manage intensive farming if we're going to meet the needs at the same time as having an increased nature and I just wondered how you see that proceeding as part of the role of natural agriculture and what you can do there in influencing government thank you I agree with the analysis entirely but I'm not entirely sure I agree with the solution if I may counsel it I think one of the things that excites me most I'm not really introduced myself I'm not a nature conservationist but a background of profession it's not what I do for a living I'm just kind of a passionate enthusiast and have been all of my life but one of the reasons why I feel more hopeful now is that I'm not a nature conservationist but I'm not a nature conservationist but one of the reasons why I feel more hopeful now than I ever have that we really have turned a corner and that we will see the large scale recovery of nature across our landscapes is because of what's happening in the private sector so I don't see the solutions as all being government led they do need to be the policy environment the government's done that to its credit it's put a policy environment in place with legally binding targets which I think are already making a difference and will continue to make a difference but what is also succeeded in doing that because of the way it's changed the subsidy regime for farming is it's intensifying sorry it's incentivising more and more farmers and particularly the bigger landowners to look very carefully at where their future income streams are and we had a fascinating presentation at Natural Cambridge just last week from a private sector led initiative called Landscape Enterprises where they are effectively brocuring bringing together a number of large landowners in large blocks of land and then they are pricing up the costs of not only nature recovery but carbon capture flood resilience and they're selling those credits on into the market and it's working already so you're seeing blocks of land of several thousands of hectares with big companies like Nestle and Coke and really big landowners, agro industries the ones that we're often a little bit worried about what their impact will be and they are creating change across landscapes and we don't know a lot of the things that are happening because it's not coming down through some central sort of administered system because they're not nature reserves because it's alongside commercial farming I'm not sure we're fully aware of just what's happening out there at the moment and I think there's some dramatic changes happening and I may well be wrong but that's the hope I have is that the way we achieve the scale that you require and the investment that you require I don't think from central government I certainly would like to see a lot more coming from them I'd like to see a lot more funding for these schemes but it will never achieve entirely what we want but if landowners and farmers are being paid either through government schemes or through private finance schemes to make these changes to their land that allow it to farm commercially so we don't impede on impact on food security to allow nature recovery flood resilience at the same time that's what's really exciting and I've seen a number of things recently that I think do offer hope I think one of the councillers talked earlier about what's happened on one of the county farms that's a really exciting initiative and I think there are lots of these things happening now and we're only at the beginning of the process so we absolutely need to work at much greater scale I don't think our £1b doesn't even touch the size of that but if we can champion the different ways of doing things and start to show people in the way that the county farm has what you can do and how you can do it and how you can bring in innovative sources of finance to make that pay it's own way so that our farmers remain sold and profitable I think that's the bit that excites me and makes me quite optimistic for the future councillers so it's not that I disagree with your analysis but I kind of feel there's some very interesting things happening I was talking to one of the big farming estates up near Peterborough the day, seriously big thousands of hectares and they are starting to pull together a private finance scheme that will allow them to deliver over those thousands of hectares now we might never know about that they're not going to advertise it they're not going to publicise it they're just going to get on and do it and it'll take for ages but we've got some really interesting things going with the private guys so interesting times a quick question is this grant already published or it is going to be published? it will be published in the summer so June, July so that was that question for me yes it was was it? yeah yeah question for you so June and July summer and we will make sure it comes through your offices they'll be made aware of it and we can circulate it to all councillors I'm sure do I believe that till that time till that time is it a confidential meeting or no no or it can be discussed among the volunteers and the groups I'm happy for people to it's certainly not confidential we're clear this is how we want to use the money so people can be made aware of it but obviously we won't be inviting applications until later in the summer okay got it but the but the discussion is alright for you is not very good yes thank you yes thank you that's the best chorea I have a question which I think probably should be the last question because we've got to look at the clock I just wondered Richard whether you would agree that really the way in which we can involve the farming community is sort of a key thing and that we don't necessarily have to focus on the satellite map showing a doubling of for example wooded area because a lot of the ecology and biodiversity is actually within the soil itself and we're thinking about there's a whole ecosystem with worms and provision of food for animals higher up the food chain and I just wondered whether you would agree that almost you're looking at regenerative farming techniques and that's a process rather than an asset as a newly planted cops would be and is there a case for being associated with an undertaking to you know use regenerative farming for example yeah so that's a really a really interesting question and I think my answer that is probably no more valuable than anybody else is to be honest because I think this is the thing I would say is that we seem to have forgotten about soil in a lot of conversations I'm sure agronomists don't and farmers don't but you know the soil is so important for our own survival really so much comes from it not just food but also ecology all forms of land use so I do think that government schemes should be encouraging regenerative farming I don't think it's got to be about encouraging farmers need to come on this journey at their own volition and there will be those who come and those who don't so I do think that regenerative farming is really important I think soil quality is really important but I'd probably just hock back to the previous councillor's point I think we need to make sure that the biodiversity debt gain money and the money that we have available for that is going to creation of new habitats rather than improving the soils for commercial farming I kind of do see those as slightly not compatible or a lot of different things so whilst I'd want to encourage regenerative farming absolutely and certainly encourage maintaining soil quality I see biodiversity debt gain as separate if not separable if I can use that phrase and given that the BNG money is going to be limited as well I kind of feel I personally and again personal opinion would rather see it creating new habitats rather than maintaining improvement of the soil I think that's maybe where additional investment needs to come I'm not sure that's a great answer chair but it's probably my own feeling at the moment Thank you well again thank you so much for a fascinating presentation and for giving such thoughtful and insightful answers to our questions so thank you Richard I think that probably ends that agenda item I just take the opportunity to thank you then just the opportunity to thank you chair for really enjoying being part of the conversation and to be in a conversation with so many knowledgeable people really good questions so it did become actually wants to be clear my views are just my views they're not in any way right and I'm sure other people may disagree with some of the things I say but if I could also just thank South Cambridge District Council for being such a keen advocate and supporter not only of our cause doubling nature but also of natural Cambridgeshire itself I really am very grateful for the support we've had over the years thank you much Richard Astall and chair of natural Cambridgeshire and I hope we'd be able to invite you back and you would accept on a future occasion for maybe an update on progress so of course thank you thank you well following on from that the next item on the agenda is an update on our own doubling nature strategy I think Luke Waddington are you going to present on that so thank you over to you Luke thank you very much chair good afternoon everyone and thank you very much Richard for your presentation as well which has really set the context for this next item around doubling nature ambition for us really as South Cams as an authority and what we're doing in terms of meeting our doubling nature ambitions and also our future steps towards those aspirations and where we go next which again was a point that Richard touched on so yeah the report shows really that the breadth of wide range of actions that are already being accomplished by us as a council in areas that we have control of through our own estate and our own operations and then our wider influence really as a policy maker and our ability to engage with partners in our communities but the report also identifies areas where there's more work as possible and seeks to identify actions to advance these in some areas so I won't go through all of these in detail they're in the report in more detail but I thought I'd pick out some of the I suppose the key areas or the key ones starting with some of the work that's being done on our own estate and through our own operations there's a lot here key actions and a lot of them are being undertaken through housing through the housing department being I suppose that sort of the housing land being that kind of area of most of our kind of land is within our control within their areas so things like the recent tree audit of nearly 3,000 trees on our housing revenue account land with maintenance and enhancement program that's now being carried out sort of a key action but also tree planting recently over the last couple of weeks of around 262 trees again on HRA land via funded via local authority tree scapes fund from the Forestry Commission but also the work that the housing department doing sort of supporting communities as well not just sort of actions on their own land but supporting say parishes in planting trees identifying further areas within housing's land for other wildlife measures biodiversity measures in the sort of coming planting seasons things like wildflower areas and yet kind of working with other resident groups on other initiatives things like hand weeding as opposed to using weed killer which also build a picture of the kind of level of work that's already being done kind of on our own on our own estate again sort of aside from our housing department there's a lot being done regarding our sort of responsibility for our awarded water courses I think it's around 275 km or so of water courses that our environmental operations team work on and again there's a number of projects here working with partners people like the Wild Trout Trust the Internal Drainage Board, the RSPB sort of working with these these groups to actually manage manage those areas we're responsible for as much as possible for nature benefiting species like water vol and as I said wild trout as well as again assisting community groups with some of the equipment and the knowledge to carry out their own projects we'll think a recent example being to desilting Sheporth Mill Pond to improve flows through a sleuth so yeah that kind of that sort of painted picture there again of the involvement through the water courses there's also three closed churchards that we're responsible for in Horseheath, Great Shelford of Willingham and the planning department have sort of drawn up new management plans or are being drawn up at the moment I think to manage these sites more for nature but obviously also for their historic value alongside the various sort of health and safety considerations as well so kind of moving on from our direct action through to our kind of influence through our policies obviously I suppose the key contributor to this outside of our yeah our own operations is the planning department and the work that we do in sort of securing measurable improvements for biodiversity via new developments through biodiversity net gain obviously we've heard a bit about this through in Richard's presentation but yeah the planning department is already where possible negotiating that 10% biodiversity net gain yeah where it's possible on applications already sort of ahead of that expected I think November 2023 introduction nationally and then there's an aspiration within the emerging sort of greater Cambridge local plan for a to set a 20% biodiversity net gain requirement in the future alongside obviously the sort of the sweet of various policies within the proposed plan to enhance biodiversity and green infrastructure as well as kind of promoting climate adaptation methods that also benefit biodiversity like trees for shading green roofs sustainable urban drainage those sorts of things and again within planning the current biodiversity supplementary planning document which serves to sort of support that existing local plan at strength of some of those existing policies to secure biodiversity improvements up until the the new plan as new local plans adopted and then moving on to kind of our our partnership work with organizations and communities that we support through things like our grants so zero carbon communities grant the six free trees obviously whilst being tree planting focused and zero carbon case sort of more focused on the carbon outcomes but that obviously does lead to benefits for nature as well through those trees but then also our community chest biodiversity grants and promotion of tools through our various social media channels like as Richard mentioned natural Cambridge shares local nature recovery toolkit so that's a kind of a really brief I guess run-through of some of the key points within the report that sort of take us through some of the actions that's already taking place but as I say there's obviously more I think more that we can do and I think yeah kind of again leaving that that kind of that given that key role of the planning system in nature recovery the next stage of kind of delivery of biodiversity net gain measures and those particular in the strategic locations that we've been talking about is crucial but also the coordination of that with with communities to ensure that that they sort of benefits for nature are maximized and those outcomes are maximized for people as well as the environment and ways and means of doing so working with our communities to do that currently being looked at through with the planning department because yeah so identifying various ways in which they might do that noting the work that's already been done on HRA land by the housing department again given it comprises most of their CDs South Cambridge's land ownership it's very useful to sort of set that visual example and hopefully inspire others but it's also important to look at what else we can do there so within the report there's a noted sort of next step I suppose in that sort of area which is to seek some advice from ecologists on various different types of sites that we might be able to plan for specific measures and develop management plans for those areas within yeah sort of HRA sites that will allow yeah again additional benefits to nature to be continued and measure over time as well which is another important thing that they don't just sort of lapse that we can measure the benefits for those and continue their management for them as has again been leaded to we also can build on and improve those community networks that were already there and provide all support to that which is already offered I think perhaps we could do better with sort of sign pasting some resources to those external partners sorry the resources that those external partners have provided natural chemistry and the local nature recovery toolkit and also sort of use those within that sort of same sphere kind of use that to increase the uptake of some of our grants such as a biodiversity community chest grant and a six free trees grant whilst there is a fairly good uptake of those in some cases that could still be improved so I think there's work to be done perhaps with some of those community's groups to understand what they need from us or from elsewhere perhaps to make more use of those grant schemes and understand a bit more about how we can help them take advantage of those and I think one element of that is to to promote exemplars of nature recovery in our area so for instance as you may have seen in the report there's a small kind of case study of some of the excellent work that's been done over the last couple of years in Cotinham by sustainable Cotinham and Councillor Led by Councillor John Lovelock who has been fantastic in kind of producing a number of different projects across the village and really want to kind of showcase some of those in the hope that they probably can sort of inspire and promote other areas of the district or sorry other villages in our district to do the same so we'll hopefully see more of that as well but more widely still stepping up and supporting more measures like home composting p3 compost gardening for nature those sorts of things to our residents as a sort of a kind of within their own sphere, within their own household as measures that they can take to kind of double nature within their own their own immediate control again as Richard mentioned with this sort of balcony analogy so that we're kind of empowering people and giving them some of the key information that they need to perhaps do that within their own spaces and then finally yes I think that's sort of more focused discussion and collaboration with our partners such as Natural Cambridge here to combine our resources or bring those resources to bear to enable greater community involvement and greater uptake of nature-related projects and funding could be done there we've had conversations with some Richard's colleagues and I think they need to be probably picked up again to make sure that we're kind of making the most of that partnership but yes since writing the report has actually sort of been a few more updates on some of those areas that I've mentioned in terms of the progress with those actions so we have made a bit more progress in terms of our kind of what we can do on our HRA land now we've actually had some advice from an ecologist and sort of identify certain types of sites and the measures perhaps that are best suited to those types of sites and it's now got a next step of identifying some specific areas within our housing land and our other areas where we can perhaps think about what we can do with those areas and develop specific measures and specific plans for those we're also again working with hopefully working with Sustainable Cotonin a bit more closely to develop that first case study that we can hopefully then use to provide inspiration and guidance for other parishes or groups and also mentioned in the report which I haven't mentioned in my sort of introduction to it but the sort of following on from that motion in September of last year regarding the dumping of sewage in chalk streams in our area and the sort of consideration of applying to DEFRA for an inland basin designation so that piece of work is also progressing with a consultant to engage to investigate the feasibility of that application and sort of kick off meetings I think taking place relatively recently and the scope of that sort of project being developed so I hope that sort of gives a general overview of the report and our current and future actions towards our doubling nature ambitions but thank you very much for listening and for reading the report and I'm happy to take any questions Well thank you Luke for that and I suppose it's just impressive really and to hear the sort of huge range of initiatives that we are undertaking and I suppose it's always difficult to see change happening on a pace that we might like but I think we have to remember this as like we're sort of planting the seeds here aren't we and some of these initiatives if we came back in ten years time we might find they've had a real impact I suppose this would be an appropriate time just to remember John Lovelock it just makes me so happy and proud to see that his initiatives are really making a difference and what a wonderful legacy that will be for John and the memory of him and we just remember John all that he's done for us so thank you very much now I don't know if there are any questions from this segment oh right councillor Stephen Drew I saw councillor Milngford so I'm happy to select councillor Milngford first if he wishes to make it I'm happy to defer to you first if you wish to make it well no absolutely but Brian notes that I I thought councillor I'll be just so unclear I have a number of questions I wish to ask am I asking them of councillor Milngford in the first instance as the deputy leader of the council to then reference to officers should you wish to do so or am I asking my questions to you as chair and you are then pointing towards an officer to answer the questions and the reason I ask this is at least three of my questions I think have a political spin to them which means I'm not entirely sure that officers are entirely the correct people to answer them you may shall we wing it and take it as it lands indeed so I am just seeking to make sure that we follow there so I'll take my first one on page 3.10 of the report I'm just going to make sure I've got it in front of me as well so I'm not making it up from the front it talks really positively about the fact that we as a district council wish to see 20% to be the same that we are and I really just wanted to ask how realistic do we think that is and the reason I ask this is because we do often see a situation where we have the targets that we set in a very positive way but we often see developers push back against those targets or seek out a situation where we have the targets that we set in a very positive way push back against those targets or seek to reduce the level they're willing to do and this does sometimes lead to disappointments and dissatisfaction from activist groups or from residents or from councillors indeed so my first question really is how likely do we think that the 20% target reference in point 10 is going to be the norm for planning decisions going forward in the district well, thank you for that council view but I think the answer is that as a local government we can see the impact on the ground maybe quicker than the central government so I think it's quite right that we should be sort of setting the pace if you like as with for example insulation standards on new build housing we would like to go faster quicker but it takes a while for central government to catch up and I think it's the same with biodiversity in that game if we and other local authorities weren't pressing for it it might not happen so whether it will be achieved I don't know I think there is a genuine sense in which the population in general is sort of catching up with the pioneers if you like and acknowledging this but I think also there are cases where developers are more in light than other developers and they can see the public benefit and therefore from the public benefit enhancing their own credibility and sort of social capital if you like I don't know if that helps would yes okay my vice chair I simply wanted to comment that a desirable objective obviously and the mood seems to be going that way but it's important to remember that biodiversity in that game depends upon the existing biodiversity interest of a site and if there is virtually none it doesn't need you to do much to get by the diversity in that game so you do need to perhaps pose a question whether we should be looking for minimum standards or minimum amounts rather than just a percentage and I think in terms of the consultations we ought to look at that I'm thinking particularly of the North Cambridge site which is a site which has very little existing but there's not very much so you don't need to do a lot to get even 20 or 30 or 40% net gain on that site and some of the big sites that we have particularly now are likely to be like that and so we perhaps do need to pose that question exactly how the biodiversity benefits come out of that's my view you need to pose the question about how the biodiversity benefits come out of your planning system perhaps it's not just that game maybe we need to look at other things as well thank you so I have a number of other questions but I'm happy to kind of ask one to let someone else go and then come back otherwise I will end up running a section of the meeting I just wonder if perhaps Siobhan or Luke would like to comment on that I mean we in terms of whether it's achievable or possible I mean it's one we can perhaps take and talk to colleagues in planning and see if there's a view from them and respond in the due course I'm probably not personally I don't feel I'm probably equipped I would echo that thank you thank you your second question then okay thank you on page 4 point 14 obviously we're referring to local plans and then we're referring to neighbourhood planning in a sense though I assume we're referring to neighbourhood plans and again this strikes me as a really good thing it strikes me as something whereby we should as far as possible be enabling villages and communities there to be able to influence what planning happens but again I wanted to ask how much action influence we think that parish councils and their neighbourhood plans will actually be able to have on the planning process and whether or not the environmental aims that we have regarding the overall double in later strategy what action influence do we think that parish councils in that regard will be able to have within the planning system well again we'd always like it to be more wouldn't we but I think yes neighbourhood plans are proving effective in causing the villages local population to sort of focus in on where could we have a green space and I mean this is an example of where that's happened in quite a big and significant scale so yes I think neighbourhood plans are a great initiative and particularly in this regard so thanks if you have a third question I am still going page 5 point 18 I really just wanted to I think this probably is one for the officers who will feel much more comfortable making answering this because I feel this will definitely fall within their area it talks about issues in order to deal with air quality and how that's a crucial aspect of our natural capital I just actually wondered if you could have some more information expand upon what specifically air quality issues within South Cambridgeshire that we think we need to be dealing with thank you well is that something you can help us with I've gone straight to maybe we will have an answer from sorry is Alex yes sorry Alex yes no problem no problem just to say we've actually had an internal report around some recent work on air quality so we'd be happy to share that that came to the officers a couple of weeks ago so a week ago so we'd be happy to share that information to be directly or through this group so yeah happy to do that you may carry on if you like oh sorry I'm Councillor Brian Wills I don't know if it's worth Alex referencing the number of air quality monitors that we actually have in the district and also then the precursor to that those microunits so perhaps if you just explain that for the benefit of the committee yeah so a recent project had some Zephyrs identified particular locations where there was a perception of it perhaps an air quality issue and so how they were used were to kind of look at that perception and then look at the reality of those particular areas so we you know we found there's not a particular significant issue around air quality we're really lucky in south Cambridge here that actually we don't have those kind of issues happy to bring back some specifics or figures I haven't got them with me right now but happy to bring some of those back to you but they were really useful in helping to engage people on those issues and perhaps put things in context in terms of not only south Cams but also kind of wider as well good thank you Alex Councillor Drew are there there are two more questions okay let me take them off although I've started repeating them page 5.24 obviously following on from the presentation that was made earlier from natural Cambridge one of the things that was referenced was the six priority landscapes and one of the areas that was referenced was further as the west further as the west Cambridge 100s I believe is the phrase that was used which looking on appendix A is then quite a large area centred roughly on-born going up to Canborn and then across the canyon going such like I just wondered what the how far the council thinks that the potential plans for the east west rail development which clearly goes significantly through this area regardless of which route is chosen whether it be northern route, southern route south of Canborn whatever else I just wondered what the council's thoughts were in relation to EWR's proposal and what I assume will be our support for this west Cambridge 100s and again referring back to our colleague at the start who talked very much on natural Cambridge about seeking to enhance that area we know that obviously east west rail are at times should we say less than okay I feel that's a very generous interpretation of what they present to us about what they are going to do and I say that as someone who attends meetings with east west rail quite regularly on this I just wonder what our thoughts are about the potential impact of east west rail in relation to our proposals here and I accept it could well be a positive impact in terms of any work that rail development may well do in those areas by perhaps enhancing any provision that's there I just wondered if there's any thought gone into that in relation to this appendix map Well thank you councillor but I think in relation to east west rail there is a, is there not a biodiversity net gain aspect to that development but I think Brian Milms would you have anything to add to that? Yes so one of the meetings I've attended in the last three weeks I think was specifically east west rail in relation to biodiversity net gain and other very much natural Cambridge issues as we've talked about today there are some specific aspects to rail development sort of the verges I don't know what on the railway line they are the verges of perhaps but offering opportunity for creating areas of biodiversity and that gain immediate proximity so not necessarily requiring offsetting or other developments we also raised the question of whether they would be prepared to buy additional width of land next to the railway so that they didn't have to use offsetting and it could be absolutely local so this is very much a topic of debate with the development Thank you Great thank you councillor Milms for that I think in terms of the environment it's important to recognise the benefits the railways bring of reduction in car traffic and recognise potential impacts and ask the question in part because in Canborn residents whilst positive about the benefits east west rail can bring have concerns regarding the potential of it going to the south of the town through what is already a nature reserve area and this is something that comes up quite regularly for residents so I'll do my fifth one Excellent thank you councillor OK so this was slight I think this was referenced by Lou Waddington in the presentation regarding the paper and then obviously in part by yourself councillor Harvey but I just would like a bit more sort of explanation in relation to it on page 7.35 we referenced in the report obviously the excellent outstanding work done by late councillor John Loveler regarding what has been done in Cotland and then obviously Appendix B gives us photographs of that as somebody who spent a significant amount of time in Cotland all the way through February and March this was something that came up very regularly from residents in the village about the great work that councillor Loveler has done but also how they felt it enhanced their village. There have been concerns from Cotland residents about developments of housing that they felt they had no control over but actually positive about maybe how they will have more control over it going forward but I would just like a bit more explanation about how that probably offers us in the first instance feel that they are going to ensure that this exemplar work done in Cotland is going to be shared with parish councils and other groups across the district because obviously we don't have councillor Loveler now to act as our sort of champion on this and to constantly be spreading it so I think the baton falls to us maybe as the council to do that and I'm sure that many parishes across the district want to know what's going on in Cotland and I wonder if there is any plans of a more detailed nature to share that information. Do you have an officer who would like to? Yes. Many thanks for the question and we do have a lot to be thankful for this exemplar. What we plan to do in addition to what's already in this report is going to be a bit more detail in terms of use of this as a case study so we're going to write up in a bit more detail why does this work so well how many volunteers are involved who leads this work how many hours do they contribute each each week each month what makes a successful case study so we're going to document that and actually show a lot more of how this can be done and then of course then publish that in the South Cubs magazine on a Twitter show or media and to the extent of maybe using it as a having a road show actually publicising this so that we can show people this is how it's been done here have a look and then this is what you can do elsewhere as well. We've already began to do that on a smaller scale so I think Luke mentioned in passing that we actually had an ecologist volunteer come out with us and inspect our own small piece of land that we have under the HRA just to see what's possible so it's a good recombination of documenting what's been done in Cotnam in a lot more detail but also looking at our own site and see what very limited interventions we can make that will then have a much more positive biodiversity aspect to them. So that's the plan. Thank you for very good answer, that's really good to hear and thank you Councillor Harvey for sharing my five questions and taking a fair bit of time and thank you to everyone who provided answers. Well thank you for the questions Councillor Drew I think we didn't have that many other questions so you've been a sort of one man show keeping the committee ticking over there but I think we do we still have Councillor Brian Mills. Thank you. So I would just like to echo and amplify your tribute to John LeBluff as we've all said and he's left a powerful legacy behind as we've seen so I'm really pleased to see that we're recognising that here. I think the general direction of Luke's reports and thank you Luke for not only the report but the presentation today because that was excellent very pleased to hear that and I think you got the key points over very well today thank you. You know I was thinking about cascading our enthusiasm for these matters to our parishes because they are key partners in this and I think there is an appetite with our parishes to involve themselves in these schemes these projects and so the road show that body mentioned for example is excellent using that to be good you know the councillor Drew asked about biodiversity net gain 20% there's clearly a difference between aims and ideals and perhaps what we're doing in discussing that is setting an ideal and that if we make an aim that we're satisfied makes a difference so improves the 10% in the direction I think is what we're most hopeful for and we'll test the appetite for that in time won't we just one thing is a little example can we create a requirement to have bus shelters with green rooms you know that's a very small isn't it but actually it would be a really strong indicator that we were serious at parish level so parishes specify their bus shelters so why don't we encourage them by giving them examples of green rooms on bus shelters that they could actually deploy just one small suggestion in that general thing thank you thank you councillor Milgan I think that's a really interesting idea maybe we should explore that one further councillor Conn I don't know if you've heard my comments to Richard Assel but on the general background this is a very nice description of what we can do an excellent description though some of the issues are more improvement of biodiversity on the existing land rather than conversion that's the important point to raise the objective here is to double the amounts of land in natural land within the county and I don't think we should forget that because that is the target and we could set a deadline and a date from what the figures I'm showing is going to be a real challenge to do we are limited in what we can do we don't know much land that's a major constraint so you've talked about what land and what we can have an influence on and I've commented about the sort of scale of funding that will be needed to achieve that the ideal solution is always to have it in land in ownership of a body whose motivation is to improve by nature I mean farmers change ownership politics change for instance of counteracting as CO2 emissions by planting trees has recently become under criticism to saying is this really the figures don't hand up is it really achieving it in fact it's perhaps more efficient to create wetlands which create a lot more a lot more carbon over the years and improving soils in another area so these moves change and government support changes I mean I've been involved I've worked for 20 years in a local authority as an ecologist I've been interested in this for 50 years I've seen policies change over the years the change according to government the route of the day and so the safest, secure way to ensure that you carry through over a long term a nature is a long term activity you're talking about 100 years to build up a nice habitat you're talking about woodland you're talking about 100 years so you need stability and the most secure way of that is ownership so that's the number one so we do have to consider that and I think we do need to comment about the scale of the problem in this I think we need to talk about it we've done what we can but unless we actually talk about the scale of the problem to influence the people who are likely to provide the resources to do it and I think that is important and that's a comment that I would make on that and I think to consider Thank you councillor Carl so a good point well made and we do need to regularly evaluate our progress and the effects of our plans putting in place and try and see how they work in the years which I think our officers are we are not just creating a wish list but we also evaluating the effects and metrics against those which we need to do and work well done for our officers in doing that so I think that's the current item we don't have any other speakers so moving on to the next agenda item a summary of the current action plan for sustainable food initiatives and you're going to present on that Thank you chair yes and I'll just I'm conscious of time so I shall just whizz through a summary of the report which you've seen and then please feel free to give comments and suggestions so I'll just see if I can share my screen just bear with me a moment I think that's not quite the screen we want to be sharing there we go I think that's right okay so yes so just the context for this report back in October when we looked at the zero carbon doubling nature action plan the committee asked for us to look at what we can do on sustainable food so the report let me just use a quote from the national food strategy independent review that was the Henry double Henry dimbleby report in July 2021 to just say why why sustainable food is so important to the climate and environment agenda so the quote is the global food system is the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss deforestation, drought freshwater pollution and the collapse of aquatic wildlife it's the second biggest contributor to climate change after the energy industry so a key area for us on climate and environment so looking at what the council is doing to support the development of a more sustainable food system we have five areas of current work and these are supporting allotments and community food growing initiatives and we're doing this through current and emerging planning policy through community development work on major sites north stowe being the prime example where our community development team have done work with the north stowe allotment association and grants with both the community chest and the annual zero carbon community grant having funded projects in this area encouraging climate friendly diets it's can be a sensitive area so we are aware of that but the key messages are reducing waste and more plant based diets there is also something around local food but in terms of climate impact plant based is a much bigger issue there and so we are able to do communication campaigns on that with social media our zero carbon community funded projects let's cook and sustainable food in cottonham address this locally and in our catering at council events we can encourage this through the options we provide improving recycling rates for food waste so some food waste is absolutely inevitable and so our waste policy team are encouraging home composting and we have a separate food waste collections encouraging environmentally friendly farm are you scrolling through slides because we are still using your initial slide yes no I am scrolling through slides thank you for pointing that out why is that not worked sorry about this I think I am going to leave you with this slide which I think you are not seeing it quite as you should be but I think that will probably you know the slides have basically got the word so yes thank you for pointing that out I had thought that you were also seeing what I was seeing so the environmentally friendly farming and so environmentally friendly farming it is an area where there are massive opportunities with farming undergoing huge changes as the new environmental land management schemes brought in to replace the cap payments and the key question here is what role can the council best play and the most obvious area is probably in the work of the greater Cambridge shared planning and setting up systems to make the best use of biodiversity net gain credits and lower valley farm which has already been mentioned several times in this meeting that initiative which our planning team have had some involvement in on a 140 hectare Cambridge account council own site in full one is a good example of what can be done but we have also been able to play a role in supporting the sharing of good practice with good regenerative farming techniques with our seed funding of a film profiling pioneering farmers in south camps and neighbouring districts so that took place as part of our first or maybe second climate and environment fortnight of events and has now sort of taken wings really with a crowdfunding campaign to raise £30,000 to make a full length film on that six inches of soil film and then we can move to the next one the supporting a local food economy work and we have two aspects in which we are working on this there is the work of the business development business support and economic development team supporting the setting up of community markets and they have provided a toolkit and directories of traders so that is quite a successful piece of work but perhaps the most exciting is the work just starting in the communities team to set up a sustainable food network as part of a package of work agreed recently to continue the council's work on the cost of living crisis and this is led by Chris Rhys who has joined the meeting so if you have any questions he's also there to support and answering those and that will be supporting food banks helping create community vegetable gardens and facilitating relationships between supermarkets and food banks and I just wanted to say we've got some really strong assets in South Cambridge around sustainable food not least we've got the online sustainable food hub led by Duncan Catchpole of Cambridge Organic who is a real expert in this area we have co-farm which is a charity with a bold vision to create a network of community based agro ecological farms across the UK and in Cambridge there's a really strong cross sector sustainable food partnership and this is part of a national sustainable food places network which supports that kind of partnerships and encourages them to go further with an accreditation scheme Cambridge is going for gold on this and working towards that kind of thing for South Cambridge is one of the things that it may be possible to do through the sustainable food network work that Chris is leading on as part of our cost of living work so I will stop sharing my screen my slightly unsuccessful screen sharing there and if you have any questions very pleased to take those thank you chair Yes, councillor Batschawria Hi, thanks Yvonne for your presentation I will point it out a couple of points here and one of the points is actually missing among the five categories if you see the vegetables and fruits around the super stores you will see the food I mean the sources of the food they are coming from all over the world, the globe British people in this country they are now not restricted into their traditional meal a mashed potato and three vegetables and one piece of meat instead the food pattern the food style is now changed adapted by different countries mean and now so that so the food habit has been changed from that to the Chinese, Thai, Mexican India, Japanese and so on so this is the main point is missing here the food is coming all over the world and when the food sources the spices, the herbs it comes from another part of the globe it really travels really near the globe so that's a major point should be discussed here that how we can grow the tropical vegetables in a or the fruits in a very cold climate here so that the food resources the resource of the vegetables and they should not travel that throughout from another part of the globe on the planet we can be sustainable we can have some sustainable resources farming of the Mexican peppers or the Indian herbs or the Thai so that is a really major point because our food habit the food style is changed including I will point another think every share is also a very is a very much diverse place a lot of different people are coming they will definitely go to their Chinese shop, Indian shop, any other place an average food in the average vegetable of any Asian vegetable is now 9 pounds to 12 pounds per kilo if the price has been increased so far because of the travel because from far second point it should be included because unless and until we are sustainable in this location to provide this type of tropical selection of the fruits and vegetables it is not produced locally that means for decades and centuries we will bring them from other part of the globe secondly encouraging environment friendly farming you can include there how we can and also in the last meeting the cost of living crisis is directly related to the packet meal and readymade meal we can we can increase as many as the free free food giving centres but but not cooking the meal at home is a major crucial thing just think of the 30-40 years before this was not the option that we are not cooking our own meal at our own home our grandmoms they will never run to the super store to pack up the I mean to buy the packet meals and now one average packet meal might be 6 pounds, 7 pounds, 8 pounds so we really cannot work on the damage control the food is so expensive we cannot buy we have to give the free food why there is no shout why there is no slogan and shout that please cook your own meal please cook and boil your own potato cook your own pasta cook your own rice these things comes in 60p 55p, 70p average we really can make a fantastic meal for the 4 people, 5 people if we start cooking our own meal on this part that we have to we have to make this culture shift culture shift means just think of the grandmother the grandmother style cooking cook your own meal I run a couple of couple of activities where I teach cooking that how to boil your pasta how to boil it like like your riser riser potato how hard are they so we really have to work here all together across the parties as a human being just to help our neighbours and those who are suffering this crisis of the living cause really come to the kitchen and start cooking from there we are happy to help here thank you so some really fascinating points there I thought linking the sort of transport carbon cost of vegetables which we all have grown to love and appreciate from all over the world and also linking that into the cost of living crisis and I have got a hot pot that I loaded up with lentils and aubergines and onions waiting for me when I get home so I definitely believe in cooking at home Siobhan, would you add anything to that I would just say lots of interesting points there and I think I've tried to focus in the report on where the council's chief role comes in and I do think that one of the things that can be difficult is where you're telling people how you think they should eat it's just an area that people have got very strong views on you have to be very careful in how you do that but we have through the Dera Carbon Communities grants project funded a couple of projects which do help in terms of providing information on how people can cook good healthy low carbon meals at home so it is an area that we've done some work on Can we go straight to Peter Sandford Thank you, regarding food miles Geising Watson of Riverford the veg box company has done all the work on this they grow most of their vegetables locally particularly up at Yuxley and the Fens but he is pretty sure that he's got the figures to say that trucking vegetables from south of France causes less carbon emissions than growing them in heated greenhouses in this country even if the greenhouses are heated with solar panels so it isn't I think Martin's got a follow-up on that Thank you, Councillor Sandford I've got a comment on that I did come up some figures actually the example I had was flying beans from Kenya compared with growing them in greenhouses in the Netherlands and the carbon emissions getting them from the Netherlands much closer was 10 times it was from flying them in from Kenya it's not straightforward there are solutions you might be able to use they are also controversial for instance you could heat greenhouses by the cooling water used for nuclear power and then you wouldn't have the same emissions but that has also its other people have views on that let's put it that way perhaps you could do it with biomass but there is a basic problem that if you're heating in winter you use an awful lot of energy to do it Thank you, yes as with everything it's complicated so are there any I think we've reached the end so sorry Councillor Milans Thank you, Chair So there's a couple of responses Castle of Barcicharia speaks well of the better value in fresh food versus processed food but my why foods are dietitian and doctoral nutrition points out that processed foods are frequently cheaper than fresh produce in fact I'm just referencing the BBC who says it can be three times more expensive than processed food fresh food so that's a dilemma that we should recognise in this but absolutely air miles of food is an issue isn't it and we're moved away from seasonal fruits and vegetables to having strawberries all year round and that's not good for the environment and then just one last point would be pleased to know was my request I think Siobhan may have remembered I would like us to investigate gleaning the supermarkets when they contract to supply the farmers often need a contingency so the farmers could grow 120% of the produce that they need and if it comes in on schedule the yield is as they expected 20% of their produce is surplus to requirements they haven't got a market for that so quite often that food gets plowed back into the land and gleaning schemes allow communities to work with farmers to effectively pick those crops for free so I think that's one example that we can provide information and be a catalyst for a good process thank you thank you I have three questions I have three questions I have been unconscious of time are we still in a position to carry on with our questions in that case I just have a Stephen you are a children I would like to invite councillor Brian Mings and I would like to go to a super store together going together and to see the shelves and I would like to show with him what is the price of a normal flour to make a chapati or a bread or I would like to see with him the kilo price of the pasta and the rice and the potato when you consider a processed meal and non processed food that discussion can go far but I am definitely I would like to go with councillor Brian Mings to a super store to find out the basic price of the potato, rice, pasta cauliflower and broccoli we all councillor can go there together and we should not be we should not be engaged into that into lots of argument we need that we can go together that would be very interesting to see if councillor Brian Mings has time in his busy schedule it is another thing certainly councillor 2 first on page 3 item 13 of the report it references allotments and community food grain and such night I think I am probably asking councillor Mings in the first instance of the question would I be correct councillor Mings that it would be the general view councillor that attempts to develop existing allotments within villages would not be something that we would welcome excuse me chair, well I just quite a question because there were at least one set of double negatives in there so in point 13 of the report it refers to the fact that within the local plan adopted local plan we obviously encourage developers by their areas community food grain and allotments so therefore obviously we are encouraging, requiring whatever word I want to use, developers to increase the capacity and space that's available for community food grain allotments but occasionally it comes up where developers seek to build on existing allotments so would I be correct in saying that that would be something that as a district council we would seek to discourage so yes is it a simple answer to that we would encourage more allotments wherever possible clearly land is at a premium and therefore that's not necessarily consistent with developers desires at least but certainly as a council we would want to encourage more and more allotments and indeed they have become and particularly since the pandemic they've become much more popular and we've got examples of new substantial allotments in our area being immediately taken up and filled so that's something we would certainly look to encourage great thank you hence my use of the word discourage was trying to recognise the fact and I noted on the screen behind you the officers who I can see nodding in a sense of yes that's a positive thought so most definitely my second question is point 18 on page 4 which refers to local food markets and such like this may be for councillor Milne's it may be for one of the officers relevant it's more of a business question related to the climate committee it says in here about encouraging market and smaller directories and such like would we say this is an example of where the council's business policy as promoted by councillor Donald as the cabinet member for business who I've heard speak recently talking about wanting to have markets in as many villages as possible on a monthly basis and is it maybe an example of sort of not just serendipity but a sort of positive example of where the business policy of the council can actually deliver the environmental policy of the council well thank you well hopefully yes and I think that's that proposal whoever I've talked to especially in some of my villages in Walsham Ward which are really burging on the unsustainable because they have no local shop I mean this would be transformational but it will also be underpinning all the other good things we've talked about so yes I don't know if you would comment on that councillor Milne's thank you very much and then my final bit on page 5 item 22 I note that we are talking there about seeking to encourage changes in behaviour which ties in with what councillor Fitzgeria was talking about and ties in with other issues and also I noted when she was almost talking about the report and getting to these points and talking about how actually encouraging people to change their behaviour in terms of food eating habits is a sort of gentle process that needs to recognise the challenges involved and I noticed here in point 22 that you talked about communicating the love food hate waste campaign and I just wondered again probably to the officer in the first instance how far and how important you think the four times yearly south temperature magazine is within that process because it strikes me as one of the absolute key ways of communicating to residents and I wondered if you thought that that was a really useful method of communicating the information thank you well who would like to comment on that Alex would you just to say obviously there's a range of communication methods that we try and use so I think it's really important to you know we have a diverse audience within South Cairns you know one specific communication channel doesn't capture everybody so we do try and layer on lots of different ways in capturing this so specifically about food waste we have our own social media accounts as the kind of greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service we also then have the individual accounts that we have as South Cairns as well and we do utilise the South Cairns magazine as well and we also do direct you know mailing out as well so I would say we try and layer on lots and lots of different ways of communicating because you know climate change, behavioural change needs this kind of nudge nudging all the time and social norming of a lot of these behaviours and activities great thank you very much okay well I think we need to draw that one to close now if we can and the final item on the agenda is we're asked to note the forward plan on the front page of the agenda and to note that the next meeting is the committee will be held on Tuesday the 6th of June and Thursday the 12th of October and are there any particular items that we would add to that I have one it's a long term thing doesn't have to be at the next two meetings but I would like to delve a bit further into regenerative farming which has cropped up a number of times but are there any other requests Peter Fane Michael Bourne I do think it's very important we look at innovative types of farming because we face a very real challenge in terms of food security particularly if we're going to take land out for our devastus we discussed and we have come into South Cambridgeshire a new vertical farm and I think we have to consider this as possibly a way of meeting some of the challenges we face and I think at some point on the next meeting it would benefit the committee to just look at the implications of that new type of farming Yes, I agree So Siobhan, would that be a sort of medium term objective to create some agenda item around we might call progressive farming in general? Yes, we can look into that and discuss offline exactly how that would be Okay, thank you very much It's not exactly cool to pass for We've overrun a bit but I think that's really due to the quality of the presentations and also the engagement of the committee in producing lots of questions councillor Drew, so thank you very much and with that we will close the meeting Thank you so much