 Hello and good afternoon everybody. We have members, officers and any members of the public who are viewing the live stream of this meeting. This is the Climate and Environment Advisory Committee. My name is Councillor Pippa Haleyings and I'm chairing this meeting of the Climate and Environment Advisory Committee. For the information of members of the public, our committee advises covenants on the actions required to achieve the council's targets on climate change and its doubling nature actions and its environmental commitments. So please can those present in the council chamber note that everything on your desk including your laptop screen is likely to be broadcast at some point and the camera follows the microphone being switched on so please be aware of that. Indicate that you wish to speak if you're online. We have several people online as well via the chat column and then we'll be able to bring you in. When you're invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone is switched on and when you finish addressing the meeting please turn your microphone off immediately. I think we'll move straight to agenda item one but as we move to that I would just like to ensure that we introduce all of the officers that we have present. And as a start-up I'd like to welcome Lawrence in his new role as the Democratic Services Support to the Climate Change and Environment Committee. Thank you very much chair. Hi everyone, really looking forward to working with you on this really important committee and I'll look forward to all the good work that will get done. Thank you chair. Fantastic, thanks very much and I'd like us all just to say a huge thank you to Patrick for all the work he's done in supporting us on this committee. And he's here managing the IT part of it for all those who are online but Patrick, huge thanks for all the support that you've given to the committee over time. So thank you very much. And then if we can have the other officers, I understand Bode's online. Good afternoon Councillor Helings. This is Bode, so I'm head of the Shared West of Eastern Climate and Environment. Apologies, I'm not very impressed and apologies. I will not be in the meeting fully. There is a rather urgent matter that I'm having to attend to at the depot here, so please accept apologies. Thank you very much. And we have Siwon, Development Officer. Thank you very much and we have Alex Olegabins, Project Officer, Climate and Environment. Thank you very much and welcome. Peter Campbell, Head of Housing without a microphone, so I'm sure that will be sorted out, but that's wonderful. And if I could now introduce the two vice-chairs. Yes, Jeff Harvey, one of the two vice-chairs. I'm also councillor for Portion Ward. Thank you very much. Martin Khan, one of the councillors for Hysdon and Impington Ward. Thank you very much and go round the room. Paul Beppark, I'm one of the members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you very much. And we have Natalie Warren Green, I am the district councillor for the Longstown and Comberton Ward. Thank you very much. Ariel Khan, councillor for the Hysdon and Comberton Ward. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm councillor Lisa Redgerup, another one of the councillors for Hysdon and Comberton Ward. Thank you very much and we also have... Hi everyone, Tumi Hawkins, district councillor for Codicaw Ward. Thank you very much. Wonderful. And also online, I think we have to... Buntie, do you want to introduce yourself? Good afternoon, yes. Buntie Waters, councillor for the Barhill Ward. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I see we have Sue online too. Hello, Sue Ellington, councillor for Swasey Ward. Thank you, councillor Sue. And also, are you connected, councillor? Hi everyone, Shobona Bhattacelia, district councillor of Gamble Ward. Thank you very much. Good. And I think that's everybody, so if we can go to apologies. Thank you, chair. Just the one apology today from councillor Peter Sanford and councillor Natalie Warren Greens can't be set in the substitute. Thank you very much. We'll move on to agenda item two. Are there any declarations of interest? For the one agenda item that we have? No, I don't think so. So that's very good. Thank you. If we move to agenda item three, that's minutes of the previous meeting. Do we have any comments on the minutes of the last committee meeting? No, well done Patrick, thank you very much. Well captured, I'm sure. Thank you very much. And so now we'll go to the main item of the day, which is the annual review of our Zero Carbon and Doubling Nature Action Plan for 2022-23. And Siobhan Mellon, I think you're going to be presenting this report. Thank you very much. There we go, yes. So in December we brought a revised Zero Carbon Doubling Nature Action Plan and a progress update for the first six months of 2022-23. Today's report brings you up to date with progress at year end. You'll remember the action plan sets out how the councillor is using its powers and influence in support of targets agreed in 2020 and 2021. And a quick recap of the targets. In 2020 the council declared climate emergency and agreed a target of net zero for the district. In 2021 we declared an ecological emergency and agreed a target of doubling nature. For our own estate and operations over which we have control, we agreed a target of a 45% reduction by 2025 and a 75% reduction by 2030 on the 2018-19 baseline. These are absolute reductions and this matters because we're a fast growing area. Each additional household is another three bins to collect and refuse vehicle fuel is a significant proportion of our emissions as you'll see. The per person reductions required are more like 49% and 87%. So just to provide some context, just over one million tonnes of CO2 emitted from South Cams in 2020, those are the latest figures. The figures are actually published by central government on a local authority basis at the end of June. And so in future years we propose to provide this update a little later in the year so that we can bring you slightly more recent figures. So as you can see transport is the big item in South Cams of 45%. Industry, commercial, public sector and agriculture I've lumped those together. It's about 26% domestic in grey, 22% and land use, land use change and waste management are the two small sectors there and that's carbon dioxide emissions there. So that's a 41% reduction since 2005 and emissions in 2020 were 6% down on the previous year. Now this graph is from a report by Carbon Neutral Cambridge and provides an analysis of the breakdown of greenhouse gas emissions in South Cams according to sector. There's not just CO2 emissions and you'll see that emissions have fallen slowly but steadily from industry over the last five years from industry and from the commercial, public sector and domestic sectors where electricity is a large part of the emissions and so the decarbonisation of the grid has been quite significant. Emissions from transport rose to a peak in 2017 and have fallen since although some of this will be due to COVID lockdowns. Data on emissions from land use and agriculture and waste management has only been available for the full range of greenhouse gas emissions on a local authority basis since 2018 so only three bars for those two. These are largely non fossil fuel based emissions and remain fairly constant. So our approach is to use our widening circles of influence on our own estate lead by example. Use our direct influence through policies and procurement and use our wider influence up especially the lobbying work done by members down or bottom up with our residents and communities and sideways by sharing good practice with local authorities and other organisations. So 65 actions in the current plan, a slight change from your report which has 66 but I think we've miscounted one so it's actually 65 in eight sections and progress is shown on the table there. So we're largely on track with what we've agreed through our plan. Completed actions include just a small range of, I've put here, the solar together group buying scheme delivered for the second time and South Cambridgeshire actually has more solar panels than any other local authority area I believe. 61 community projects supported through the Zero Carbon Communities Grant scheme, salary sacrifice scheme for electric cars set up with seven cars ordered through that and carbon literacy training developed and being rolled out. Almost complete, the South Cams Hall retrofit and the housing stock condition survey report. One track actions include the three refuse vehicles and three bans procured in order placed for a fourth electric refuse collection vehicle. The Wren project contracts to be signed, sorry, that's right, signed very shortly and work to commence on solar PV battery storage and electric vehicle charging network at the council depot. The project to mobilise 600 plus energy efficiency measures to 300 council homes with funding awarded from the social housing decarbonisation project on track and the action on energy installer framework set up for the delivery of private housing home energy improvements, both those with government funding and also able to pay. So turning to our greenhouse emissions accounts, greenhouse gas emissions accounts. First can I just point up an error on page four, the pie chart scope two says 246 tonnes and it should say 182 tonnes consistent with table two which is earlier in the appendix. We normally are able to get these audited before publishing. We haven't this time, but hopefully everything else is accurate. If not, we'll bring it back. So greenhouse gas emissions from the council state and operations totaled 1,575 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 22 to 23, which is a shade under a fifth of a percent of the district emissions so quite small but as I say we are leading by example there. So the breakdown is shown here. As emissions from buildings fall, emissions from the fleet assume a greater proportion and in 22 to 23 were 70% of gross emissions. With South Council the small sites generally the communal rooms on sheltered housing taking up 12% and 10% respectively and then business mileage at 6% with street lights in the water beach depot both around 1% or less. So this graph shows how the gross emissions have fallen since 2018 to 19. They fell by 16% from 1,878 tonnes in 2018-19 to 1,575 tonnes in the last year. The gross emissions include emissions from electricity calculated as if from the standard grid. Our target is for net emissions and for net emissions we take account of the fact that our electricity is purchased on a green tariff meaning it comes from renewable sources. So as shown in table 1 in appendix 1 our greenhouse gas emissions accounts. Our net emissions have fallen by 24.6% for the period from 2018 to 19. Further reductions will be realised by decarbonising the refuse fleet. In the longer term this will be through the use of electric and potentially also hydrogen vehicles. In the short term further reductions will be realised by switching to hydro treated vegetable oil HVO in place of diesel for our refuse vehicle fleet. And our initial trials of this have proved successful. So I'm now going to go through the proposed revisions and new actions. There are six of these. So the first one revised action 1.1. This makes reporting more efficient by bringing the wording into alignment with the corresponding action in the corporate business plan but nothing substantial there. So 4.2.1. Just again a slight rewording. This is actually slightly reworded from that in the appendix as suggested by Councillor Redrup. Thank you for that. So it just splits that into two actions. One focusing on the government funded scheme and the other on the able to pay household. The third one again is just making reporting more efficient by bringing the wording into alignment with the corresponding action in the corporate business plan. And the fourth one. Right so this one whilst the previous action go beyond current building regulations for energy efficiency part L in new build on council owned land subject of feasibility. Whilst that is still the case we do go beyond current building regs subject of feasibility. It didn't make much sense in the action plan because the reality is that there are very few opportunities to do so because nearly all new council homes are properties built by developers to meet section 106 planning obligations. So on these the design specifications were agreed through the planning process making it difficult for the council to require specifications beyond the building regulations and planning policy. So it makes more sense to flag the opportunity that we do have on homes built through the investment partnerships where it's more realistic to deliver high energy efficiency and that's what we're very much exploring doing. So that's that's the fourth of those revisions proposed visions. The fifth one. This again is just making the reporting more efficient by bringing the wording into alignment with the business plan. And the sixth one an additional action capturing ongoing work referred to in the report to last SEAC on doubling nature where we are compiling online materials to help residents garden for nature building on the resources identified in the south camp staff handbook to be promoted through media channels and digital and print. So that brings my presentation to an end the recommendations in the report are to note progress and to support the proposed revisions to actions and new actions. Obviously very help very happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. It's amazing to try and condense that into those few slides from what's a very dense report and a very important report. So good. I'll open it up to any questions. Counselor Shavona. Thank you. It was a very nice presentation with lots of statistics. So can we have this in our can we have this life on the website when we do something right? That's right. Thank you. So that's my major question. And so when it says the south camps hall emission to a personal terms of carbon dioxide and it came up in couple of the slides that in the south camps hall emission carbon emission is quite high. Is it because of the lights and it's not a carbon dioxide? How how did you measure this measurement of that south camps hall emission? And another one is interesting that when you showed the land use and agriculture and that that also showed just next high after the traffic. And what are the use that it shows so much of a high carbon emission? Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'll take the first question on south camps halls. So that's based on our emissions from from this building. So it will come from our primary source of heating gas. So that is obviously significant from the kind of carbon emissions side of side of things. And hopefully kind of moving away from gas to the heat pump will give us that kind of significant reduction in our carbon emissions from this building. So it's a range of different things around the main heating source that switch across from gas to electric through the heat pump. And also things that you just mentioned around the lighting and lighting efficiency changes. So that will help to bring us that reduction. Hopefully that answers your question. Thank you. So the land use emissions. So it is. It's not something that I'm a great expert in, but it is. It's it's it's where different gases are released where soil is is is plowed up and. Yeah, I I don't I don't know a lot about it, but I know that it is the other greenhouse gases that tend to be emitted then. So I think she thought if we can so we have from the land use. So what we have is it's mainly methane, which is far more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas in terms of warming. And so that is coming from fertilizer from a couple. And also what we get in from the carbon emissions is the peatland, which has stored it, which is drying out and now releasing it. OK, this is that. This is the methane effect and that is actually causing them more. OK, thank you. I think the additional one that as Siobhan mentioned hadn't been involved in the accounting before was peatland. So we're in an area as we close towards the Fennelands have a lot of peatland. It's drying out and it is releasing the stored carbon. So that's something very particular to our area. I mean, I've commented that in this area actually peatland is not terribly large in our district. It's much more great in Fenneland than other areas. That's largely carbon dioxide that's emitted from peatland. Methane is particularly from animals, ruminant animals such as cows and sheep, which produce methane because of the ruminant they break down and that's producing carbon rather than oxidising it. So that is not as much a problem in this area as in areas further west because we largely are an arable area producing grain. The methane will be produced from the grain that we grow here in other areas of the country where it uses animal feed. Just to follow up question, does it mean when we think of the removal or adjusting just to bring it down, we are also advertising people or the different ethnicity or the residents to go towards more vegetarian diet with this because animal is directly used here in this particular case. So I think we can move. There's a question about what to do around what we call sticky, which is difficult to change. But in the strategy it's what we can do around sustainable regenerative farming and agriculture and food waste. So that is something that's now becoming part of our strategy. So Siobhan, perhaps later we can come back to that after we get the questions as we look at what we're doing in the future. Siobhan, just on Siobhan's first question around South Cams Hall, before going to cancer.tv. I think it would be good to note the co-benefits in our reporting. So one of the big co-benefits of being an exemplar and investing a lot of money up front in South Cams Hall, was its generating savings that we can then use for public services. So I think it would be good to report on the savings and the return on that investment as we go through time because the projections were very high given especially the hike in energy prices. I assume those savings have got bigger through time. So it would be just good if we can have a bit of reporting on that. Cancelor Dr Tumi Hawkins. Thank you, chair. Thank you for the report, Siobhan. A couple of things. The first one that intrigued me was on the solar together group buying scheme. You mentioned that we have the highest number. What is that number? Do we know? Yes, I do. Okay, that's just for interest. The second thing is on, I mean we realise that transport seems to be the big contributor. And of course our waste vehicles generate some of that. First thing is which other vehicles that we use or is it only just from that or other vehicles in the group? And also what we're doing, you mentioned changing out from diesel to biofuels and some other types of fuels that trials we've done. Can you give us a bit more about those trials and what the outcome was, please? Thank you. Okay, so the solar panels has actually just recently been the subject of an article in the Sunday time I believe. I'm looking at Councillor Hayling's because I think you may have contributed to it. I don't have the figures in my head but you may have those, do you? Yes, so it's very interesting. So the data editor of the Sunday Times found the latest publication of data about the number of solar panels per household installed per local authority across the country. South Cambridgeshire in England is equal top with one other local authority in the country with 9,900 and something number of panels installed. But it's 15% of all households. Now that's in the last five years. So there were three data points that they were very interested in which is why we are the subject, in fact, of that Sunday Times article. So one is that we are top in the country for the number of solar panels installed per household across the last five years. Secondly, we have the fastest rate of any local authority in the country over the last five years. And I think that is down, you know, fastest rate of uptake. And then thirdly, this will be interesting to you as lead cabinet member in planning. The journalist was very interested because we have the highest number of planning applications that mention solar panels, both the new build and for renovations when actually you don't need to mention it's not a requirement to mention them. So he was intrigued as to what would be the reasons behind that. So that's the data. And I don't know if you want to then answer the... Yeah, sure. You asked about HVO, didn't you, in terms of the vehicles and the trials? So yeah, so we did two trials over the last financial year, over the last 12 months, looking at how the large binaries kind of responded to using the fuels. Directly into those vehicles as a substitute for the diesel. So we did a five-week period over kind of winter period. And then we also did a second trial kind of later on in the year. So to have that kind of seasonal difference in terms of the temperatures and all that kind of stuff. So we looked at whether there was any detrimental effects on the engines. We looked at kind of whether those are cold mornings influenced in terms of how they performed. And we also looked at the kind of driver feedback in terms of how the vehicles actually derived as well, as well as the actual fuel consumption. So we found that there was really positive feedback from the drivers in terms of how the vehicles performed. We had no detrimental effect on the kind of engines and the performance of those vehicles. In terms of fuel consumption, we were kind of comparable with diesel, if not slightly under. So that was positive as well. So where we've moved to is last year we came to, as a sharedway service, we came to both councils and it's kind of secured the kind of funding to basically transition a third of our fuel away from diesel onto HBO. So that's what we're now kind of working on this year. We will however be looking to kind of revisit that and see if there's an opportunity for us to kind of move further away from diesel and increase that HBO usage. But obviously that comes with a kind of a budgetary kind of decision associated with it. So that's something that we'll come back to both councils with. I do have Councillor Paul Bear Park coming in, but is it about the fleet at all and about transport? Good, because can we just delve a little bit more into our own fleet? So I did have a question about the HBO. So I know there's been quite a bit of stuff in the press about the EU mandating sustainable aviation fuels and that's created a lot of discussion about kind of sustainability of that. So I think they're hoping to move to synthetic fuels eventually, but that's not commercially viable at the moment. So it will be kind of biofuel based to begin with and they're wondering, you know, is there enough source of that fuel for aircraft? So I suppose my question is about when we're buying the HBO, what measures are we putting in place to try and ensure that it is sustainable or as sustainable as it can be? Because obviously there might be kind of negative impacts such as land use and fertilizer. So just wondering, you know, what are we doing in terms of trying to ensure that's as sustainable as possible? Yeah, so the biofuel, the HBO is sourced from, well, it's accredited through a standard body which is the ISCC. I'm just struggling to remember quite what that stands for. I think it's international sustainability, something, something. And so they do their checks and ensure that it's sourced sustainably. It's largely from waste products, in fact, but that is a body which is approved by the government for it being sustainable. We don't do any other checks other than that, but that's kind of the industry standard, I guess. So, and I think that came actually from an earlier concern that Councillor Lisa Redder raised to make sure that we were ensuring sort of source sustainability. So that's the source that we've got through from that. I suppose your question is more looking towards the future. So that is, where's the source in itself? Is it, you know, is it good practice? The bigger question is given demand, is it sustainable? And I suppose that's more your question, isn't it? Yeah, that's right, because the amount, if I think the EU is mandating, well, by 2050 it will be 70% of aircraft fuel will be sustainable. And if it's not synthetic, that's, well, it is an enormous amount of fuel to source sustainably one way or the other. And that's, I think, is where the concern is coming from. But that will only kind of increase gradually between now and 2050. And I think it's an issue of scale given, you know, aviation industry and our fleet. But it is an, you know, it could be something that catches on across the country and another, so it could be an issue. So thank you for that. I did also have a question around the fleet. Is it possible for us to know, and thank you, Alex, as you're starting to go into it. So I didn't see it seemed an impact in reduction of emissions by our three electric vehicles over the last year. So I was just wondering about that. Is there a lag or, you know, because we have invested in the three. And then I suppose if the answer is we still need more time and data, it would be more, I know this is the report. But I think I asked for this last time. If this is where we're at, how far is it in terms of our plan? So are we where we expected to be in 2022-23? And are we on track therefore? And if not, those are the questions we need to be taking to Cabinet and whole council about whether or not we need to make some adjustments overall. So as I understand, we've got three we're going to get for electric. There's a third of the fleet that's going to go change to this fuel, potentially more as well. But I don't have a sense of the whole fleet. So I've got two questions. One, why didn't we see any impact? And two, can you just sort of talk about the whole fleet where we're moving with it? Thanks. Yeah, sure. So thanks, chair. So on the first question or first part of the question, there's two things. There is a time lag in terms of the data. Obviously we talked about the HBO trials and then from this year onwards, which won't have been seen in the report, we'll start to see that kind of carbon reduction. In terms of the electric vehicles, yes, they have kind of come into operation. But we obviously at the same time have an increase in population, an increase area that we're serving. So I think some of that has kind of almost been slightly cancelled out in that respect. So I think the next reporting year will start to see the impact of both the HBO and also there's electric vehicles in operation as well. The second part of your question relates to a piece of work that the team have been doing around are we on target for our targets, both internally as an organisation, but also looking at that external piece as well, noting that obviously our impact is a small percentage of the district commissions. And it's something that we want to bring back to this committee, look to perhaps do a workshop around showing you that progress and showing the areas where we've made a positive impact for areas where we might want to focus our efforts on in future years. So that is quite a big piece of work and something that we're kind of nearly ready to kind of bring back to this committee or through suggestions such as a workshop type situation as well. Thank you so much and maybe then within that I think I'll be hugely interesting and important and I'm sure committee would be supportive of that and want to look at it. In terms of therefore if we have got, so as we're achieving this but also seeing increase in population or an adjustment of our, you know, from the sense of an adjustment of our population figures and housing as you're saying. So that would again be an, I think it's the dealing with the cattle, I think that it's the blowing into... Anybody online we've just got some sort of alpine couple horns it sounds like, blowing. Yes, so if we're actually, as we're trying to meet our targets, the targets are moving away from us because of increases in growth. We need to look at that as well and sort of see whether there's an adjustment. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much. Councillor Paul Bear Park. Yeah, I just wanted to comment some questions on the theme of transport. So I suppose one thing is given that you showed that for South Cams such a significant proportion of our emissions are related to transport. Or it was extremely disappointing to see that the CPCA did not approve the local transport and connectivity plan at the last meeting. And I do hope that they will manage to approve it at their next meeting. The second thing I wanted to ask was just about scope three emissions. If I can, if we can work through the noise. Well actually what we could do is just check, can we just find out if this is going to go on and therefore what we do. It's just like a series of sounds. Thank you everybody. And after a little adjournment because of some building works that have been going on. We are now restarting our meeting of the Climate Change and Environment Advisory Committee. And we're in the debate over our report on the zero carbon and doubling nature action plan. We're looking at the issue of transport, not the council's commitments to reduction targets for our own estate and operations. But I think now, which we've been looking at, which is of the council's fleet. But also now Councillor Paul Byrd Park has asked about transport across the district which is 45% of the district's emissions compared to 22% which is housing, heating and housing in particular. So it is a huge piece. And as you said in paragraph 32, there is some optimism given that there are quite a few measures proposed by those who are responsible. Because South Cams is not responsible for the transport measures, but through for example the combined authority. But you were very concerned obviously at one of those key measures when it was due to be approved at the last meeting which was the transport connectivity plan. That was not approved, it was deferred wasn't it? Yeah I think it would be deferred hopefully to the next meeting. But yeah obviously the CPCA has its own target to reduce vehicle usage by 15% by 2030. So obviously that transport plan is very important to meeting that goal. And obviously you know a related reduction in emissions. So hopefully that will go ahead at the next meeting. Good yeah and I suppose we can support our representatives there as well in making sure from SIAC that that's so important to the achievement of the carbon targets. I think that that would be absolutely critical. I think within the report is it right that we have been told that actually to achieve the targets 90% reduction is needed. That across the country in terms of transport emissions. So to transport I think that's what's in the report isn't it? So transport is the issue across the country in terms of decarbonising. And of course as the fuel source has been you know as we're moving to electrification it can be helped but that's only going to be a small chunk of that. So it has got to be at looking at these measures that you were mentioning there. Cancel four bay park. And cancel Dr Martin. But two things. One is to note that since 1 June there's an obligation upon the planning in all planning applications for the active travel to be consulted. But they can't direct something to be done. But I would like it to be interesting to know how that will be applied as a local level in encouraging active transport. It was noted actually I was in a delegation meeting earlier. One of the problems is that while we may put conditions to put in all these sort of active travel measures before development. It's one of the things that tends to slip and slip and slip and slip. And so we need to think about how we might ensure that these things are put into place. Secondly I want to look at the scope thing that you didn't include in the measurements which is used for commuting of staff to work. But which is something which we do have may have an influence. The only thing that seems to be is the electric car subsidy scheme which you alone scheme them. But I just wondered first of all how that has changed because clearly there will have been a change with far more working and with four day week. And it would be interesting to know the impact that has upon the fuel emissions resulting from commuting. And I know that quite a number of staff commute from quite long distances. So it may be actually more than the actual business use. So it is a relevant issue. So it's also therefore relevant what type of car they use very much so in that particular case. Because if they use electric vehicles it makes a great difference than if they're using fossil fuels. So I just wondered what you might comment upon that element in terms of even though it's not counted directly in our direct usage. So a couple of comments there. First to go back to the active travel and the difficulty in developments of getting that, that tends to be delayed. And actually the toolkit that our communities team produced for developers was very much around sort of problem solving what got in the way and helping good practice on that. I mean it's only one thing but it certainly will hopefully help. And then to the second point on commuting. We don't have data for that. That's the issue. And we could consider collecting data back many years ago. We used to do an annual survey just on one day. We haven't done that for a number of years but that would at least provide something that we could sort of monitor. It's bound to have gone down very considerably. Can we on that toolkit, is it possible to share that? And especially thinking of councillors and ward councillors when planning applications are coming through. That's something that they could use when looking at making comments. But also I think in terms of planning committee members and chair of planning committee. I think it would be making sure that we're actively making use of that as well as officers. But members are also making use of any lessons learned that the communities team has come up with. I think that would be very good. I'd also just note that there was an article in the National Press today which shows that a legal challenge has been launched against the government for slashing reactive travel budget nationally. So it's something that we've still got to really push for locally. But we also need the national picture and investment in active travel to improve. In which section did we add the plastic reduction? Because this is a 3.3 work with partners. It is lots of technological things. Is there anywhere we also included the plastic reduction thing at which point? So Siobhan, where we've got the issues of the things that we are doing as well which includes the reduction of single use plastic. Can you explain to Siobhan where that is both in the report and perhaps within the action plan itself, things that we've committed to? So it's a completed action in the first section of the table in Appendix 1. The review of the use of disposable single use plastic within the council. But it's also a very important part of our waste policy in terms of the district and actually Alex may wish to say more about this. Or indeed Rebecca who is with us online and has just recently come back as waste policy manager. But the waste policy team is working on reducing waste across the district including plastics. Thank you Siobhan. When you said the waste policy in the last two climate meeting here, I am always emphasising on the food plastics, like the food product plastics. The single use plastics actually comes from that resources like lots of sandwich boxes, lots of drinks. So I always keep saying this. 30 years before we did not have this problem because of food used to come from our own kitchen and we used to pack our own food from our home. And it was this type of convenient food or the convenience food everywhere available was not there before 20, 30 years before. So we never talked about this plastic like choking out the ocean or river or anything. But I think we need to really discuss on that fact how can we reduce the single use plastics which actually comes from the food packaging, like the food resourcing and the food packaging. Good. So to ask Rebecca or Alex you want to. Can I really follow up because the reason is that there is a reason why this is happening. People are cooking at home much lesser than people used to cook 30 years before. So they don't use that much of cooking. People are even also like the frightened afraid of thinking of the cooking stuff in the kitchen. So that frightening stuff actually taking them to the big super store and grabbing lots of convenient food to home and re-eating and eating. So that fear this is again a cultural thing. It's a cultural shift. I think as I'm helping people to how to run the basic cooking here. I'm not saying this type of innovative ideas like we have to bring the people back to their own kitchen and not going to the convenience store to pick up that one one time using plastics. And I think it's very much linked to food waste, which is huge, which for me is startling the amount of carbon emissions that come from food waste from our study. But I don't know who's replying Rebecca. Hello, Rebecca. Hello. Hello. Thank you. Yeah, so just to sort of add a bit of reassurance there. So we did not so much last year, but the year before we had quite a successful push on promoting reusable plastics. Or just reusable items in general, a lot of which were obviously replacing single use plastics. And so we've got a good template for an existing campaign out there, which is not a problem that's going to go away. So it's definitely something we can continue to do basically just to offer reassurance on that matter. And I think what you've got is there is about, it would link to your cooking issue. I think there's your bonus for those who can, who can go back to the kitchen. It's about then how do you store that material, you know, which is one of the issues for saving food. And you were saying about using reusable plastics on that. So you've got some materials around that, as I understand, Rebecca. Historically, what we've done is committed to and completed the use of single use plastic within our own operations here in the hall. Isn't that right? We have. Rebecca. Yes, we have. So yeah, it's a two pronged approach. As you say, it's about our own operations, but also about educating the public and encouraging them and for them to make the big changes in their own lives. Really small things that make a difference. One of the things that we had mentioned beforehand was about how we support events across the district. So big events, which are using public areas or public buildings where there's a lot of food often there. Are we supporting those with ways that they can also avoid single use plastic? Yes, particularly with our commercial waste customers. And we've got an active engagement program with our commercial waste customers to do what we call mini-audits. So while we are obviously collecting their rubbish, we actually want to engage with them and get them to rethink their whole way of what they purchase, what they're throwing in their bins in the first place. And that would very much include encouraging them to go through usable options where they can. And if not, then obviously recyclable options. A lot of our customers are food businesses, catering businesses. So I think it's gone down quite well and we're continuing to work with our customers on that as an ongoing thing. Do we have any data on that to kind of see whether the trends are going in the right way? Possibly. I don't have that off my head, I'm afraid. Yes, we've been doing it for over a year now. Because we think that we should be giving equal attention to our commercial waste customers and educating them just in the same way that we've always educated the rest of our residents. So yeah. So as because I was actually studying on that, the study says that UK food market is currently 170 billion pounds. And among this, the packaging market is 25 billion pounds and there are 200,000 people are working there. So we actually have to use all the wordings very carefully, maybe like the from the one time plastics to the paper packaging. So that should be our intention on the home packaging, whatever. So there are lots of people are already in the work with the 25 billion pounds like economy and market is going there. But then we are talking about the ocean cleaning, liver cleaning. You know, these things are really controversial. So we may have to say that that changing of the from plastic to the paper or more, which is more sustainable for that. Council marching on just really a question whether there's information on it, something that over the last five years really there's been a dramatic increase in online ordering online shopping. So much more of what we purchased is purchased online. And this has to be delivered and it's often delivered in what you might call excessive packaging or very large quantity of packaging to the size of the items produced. At the same time, you're not traveling to shops. So people who buy has any study have any studies been done about the environmental impact of this and the relevant. The relative effect of shopping through shopping centres is normal shopping from shops and shopping online and the delivery costs. I'm not sure what the result is. One thinks that they're all to be worse by delivery, but maybe it isn't. I just wonder if there's any data. I'll take this one. So looking at the government legislative level, we obviously had the environment bill a couple of years ago and associated that with the resources and waste strategy at a national level. And that dealt with a lot of those issues that you're mentioning around responsibility on manufacturers and responsibility on the retail sector as well. So there are new schemes coming online in terms of putting extra responsibilities on those producers around the materials and how they package them. But also interesting along the actual products themselves around their lifespan, their longevity. So a lot of that is wrapped up in that kind of guidance. It's called EPR around extended producer responsibilities. I wouldn't say I've seen all the data on exactly what that impact looks like. But a lot of those issues are being dealt with at that level to put extra responsibilities on those producers. So that in turn should help in terms of the comfort prints and also the waste footprints of those particular items. But this is responsibility during the manufacturing and production. A lot of the costs here in distribution, which perhaps is a separate organisation, how would that be enforced? I mean obviously businesses have got their own net zero schemes as well and we've overall got those as well. I think bring it back to where we have that influence as a council. We are looking at those consumption habits and talking to people about them through zero carbon communities, but also through the waste champions group that we have as well. Trying to look at those behaviours and encourage people to think about where they can reduce their footprint. So that is something we are trying to do and within our gift to do as well. It's quite important to have data because I'm interested in this field but I don't know what the data are. I don't really know which is better and it will be really interesting to find out. Do we have any powers under trading standards to take action on this? I'll take that one away. Thank you. Thank you. I did note in the report that there was a talk about how this is linked to the waste and resource strategy ourselves and within the corporate business plan sort of aligning this more. Could you just explain a little bit more about that? Do you want me to say something Bode? Are you going to say something? I can come in. Thanks Rebecca. So as a group, we are part of the recycling in Cambridge and Peterborough. So we already have a joint waste strategy that's due for renewal this year. That process is in hand and we hope to have a new strategy published by end of the year. So that's overall linked to the resources and waste strategy. In terms of maybe just coming back quickly on the question from Councillor Khan. In general, we don't have a lot of direct control over producers, over packaging. That comes from the national government and they actually set targets based on the industry sizes, based on the size of the supply in terms of the minimum requirements they have to meet in terms of packaging. That legislation, as Alex was saying, hasn't been fully implemented as yet. It's one of the main parts of the resources and waste strategy, IEPR, but also the deposit return scheme that's been delayed. So I think when those regulations get implemented and the actually mandatory target set on producers and people who produce packaging, then we'll begin to, by default, get a lot more data on how those targets have been met or not. Thank you very much, but that's very good. It will be very good for us to have an early sight on that updated waste strategy. I think that will be really good as that's coming towards the end of the year. Thank you for that. I just note again, as I understand, that those targets have been delayed. Once again, the extended producer responsibility, the government's kicked it down the line, as with the bottle refund whole scheme, so bottle the public refund scheme. So let's just hope that they do bring those in on time because we haven't got that much time. And we're linking that back to Chervena about the household and what kind of educational materials to support your work and others around that field. So thank you for that. Good. That's the Paul Bear Park, at least read it up to me. Thank you. I was wondering if we could move on to housing. Is that okay? Is there anything else on this issue that we just had? No, thank you. Housing. So I did notice that some of the schemes that are under deliver due to lack of installer capacity, which is a real disappointment because actually the number of houses being retrofitted is not that great. I mean, it's tiny compared with the number that needs to be retrofitted. One thing, one suggestion I was going to make was if we can work out exactly what the skills were that were in, that were in short supply, it's not really worth referring that to the GCP skills group so that they can kind of take that on board when they're looking at what they're doing. The other one that I was really pleased to see was the work that was being done on communal areas in some of the housing stock. I remember it was Councillor Ellington who pointed out that there was an absolutely enormous increase in the cost of heating those communal areas. So it's good to see that something's being done to improve those. And the third one was really whether, I think, just in terms of our own housing stock. Councillor Ellington, big thumbs up. That sounds very good. So the third one was just in terms of our own housing stock and how we're doing in improving the energy efficiency of that. I know we had a report on that some time ago, but maybe a year ago, 18 months ago, and I was wondering if we could possibly have another piece of cameras here whether we could have an update on that at a future committee meeting perhaps? Perhaps we'll get some questions all together if you've done housing and then come back to you on that if we gather those questions. Councillor Lisa Redraff. Thank you. Mine was on housing as well, so that's good. It was about the action on energy scheme. I was just wondering if there was any more information on the types of schemes that might come through on that for able to pay households. And then also if there's anything that we can do as a council to help retrofit go forward and if there are things that are blocking it like electric grid, if there are any things that we can do and if they're included. Thank you. Councillor Timmy Hawkins. Thank you. My point was on 4.2. Which I think is what Council of the Apartment mentioned. On housing as well, Councillor Jeff Harvie. I guess what a lot of what we can do in Bosnian housing and other areas is working within sort of national frameworks set down. And I think we have to always be maximising the opportunity within the constraints. For example, out of the planning policy etc. I remember in 2019 this committee passed for a lot of motion as such, but we agreed that the council should ideally move from a prescriptive to a proactive stance on improving the energy efficiency of heritage buildings. And then later on in 2022, the council passed unanimously a motion on the interpretation of the guidance in the national planning policy framework in that though the harm to heritage assets can always be balanced against the public benefit, that specifically the public benefit cannot be blind to climate change. And Councillor Dr Timmy Hawkins has, you know, with her team, we've included much of guidance on our website for, you know, explaining various schemes to improve the energy efficiency of historic buildings. But as I say, this is a sort of moving feast really and we should never really rest. We should move with what the national framework allows us to do. I notice that one of the bodies nationally, which we sort of reference in our sort of guidance is Historic England and they published a paper in May this year on heat pumps in historic buildings. And well, two things really, although some of our sort of local guidance on planning historic has been to say that heat pumps are in some way not suitable for historic buildings. You know, this is partly due to historic when heat pumps were first installed. It's very much the case you needed solid floors to make it work. It's not the case now. I think it's accepted that you can fit multi-thin radiators and get very good results from that. The more important question is I suppose if you are going to say that heat pumps are not suitable for historic buildings, then you know what is the alternative because we do need to get to net zero by 2050. And almost the counterargument is these historic buildings because very often how sort of planning rules make it more difficult to upgrade those housing. You can't just go and put external insulation on them. They're actually going to become more and more significant in terms of a proportion of our total emissions because they're large houses, they're poorly insulated, they're burning a ton of oil or gas. So it would be crazy for example to say well let's electrically heat them with sort of resistance heating. The only option is some kind of heat pump to be at all efficient about this. So in this paper Historic England published last month they really update that view and say well actually particularly air source heat pumps are very suitable for heritage buildings. And they also make the point that the visual impact of the external condensing unit in I think they say four cases out of five. Nobody actually noticed these air source cabinets if you like. So really in as far as they can giving guidance to our conservation officers that these visual aspects really are not that important in their view and I think we should in any way we can sort of shift the dial if you like to allow those things to be considered more readily. I suppose one of the reasons we have to do this is because we have to regard as I've said historic buildings as a unique case where we can't follow the ideal which is fabric first because often the historic aspect prevents that. So I think we have to keep on this and keep moving forward on this because of the changing environment. So that's my point. Thank you. If I can just come back very quickly on as Lohave's point about its planning rules not allowing. So Cassie Doctor, can we kind of because we've gone around so maybe what we'll do is we'll come back to those points that were raised and Peter perhaps you can help us with some of those points raised and then we'll come back to I think in the round two to that one. Can I just add to the one so once again you know acknowledge and recognise I think a few things that we've seen in the report things that we did ask for and that was around you know the ability to apply for and win you know these different government grants that are coming out and the report shows that you know multiple grants have been won by the council to address this really difficult issue about retrofitting. We continue to lobby the government about not short competitive funds. I think this will feed back into the squilt skills issue. Nationally the local government association has looked at this and businesses will not skill up until they know what the market is there and the market is huge but at the moment all of the grants are just short term grants so they're not building up but I think will be an answer to your question. So we have got the good funding in. I see the 300 properties that have been had the works done to ensure the energy efficiency on those bringing down bills and making sure people are warm as they're coming up to winter as well and I see the mention which since 2019 we've been trying to get a stock audit to know we know that a good number of homes did have the warm homes grants sort of fittings we've got this new fund that has helped over 300 and then the report says and we don't know how many still need work done until we get the stock audit report of the condition of properties by early 2024. So my question here would be when around in early 2024 we get that once we have that information that would lead to a big decision point in terms of what the council does with that information in terms of decisions around funding for that both what it can access and what it invests so the question would be how do we make sure another year doesn't go by because we've got the business plan we'll be coming in for the next year as well what are you doing to make sure we think about that issue for the housing asset management plan on that one Peter? Thank you. So we've got a series of questions there but you might be able to bring those together. OK, I'll try to answer that. In order. So the first thing is that as members all know that we appointed a new repairs contractor last year or it was a new contract that went to mate. It was part of the assessment of the contractor. We did include their skills in successfully applying for external funding but that was a fact that they could take into account and they do have some national expertise which have already taken advantage of. I'm sure that Siobhan will agree with that. So we've got better already. As you pointed out we are largely dependent on the stock condition survey being carried out. We did delay the implementation of the stock condition survey and the members will remember the tragic case that led to damper mould being given some national priority and we wanted to make sure that stock condition survey also reflected the feelings at the time to address damper mould problems in the property. So we did delay in order to make sure that the survey that we were asking for was totally fit for purpose and we didn't need to go back to the same properties to do another survey just about damper mould. So no apologies for that delay there. It was perfectly appropriate. The survey has now started. I understand from Eddie that we got the first data bike last week and we did 150 properties within the first week. We've not yet checked the quality of that and that is something that Eddie's task in doing is to revisit some of the properties to make sure that the standard of the survey meets our standard so a bit of quality control before we go a bit further. It's planned that the survey will be completed towards the end of the calendar year, so October, November time, which is a long time, but we are aiming to do 100% of the housing stock and that means that there will be several attempts to contact each person. So we don't want to just do a few and then assume that that's a representative sample because quite often the people who we struggle to make contact with, struggle to get into the properties are the ones who are hiding problems. So we're doing every effort. After that, the information that we'll get back from the stock condition survey, we will look at the remaining life of a number of housing components. It will look at the size of that. So in a simple example, it will look at a roof. It'll say that's a slate roof of so many square metres. That's got an remaining life of 20 years. We'll growth it up and we'll work out the cost for that and the priority of each item of work. That will be back in front of members. Early in 24, as you say, hopefully that will be February or March 24. That will very much guide our future planners. So I think that's answered the questions that you asked. But I want this opportunity to make another point, if I may. Siobhan mentioned earlier the amended targets looking forward and quite rightly recognised that it was difficult for us to specify energy efficiency measures in new properties that we were acquiring from developers. I was going to come to that one. Can I just make a suggestion if that's okay? The suggestion was that we changed the definition to focus on the properties that we developed with our partners to skip partnership, which is fine. But what that would do is there are a small number of properties that we build ourselves. So I suggest that the wording of that new target is altered to reflect the properties that we build ourselves, as well as the properties that we're developing in conjunction with our skip partnership. Thank you very much. Siobhan comes in that. That is a sort of a next one around planning of that sort of standards. I'm quite uncomfortable about changing the wording. So I don't know what other members feel. Because it is about ambition as well. It's about constantly trying to get developers to meet the standards that until we get the local development plan we can't oblige them. But we're constantly trying to get them to up that energy efficiency as part of what we're striving to do. This would mean that we only do things around what we have direct influence over. So I feel a bit uncomfortable about it. So what it means is we're setting a target. I can see perhaps we're worrying about setting a target where it's out of our control in terms of what we can deliver on it. But it's about the spheres of influence. So maybe we can have two parts to it, which we measure. One is what we do ourselves in both skip and our own build. And then the other is to constantly be pushing for higher ambition, I think, with the building Reg L. So just yesterday there was a debate in Parliament about greater powers for local authorities for net zero. And several local authorities are already with net zero energy policies in their local authorities already. And not all through their local development plan. So I would like us to see what everything that we can do in our power rather than waiting the next two or three years until we get the local development plan. But I don't know, that's me. So I'd like to hear what others think. But Siobhan, back to you. Can I come back on the Action on Energy two questions, so two points. The skills, well, first of all to say it was hugely frustrating for us in the Cambridge Energy Retrofit Partnership across all the local authorities to be giving money back to government. It was something which very much happened across the country, certainly happened in the southeast. And it's a lot to do just with the speed in which companies are needing to ramp up. So it's quite a complex issue. We are very much in touch with the combined authority skills people. I think you mentioned the great Cambridge, the GCP. So I will double check that we have links with them because I hadn't really appreciated that there were two separate things there. So the other thing just to say on that is that we only had one company delivering on the hug one scheme. And so we've always been aware that we need to have a framework of companies and it's taken a while just because of the complexity of the procurement to put that in place, but that is now in place. So we are in a much better position. The second point was about the Action on Energy able to pay schemes. So our priority at the moment is getting hug to set up, but all of the installers on the new framework are very much up for working with the able to pay market. And we've been very aware that a major obstacle to people getting retrofit is people not knowing what is needed and not trusting what is around. And so we are very hopeful that having a local authority branded scheme will really help on that. And we are expecting fairly shortly from the government a, now it was called EcoPlus and it's now changed to the Great British Insulation scheme. So the Great British Insulation scheme will be an incentive for households who are not low income to get some money off the work and so we'll be working with our installers to promote that and for them to be able to come through the Action on Energy framework to get that work done. And we'll keep in touch about it generally through the magazine and through other channels. Are there any other points that haven't picked up there? So I think we do need to look at what can be done within the constraints of the current situation. It's very frustrating as you say that we can only build up the building, insist up the building regulations, standards we can't achieve. We can't insist yet that that new local plan and higher net zero standards but you comment about the problems with social housing. I think we do need to look at what good practice has been elsewhere. For instance I don't know whether the extent that we could insist that even though they don't have to build up the modern building standards, the highest building standards, they might be easily adaptable because this is a problem for instance that would apply to our council house. We're buying ourselves. If we insisted that the house could be upgraded then you could specify that when the actual delivery came. Whereas if you've got a house which has been designed difficult to adapt that's more difficult. I can think of other situations where there are tools that might be useful for us to look at. For instance in Scotland there's a local development order which permits you to build a cycle store in the front garden. You can't do that and you need planning permission because it's in front of the building line. They devise a system and it will be very interesting to look at how that's affected and whether it's affected active travel use in the areas where people are less inhibited about providing accommodation for the bicycles. There may be other examples elsewhere. I think we ought to be looking to see what can be done within the constraints that we've got. Thank you. Just a question around solar together before we come to Councillor Jeff Harvie's point. We were recognised nationally as having the fastest rate of installation under the highest uptake of solar panels installed as a percentage allocation in the local authority. We had 400 I think just over 400 uptake of the solar together scheme that came through. That means 400 of the package. So the 9,900 solar panels installed this the whole number of panels altogether. But per household we're looking mainly around sort of seven to eight thousand pounds so as I understand how we've leveraged private investment, householder investment where people can is around over 3.1 million pounds through the solar together scheme where people have gone through a trusted accreditor, broke it by us as an authority and they've invested. What we have tried to work out I think over these last years has been quite a bit of concern with the solar together scheme in terms of service and perhaps being overwhelmed or of the people's thinking of relative price and I know that we've exchanged some correspondence around that. So now that we've got that as a completed action would we be looking at signing up to the next solar together scheme and would there be a way of reviewing consumers residence appreciation of that or their experience because I think it could have been even higher. So just myself I've received multiple messages of sort of concern about the solar together scheme this time. If I may chair, maybe I need to declare that we actually have solar panels installed by solar together. Decoration of interest. Yes, so it's disappointing to hear that you've had a lot of comments coming through to you. I would always recommend that people complain through the official chance and I'm sure they perhaps did. But the number of complaints was not high in South Hampshire. I don't have it to hand I don't know all or might but it was pretty low in South Hampshire but I hear what you're saying. In fact in a neighbouring district there was a different company operating and that was much more problematic. This solar together scheme is run on a county basis and it's led by the county council. So the county council have not yet made a decision as to whether to run it again. They certainly have concerns mainly because of the experience in Huntingdonshire and so we'll be looking for really convincing plans to ensure that they don't happen again which I'm sure will just improve service generally. It is a good way of promoting solar panels generally and actually people can use that price that they get as a kind of benchmark and there are other solar panel installers around who will be very very happy to take that business so I would suggest that people use this as that benchmark and then shop around. I think again let's look at this positively so I think that most of the people who complain to me were part of that number of panels that got installed anyway so the argument that we did with the journalist of the Sunday Times article was all of the work that we're doing in terms of awareness raising and exemplars and nudging and the green connections showing how many people are doing this and the fact that they get an assessment you know basically through the scheme I think has been part of the very high number because not all of that has come through the solar together scheme so I think that is right and I think you know we would look at ways going forward whether if it's not the solar together scheme how do we still you know manage to help them connect you know with that because I think the trust of the local authority is still there and is a major component about brokering that helping people navigate that landscape so thank you very much. If we now move to the issue around historic buildings I think that would be important. Thank you. Interestingly I was still discussing this particular issue with another local authority yesterday and the fact that we actually are providing information for homeowners on our website to be able to upgrade their homes. I think it's I rather took a bit of objection to the phrase it is a planning restriction that is not allowing external for example external insulation. I mean there's something about the heritage of a building and part of it is the fabric and of course those who are looking after those buildings in you know whether historic England or whatever it is will not want you to cover it up with modern you know modern fabric because it takes away completely from the building it's it's trying to maintain the heritage factor it's not a restriction in the sense that you've put it and I do not agree with that. There's a reason for doing what heritage conservation officers do both internally and externally and so let's not take you away from that because we want to there's ways of enabling the building to be more energy efficient without taking away from it's fabric it's heritage it's main point and yes you know we'll continue to do the best we can on that and share whatever information it is that we have on being able to improve the energy efficiency of heritage buildings and as far as the take-off goes if I can just make a comment on that one of the things we've found at least on the JDCC is that new developments there are some of the developers who realise that they can sell those homes quicker and they have energy efficient buildings and so it's in their interest you know to make it as energy efficient as possible without just reducing themselves to the 10% that is in the correct local plan so there's a demand when energy efficient homes and they are taking note of that and the fact that South Cams is high on that list is because of the gross power experience so maybe when we come back on that last one as we come back and I'll ask Siobhan to put up on the slides again at the very end of the meeting what the recommendations you know the points you'd like us to know to accept the recommendations maybe we'll look at that particular one and see about that Jeb that Harvard do you want to come back on there? Yeah just briefly I certainly have one resident very sort of keen to improve that so I'm with this team not been allowed to fit either external or internal insulation and therefore really a heat pump is the only way to make that house zero carbon assuming the electricity eventually comes from North Sea turbines for example so therefore it shouldn't be going forward and we also heard from a conservation team who's going back to four years that heat pumps are not suitable for historic buildings full stock but I think you know this new paper from Historic England does show that their view on this is gradually changing and therefore so should ours I don't expect it to change overnight but I think we just have to sort of keep an eye on this Yeah Can I make two suggestions on this particular issue one there was an outstanding action which was together with what we agreed with planning through the SEAC meetings was to achieve a balance so that actually it's not only heritage that we're looking at so rather than a restriction the agreement was to say make sure that a balance is being met and it's being brought higher up the agenda so that you actually have to consider that then we said it was agreed with the built and natural environment team that a series of case studies would be brought because what we were finding was there was very differentiated treatment perhaps amongst all conservation officers about their ways and views of that so could we look at that across the board as a series of case studies of pending applications, things that have happened and were frustrated and successful ones so that and then bring in the latest guidance that's happening at Historic England to make sure that we are at the cutting edge because given that we're semi-rural and that was the other thing in the Sunday Times article 45% of the houses you know are on oil houses also that are the need to look into that guidance that we give so I think we'll ask Geoffrey how to Council have you to withdraw the restriction bit but say how do we ensure that work on that balance can be promoted and do that outstanding action and bring in Historic England's latest so that we're cutting edge Thank you Definitely we can have a look at that and say something that we're keeping you know keeping our head up Thank you So once I've got the floor as I said I had Sula together actually in store our Sula panel and I'm surprised at sort of the negative feedback that has come through for us I recommend them because of the service that we had they were very good maybe things shifted because of the demand I think there's an issue of demand the demand in terms of the speed of service and things like that I think there's an issue so it's showed that we've got huge demand so let's look at how we can best service that Council Sue Allington online is a question or comment Yes it's just that I read an article this week thank you for letting me speak which indicated that the life expectancy of Sula panels is about 25 years but the recyclability of them was extremely difficult and I really just wanted to put a marker in the sound that we should keep that at the forefront of our encouraging Sula panels to be installed Thank you very much Sue and I think quite a few of us read that article and in fact upon the article Vice-Chair Councillor Jeff Harvey did write to Bode and I don't know if he's online at the moment he might be dealing with the issue Do you want to come back on that? Yes, thank you very much Councillor Helings, we have noted that and we have actually flagged that up to the next meeting of Recap the recycling in Cambridge partnership it's an issue that we need to tackle together with the county council who is the waste disposal authority so we've noted that and we'll be looking at ways of jointly addressing that issue which is something that's going to come up hopefully not in the immediate future but we know that the Sula panels we have now were installed not more than about 10 years ago so they still have at least 10, 15 years to go before they reach the end of their life so hopefully in the near medium term there will be much more practical solutions available there's a plans that has just been commissioned it was in the same BBC article in France that has been able to successfully recycle a lot of the materials from panels 99% so hopefully with that initial plans being now fully operational there will be a lot more coming online not only in Europe but also here in the UK Thank you very much for raising that Sue that's a really important point again it's a bit like the council pool bear parks issue about the fuel the alternative fuels it's kind of the longer term impacts environmental impacts of any thank you Sue good do we have I simply wanted to declare that I've also had panels installed by Sula together I was generally satisfied except that I would not recommend the boost thing I'd rather just put in a time switch it works better better having said that Declaration of interest I haven't got mine installed by Sula together but I do have boost and it's brilliant it's reduced my heating of water bill but never mind I was generally satisfied I was declaring interest out of interest we looked at the councils in our ward and now every one of them thanks to Sula together every one of them and the ones from the previous session has got Sula panels so we're supporting the general this motion ourselves council Paul Bear Park and then council Sue Ellington yeah would now be a good time to move on to gardens Sue is your point on Sula together yes just to say that from a pest control point of view as you know I have a pest control company please please put around the solar panels to prevent birds getting underneath them my operatives don't like going up there to try and get birds from under solar panels gosh there's a raised eyebrows around there about the scale of that issue with it, Siobhan is noting that down I see just to see about that one thank you very much Sue it's a real issue because they're very noisy they keep people awake at night when they're scrabbling them out right thank you Caterdots to me Hawkins actually the panels that Sula together installed for me they have preventing the birds from going underneath so that's all around it already got by prevention there you go another reason I would comment that mine also have the protection that's enough now I think potential conflict of interest it's not enough just to say you've got one and then say all these Paul do you want to yeah I'll just say I was really pleased to see the new action on gardens and trying to encourage people to turn their gardens over water nature I ended up stumbling across something from department levelling up housing communities and they categorised land uses so number one is agriculture and number two is forestry open land water and number three is actually gardens so 4.9% of the UK land is private gardens it must be higher in south cams I think so there's a huge land area there in aggregate that could be improved for biodiversity and just to say for the past three years I've been trying to do some create a wildlife garden in my own garden it's actually quite hard I've discovered it's not easy to do so if we can inform on that about how to go about it that'll be really useful I think good lovely so I wanted to make a point on that one can I say as we're coming in did everybody see the wildflower meadow isn't it just fantastic it's waist high and full of all the different flowers so that was just put a smile on my face as we came in here just on the corner of where the south cams hall is secondly on the garden so I was privileged to be chair of the climate change and environment committee to open the festival of nature in Duxford village and it was on their brewery field which is the green space which they have saved as a community for the community and what they did was they had a big map of the village indicating all the gardens and they asked all the people who came to the event to colour in their garden if they were prepared to it was do wildflower meadows or put in a swift box or all of these different things but saying that just have a look at it and see how the gardens connect nature all through the village and it was a brilliant way of looking at a village was through the garden perspective so I thought that was a really nice thing that green connections are green carbon zero carbon community thing could do if we could look at that across the district you know different villages looking at that it would be fantastic on that point I noted in the report that you know that garden action what was interesting I didn't see but it's potentially there so we were looking at bringing in additional ecologists support into the council to provide guidance to parish councils weren't we so is that alongside the garden piece or is that that's alongside the piece and that is an application to the heritage lottery fund which I believe has gone in but I don't think we know yet the results of that okay good so that's so we're waiting to see whether we've received the funding which would be something that we've been looking at was how we can support parish councils with that kind of advice and communities. I commented actually to the human resources office who was asked very advice publicly on LinkedIn very advice to find the ecologists and I suggested that she's a contact power which is the National Association of Local Government Ecologists which is an organisation quite active organisation but I'd be interested to know what you've got in appointing the ecologists and how that's gone ahead are there any information? Sorry just to say that post sits within planning so I haven't got the answer to that question but I did see the same post as well in just a bit of context there's obviously a national shortage of ecologists due to the biodiversity net gain guidance coming in shortly I think it's November time so we're kind of competing with lots of others who are looking for similar skill sets so trying to make ourselves stand out in that kind of search but we'll speak to planning and get an update on where we are with that. It's an issue I saw this comment there was a comment in planning press and ecological advice but it's also the same problem with planning that they can have more in consultancy and the developers can tend to pay more to get their ecological advice then it's easier to get local authority staff so I think you would be advised to go through the network of people working in local government they will know the ways that you might be able to attract what things a four day week maybe an attraction for which we can offer it so there we are I was also wanting to ask about tree programmes because the leader has commented about the various tree programmes available and I think it will be worth there are apparently some tree programmes which are running which you would be able to get two years grant which is running at the end of this month and then a later date for getting one year grant for tree programmes one was linked to NHS2 she suggested I would suggest that you might contact I don't know if you know about these but if not contact the leader she's given some advice on that I'm not sure I do that I'll certainly follow that up and find out what that's about good thank you I was wondering whether we could bring the slides up Siobhan which are what we're doing as the committee of noting the report and then looking at any of the recommendations I think they're slightly different from what we have in the report so one I think the first thing was that we adjust the time at which this report is made so that you can include the June data that's provided nationally committee I think that sounds very sensible and those online can put just thumbs up as we go through these to show that you support that the first thing that Siobhan mentioned so that we will have this annual update I presume in July or next year thank you I saw your thumbs up there thank you very much Sue and Bunty good then in terms of these actions we don't need to go through them one by one but if there are any of these that you wanted to make any comments or as a result of the conversations we had needed to be reviewed the one that I wanted was around this one so I just wanted members views on this which is to replace the go beyond current building replications in new build on council owned lands subject to feasibility which is where you were mentioning in section 106 is what determines the building of that housing and often it is out of our hands to continue to explore the energy efficiency specifications on homes built through the south through a skip and Peter you suggested that would be a new build not just through a skip but I'm just wondering whether we keep the ambition as council doctor to me Hawkins also said what do members feel yeah I think I agree with the suggestion maybe to split it into two kind of one that is more kind of under council's control and is more measurable and the other one which is more of a more encouraging and general and less measurable action I mean I think yes and when the journalist asks why do we have the number of planning applications is the highest in the country that mentions solar panels when it's not a requisite I said because it goes down with our planning committee it goes down very well because that's the way we're pushing aspiration and he said that's probably why I'm seeing it on sort of outdoor toilets he made a joke but I think it's about them knowing that if you're coming that's what we've done we haven't got the teeth yet but we've said if you want to come and do things inside Cambridge then you need that high standards so if we split it into two just to clarify it's can we split it so that the we have the exploring high energy efficiencies we're going to take Peter's suggestion and do high energy efficiency specifications on new built on new built that the council does including through skip and then the other one is working working with developers more generally not just on council on land exactly which is very much what is done through it with the planning do but worth making it an action to actually highlight how important it is but given that we have more leverage on what's our own land and we negotiate section 106 I think we would still want it to be particularly in council own land but we could encourage we encourage developers can't we Peter yeah so I'll state it the first paragraph only really applies to the land which skip is developing so there's a danger that if you leave it as it is you're actually just making the same point twice which I think is a problem so I think what you're saying is about encouraging developers to go beyond current building regulations for energy efficiency on all new built full stop and then the second point that makes sense good thank you very much thank you Bunty as well that's good any of the other revisions and new actions we just go through your slides there again and I think that was fine yes I think that was seen as very very but if we just go back to the beginning yes I think so yeah good then the point that was just agreed around finding ways to be at the cutting edge of improvements to historic buildings that achieve the balance between heritage and energy efficiency and we look forward to the workshop that's coming up but we look at the progression sort of the plan tracking of that and what that might mean in terms of decisions that we would advise cabinet on in terms of whether we need to act faster on some things or change the focus on some things that's really good we also said about the toolkit around active travel in planning so also sharing that with members here and also the planning committee and the skills point as well that we're going to look at that in terms of housing anything else? Oh and the including the survey of staff travel that was actually of an action as well there so not necessarily going back to the exactly the same system but perhaps looking at how we include within the way that we look at the commuting patterns Councillor Geoff I Yes thank you chair and I just thought it might be relevant also if we were going to do a staff survey to ask a few questions around whether home working was causing more energy and the use at home was the heating system turned on when it wouldn't otherwise have been because of home working so thanks Good anything else from anybody? Thank you everybody, thanks so much for coming and to officers for attending as well thank you very much