 Ydw'n rhoi, mae'n gwneud yn cyd-gweithio... proseis. Mae'n gwneud i'n gweld â hyn. Felly, fours hon yn gwneud yn wybodaeth y blyg yn y tro at dros y syniad rwyneis ac rwy'n ganfawr i fathio'r mawr. Rwy'n cael ei bod addysg yn gwir, ac rwy'n fuicfawr cyflymu ei hanfer am y c감itw. ac yn ddiwedd i'r ffordd, dywedd i'r cymdeithas, ac rydyn ni'n sicr i chi'n cymryd y byddai'r ffordd yn ymgyrchu yw rydyn ni'n iawn. Yn cymryd o'r ffordd, y cymryd cyfan a'r wych yn yw'r cymryd yw'r cyfrifol a'r cyfan o'r byddai'r byddai yw'r cyfrifol yn y cyfrifol, ac yw'r cyfrifol yn y gyfrifol, ac yw'r cyfrifol yn y cyfrifol, ond mae'n gweithio'r cyfrifol yw'r cyfrifol. Rweig ar gyfer y Caen yng Nghymru, canol rhai'r cwrs haith yn gweithio am y gallu llwyddon, sef ychydig leidio'r cwrs mae'r Cymru yn go trajectory ar y llwyddon, ac rydym ni wedi bod yn cael ei dwinio chael ei wneud. If you wish to speak, switch on your microphone first, obviously, and then switch it off immediately afterwards. Please use a headset if you have one so that we can hear you more clearly. When you've finished speaking, you will switch the microphone off and we can continue the meeting. Do we have any apologies for absence? Yes, Chair. We have apologies from Councillor De Baelings, Grenfill Chamberlain and Graham Cohn, although she's not a member of the committee, the leader Bridget Smith, who is the portfolio lead camera member responsible for the climate and environment, has also sent her apologies. Councillor Mark Howell is subbing for Councillor Graham Cohn and Councillor Sue Wellington is subbing for Councillor Grenfill Chamberlain. Thank you, Patrick. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any item on the agenda? If anything subsequently becomes apparent, perhaps you would let us know and raise it at that point. Moving on to minutes from previous meetings, I think we have two sets of minutes to review here. We have the minutes from the climate environment advisory committee held on the 13th of September this year. Perhaps I could just run through the pages and if anyone has anything to comment. Anything on page one? Page two, page three, page four. Yes, I just wondered if something was missing under converting taxis to electric vehicles, because there's a partial word of partial sentence there. Which page on paragraph? That was on page three, under converting taxis to electric vehicles. Had a message from Environment Officer, Siobhan Mellon, and I think it might be the end of this, or at the end of this meeting that we requested an update on the Green Homes Grant local authority delivery. Are you there, Siobhan? I wonder where the best place for you to give that update might be? Matters arising from the minutes, I would suggest. We will review the second set of meeting minutes and then come back to that. On page five, this is a very short follow-on meeting from the scrutiny and overview, which is quite an extended review of the first proposal consultation document on the local plan. The reason these minutes are so short is that it was very late in the evening and actually all of the members who were present at Climate Environment Committee had also been present for the earlier session at scrutiny. So many of the comments that we would have had were given at the scrutiny overview committee. But do we have any comments on these minutes? Page five, page six. Okay, we'll take that as being a correct record of that meeting. Siobhan, could we now return then matters arising from the first set of minutes? Yes, so thank you, Councillor Harvey. This is just further to the item on the 13th of September on energy efficiency. The chair asked to be updated on developments with the Green Homes Grant LAD schemes, local authority delivery schemes. Just to update that there have been three phases of these schemes. For the first and third of these, we have been part of city-led, Cambridgeshire consortium bids for funding to the government. We are waiting to hear news of the third of those. Meanwhile, starting the process of setting up a Cambridgeshire service to deliver this funding, we were successful in securing funding through the first phase, and our original plans to focus on park homes have not, however, proved possible. Delays, which were a knock-on delays caused by delays to an earlier phase, took us into a new national standards regime, which made the original plans unfeasible. However, we are looking into alternative ways to use the funding allocated in phase one. Funding has also been allocated for south Cambridgeshire under the second phase, LAD 2, and we are hoping to use this for work to our council properties. Unlike phases one and three, which are being managed by the city-led Cambridgeshire consortium, delivery of phase two is being managed by the Greater Southeast Energy Hub. So, that's the brief update to where we're at with the three phases of the scheme so far. Thank you very much for that update. So now, I think, take that as the matters arising from the minutes. You can move on to agenda item five, which is public questions. And we have received a question from Elizabeth McWilliams, as laid out in the agenda on the first page. Is Elizabeth McWilliams here to... I guess I can see on the screen. Okay, thank you. So, I think you have three minutes initially to ask your question, and then if a subsequent question should arise, then one minute for that. So, thank you. Thank you very much, and thank you for allowing me to ask a question today. I note from the minutes of the May meeting of this committee that Councillor Gavin Clayton asked whether any of the plastic recycling collected by South Cams residents was sent abroad and burned. In response to that, Councillor Neil Goff replied that to the best of his knowledge, all the plastic recycled from the district was treated in the UK. I wanted to look into this a bit further to be assured since Councillor Goff's response was a little bit vague there. And I note that the South Cams website directs me to the DEFRA National Waste Data Flow website, which is incredibly difficult to use. I did find a sort of guidance sheet to help me, but all the queries I tried to run on it looking at data for South Cams came up with 0%. So, just a bit of background. I'll now go into my slightly long question, which I'm going to read out. I hope that's all right. So, what happens to the plastics we put in our blue bins? I note that the South Cams website states, over 97% of the recyclable plastic that Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service collects is sent to UK reprocessors for recycling. The remaining material which is exported is fully tracked in accordance with strict guidelines from DEFRA, and this is recorded on the National Waste Data Flow website. Materials are only sent to sites which have a permit to recycle them legally. So, specifically, one, what monitoring is in place of the AME contract to ensure that the 97% target reprocessed in the UK is met? Two, what percent UK reprocessed has been achieved so far in 2021-22? Three, what was the percent UK reprocessed in 2021 is the trend improving or not? And lastly, how does the tracking of the remaining material work? As explained, I tried generating reports from the National Waste Data Flow website on recycling and landfill, and this returned 0% for South Cams. Could you therefore please clarify what percent of waste is sent abroad for processing and to which countries? Thanks very much. Thank you very much for that question. I understand that our officer Rebecca Weymouth-Wood is there to answer the question for us. Thank you. Hi. So yes, by way of a response to all of those things. So, just a point of clarification for you really. So there's no specification within our contract with our reprocessor about how much should be recycled in the UK, but we do obviously encourage them to do that and use UK destinations as much as possible. So the 97% that was referenced is how much plastic was recycled in the UK in, it's actually 1920, so it's a bit of an old figure. So I can obviously give you the latest figures on that. So that was how much plastic was recycled in the UK in that year. And also just to reassure you about the monitoring of the contract, within our contract, we do stipulate that we get really regular reports from them, breaking down the composition of the waste and all the destinations. It's a mandatory requirement that the contractor provide that to us, so then we can then do our waste data flow returns. And in addition to that, we also employ a contract monitoring officer and he not only looks at all the data that the contractor provides, but he also goes physically to site to see what's going on. So we've done that, employed that person deliberately to have that oversight of the contract. So in terms of what percentage was processed in the UK in so far this year, well, I can clarify actually in 2021, only 0.5% of the plastics went abroad for recycling or the rest of it was processed within the UK. And in terms of tracking that through to this year to date, actually none of our plastics has gone abroad for recycling. It's all cycled in the UK. So there is, if you say, an improving trend if you would hope to see. So that's the case there. And indeed overall, the majority of the recycling is processed in the UK as Councillor Gough was referring to. And yeah, so our contractor is doing a good job in terms of sourcing UK markets. The reason why you couldn't actually find what you needed to find on waste data flow is when we became a shared service, waste data flow, the organisation that runs that site had to pick a council and actually all our figures are under Cambridge City Council at the minute. So we can obviously speak to them to get that change. So that just is a simple explanation of labelling, and that's probably why it was a bit confusing. So yes, does that help answer that question? Yes, it does. Thanks for explaining that particularly helpful regarding the waste data flow website. I might have another play with it and just satisfy myself that the figures do come up then in that case. So just I guess my question as a sort of arising from that response is, so that 0.5% that's going abroad, do we know what happens to it? And if I, I mean in terms of whether it is burnt or whether there is, you know, you don't, you won't know that. Well, we know where it's, we know the companies that it sent to and actually that not what it was actually in Germany and the Netherlands, you know, and they, you know what, they would have been sent to a plastic reprocessor in that company, you know. Okay, okay. So I just would like to hope that in future there can perhaps be a little bit more put into the contract about levels that hoped for. I don't know if that's possible or not, rather than, because you know, this with the 97% figure being based on a national figure rather than a sort of a commit, you know, a specific commitment, it would be nice to see a specific commitment that South Cams could commit to to put it, not particularly clearly. Okay. Well, thank you Elizabeth for just keeping this very important matter in the front of our mind. When you said, well, that's one side of the coin, I suppose the other is using less plastic and I was very interested in the feature we had in the South Cams magazine last time on refill shops and happy to say that the Harvey family now washed their hair with shampoo from a Coke bottle. So I think that's another way of looking at it. But thank you very much anyway. Oh, sorry, I have a, yes Mark, Kelsa and Mark Howell would like to. Thank you Chairman, just to ask if the information that's just been given can be made available to the questioner and also to the members of this committee. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, perhaps now we could move on to Agenda Item 6, which is the report on a very important piece of work, I think the stock modelling report. I'm so sorry Chairman, I do apologise for interrupting you. Just above sex there's a request to speak. Is that not happening now? Oh, sorry, I thought you had spoken. I'm very sorry. No, no, no, not me. It says here there's a request to speak from a Mr Daniel Fulton, I'm just wondering if that's happening. Oh, okay, yes, no, I should have covered that. So Daniel Fulton, I understand withdrew his request to speak because he'd actually had a conversation with our chair, Pippa Halings, at some point last weekend and felt that he no longer needed to bring that point. So, yes, thank you. Thank you for reminding me that that was on the agenda. Councillor Hales. So, yes, moving back on to Agenda Item 6, a very important piece of work, modelling how we can reduce the carbon emissions from our stock and we have, I think is it, Eddie Spicer will present the report for us. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Harvey. I've actually taken over from this from Geoff. I came back to South Cairns about six weeks ago, so I'm kind of picking up on the work that Geoff has started and following it through. I'll be looking after the project from here on. So, as an overview, we've been looking at all of the properties and where we are and what we can do as far as reducing our carbon, et cetera. A lot of the, I suppose what you could call the quick windworks, if you like, have already been completed where we've got properties where we know we could achieve good elements in external wall installation and the heat pumps and so on. So, the easier wind stuff has already been completed over the last probably five years. Where we are at the moment is the more difficult retrofit properties where various technologies and so on may or may not fit and we may have issues with the property archetypes and so on. You'll see in the report there's a graph in there which gives an overview of where we are and that's that bandings at the moment. And we're pretty good. The average is a C, so it's pretty good. We've got an average rate of 77.67, so overall it's pretty good. I am starting to concentrate on, we've got a few properties which are still in the EF&G categories, which all start to work a bit closer when it comes to get a bit closer to the work. We've got the five-year capital programme already in place, which is going to cover a lot of the items that we would be looking at anyway. The current state of play is we've got a full stock analysis from several which produced a report for us late 19, early 20, which gives us a bit of an overview of the properties of what possibilities there are. But what we're trying to concentrate on really is the right kind of retrofit answers rather than just sort of going forward with the sort of standard stuff which may or may not fit the property. The properties that we need to be working on really need to have a good bespoke element to make them viable or make some good returns on them. We've been working with a company called Liberty, which is named the Net Zero Collector Collective. Basically, we've got fire properties that we've given to them. They monitor in any pre-improvement statistics within the property as far as heat, humidity, how the property is used, all that kind of thing. They've given us some proposals which are in the appendix, which follow. In all honesty, there's nothing groundbreaking, but we are looking at what they have suggested and how that would fit with the properties and the residents and what effect we may have from those on things like fuel poverty and so on. We have had issues with fuel poverty in the area and that's creeping up, I think, 2019. I think locally it was at about 10% and I think we're up to about 13% of fuel poverty on the households at the moment. I feel that's only going to increase with the increase in energy costs and so on. With that in mind as well, we need to take a good approach to what we do with the rest of the properties to make sure that not only do we reduce our carbon, but we also make it truly affordable for the residents that we actually have. Even on the basics like air source heat pumps, for example, it sounds really nice as a good solution, but there's still the element of electric that needs to go in it and obviously the more expensive the electric is going in, the less cost-effective it becomes for the resident, even though it does reduce carbon quite considerably. We are looking at the moment with Liberty and the Net Zero to look at installing some or all of the proposals that have been made. There's a couple that we're negotiating just at the moment and we're looking potentially in the early New Year, January, February time to hopefully get those underway. We are having great problems within the sector and the water areas with resource and getting the actual materials, so things like air source heat pumps and so on. They're very, very difficult to get hold of at the moment, so the time span of actually installing may extend a little bit depending on where we are as far as that goes. Something that covers most things. In the reports that we got back from the Net Zero, there was nothing really groundbreaking on there because most of it is extra insulation, air source heat pumps on a lot of things, and battery storage if there's already pv on the roof or adding pv if there wasn't and so on. So there's some good solutions there. We just need to enter some further discussions with the residents now to ensure that they're sort of on board and happy with the proposals and potential outcomes of what we're intending to do. So that's basically where we are currently. Obviously, like I said at the beginning, I've only just taken over, and I'm looking at this project taken off, like I said, early in the New Year, but in the meantime, there are properties where we've got the lowest that range. I'll be looking at those in great detail to find out what options we have. I do know that a number of the properties we haven't been able to access because the residents are elderly or something and don't want any upheaval or anything within the property. So that poses obviously some problems. But yeah, we're looking over the next couple of years to get all of the detail right and the up-and-coming technologies that are out there at the moment, which are summer in the early stages and quite expensive. But as things develop, there will be good solutions out there on top of what we already have. And it's about making the right decisions and the best value for the council and for the residents themselves. I think that will cover it, I believe, unless there's anything else anyone wants to know. Thank you, Eddie, for that update. Do you, any members of the committee, have questions? Yes. Councillor Ellington. Thank you. I've missed something, but we're talking here about 92 million pounds or 175.6 million pounds over 30 years. How many houses are we actually talking about there? I see the EFG's amount to 68 or something like that and that can't relate to that. So, I'm looking at... Are we talking about the whole housing stock, even those who have quite a good rating being included in that number? And for the next point I wanted to raise, if I may, is what is the actual problem with those residents who are refusing to have the insulation and improvements done to their properties? Why would anybody object as long as they don't have to pay for it? OK, I'll take on the second point first, if I may. What we find sometimes with some of the residents, particularly the more elderly residents, they may have people in the household who are sort of entering palliative care, almost, and things like that, or they're in the sort of the later stages of life and have varying sort of intensive care needs and so on. They just don't want any disruption within their property. That's quite common in a lot of places where the residents are at a certain age, should we say, is understandable because obviously having certain works done at the property can be quite disruptive, and even basic things like kitchens can absolutely turn your life upside down for a number of weeks. So it's quite understandable. There are some other properties where people just don't want improvements. They may have various reasons for it, personal reasons, and we do try and engage as much as we can. But ultimately, if they say they don't want it, we can't force them at the moment. I hope that covers what you wanted to know on that one. As for the costings, the actual report was created by Jeff, so I'm only picking up on what he's already put together. But from what I understand within the report, it is on all of the properties within our stock concentrating on the lower rated first and even the ones that are at the higher end of the scale have got potential to be better. So obviously in a priority way, once we've dealt with the worst performing, we can then move on to those that are better performing and make them even better than they are now. Does that answer your question, Councillor Ellington? Good. Thank you for that, Eddie. I've got a question now from Councillor Howell. Thank you, Chairman. So I think you've answered the first part of my question, which is basically that everybody can choose whether or not to have anything done to their house. And if for any reason they don't want to, they don't have to go forward at this moment in time. That's the correct understanding from what you've just answered. Yes, we don't force people to have anything where they are safety issues or compliance issues. Then obviously we would push as far as we possibly could to get those done. But where it's a home improvement, where there is disruption to it, they do have the right to decline. Solar panels and also the external planning as well as the loft installation. We access several grants that were then available to us from the Government, but also the fact with regards to solar panels we use an external company to fund it because they then could get a particular revenue stream. Are we still exploring all those options? Yes. I mean, as I said earlier on, there is the lead to element which we're currently looking at which could contribute towards it. And we're looking at any other avenues of funding that are available. There are some partnership working options like you said with the solar from a few years ago. That's not as buoyant as it was because the returns for companies aren't anywhere close to where they were. So there's not quite so much of that available. But we are looking at any possible options where funding can be sought or other types of partnership can be brought in and where we can possibly help. Some of the consultants that we're using, we're looking at potential guarantee numbers whether that will be something that can be guaranteed or not is another matter. But if they say we're going to have 10% savings, then the aim would be that in a number of years time there would be 10% savings. They're very much in the early days but there is a hope that we can explore as many avenues as possible. A question, if I may. On the same paragraph, the report really, which is paragraph 12 on page 9 I just wondered if you could explain or firstly, I think that the initial figure mentioned is an average cost of £30,000 per house. But then you say that that will actually be more like £17,000 per dwelling. And I guess it's, have I sort of understood correctly that the difference there is because some of the things that you would be doing in terms of a retrofit would actually stand in place of maintenance that you would otherwise have had to have done anyway? No, no, within the next 30 year plan we will have things within that plan such as replacement windows, replacement roofs, those kind of things which would be within the capital expense for the property anyway. And if, for instance, within the figures for net zero of the 30,000 per property, you could say, well, 5,000 of that is already allocated in a 30 year plan for new windows and doors. So it's already allocated. So even if we didn't do anything in relation to net zero, we would still be spending £15,000 per property on the other replacements or upgrades that we would do as standard throughout our stock anyway. So if I understand then what you're saying is that, for example, we might have had to have replaced the gas boiler at some point, but instead we kind of, some of that cost would actually go to the air source heat pump. Yes, you could equate it to that and we're not saying that windows and doors is a prime example. At some point we would be replacing windows and doors because they would expire their lifetime. The new products going in are much better efficiency when they're putting in triple blaze and the values are far, far better on the new technologies that we're putting in. Thank you. And just on the sums themselves, are they sort of in today's money, if you like? I mean, for example, is £175 million, does that take into account that you could have taken that money and invested it somewhere and got a return on that and therefore is today's money rather than a sort of discounted cash flow sort of sum? As I understand it, the value would equate to sort of today's value price wise but the sums are based over a 30-year period. I'm not sure. Were you first, Councillor Beyrpoch? Okay, you haven't had a chance yet, so I'll come back to you, Councillor Howell, after your question. Yes, my comment really is about energy price rises and the rise in the price cap. So we've had a recent rise in the price cap where likely to have an increase in the price cap which will rise probably by several hundred pounds next year which for some of our residents I should think is going to be quite frightening prospect. I suppose my question is really about how we prioritise the work so that those likely to be in fuel poverty or pushed into fuel poverty are prioritised and how you go about prioritising how the work is done. Thank you. The most difficult part of fuel poverty is identifying a household that has fuel poverty. A few years ago I did a course in a study and I asked for this and it was quite aware nationally that trying to identify any household that is in fuel poverty is incredibly difficult because no-one wants to admit to being in fuel poverty how it's calculated is quite difficult to work out within your overall household income. So it's very difficult to determine from our point of view. We could try and identify a bit better through surveys and so on which are coming up but even then you're only getting what people actually want to tell you which is very difficult. So the only real way that we can make it work for the real benefit is to start with those lowest performing properties and make them better and work through the stock on a performance basis. If it is highlighted at all which it does occasionally get highlighted to us either through the support networks or other avenues like members of family or people are struggling then we do look at those we do try and support them as much as we can and do what we can for the property and if something like that was highlighted we could look at priorities in it but it is like I say it's a very very difficult one to answer if I'm honest. Councillor Howell, I think you were first. Thank you Chairman. Just to quickly I think however I'm asking this question and it should be to Mr Maddakor to the portfolio holder Councillor Batchelor with regards to the debt we have has that been raised, the housing debt we've got to be raised and therefore could be financed from that or we're going to use the HRA revenue and if we can raise on the housing debt could we use that and therefore make these efficiencies far quicker. I'd say it might be from more from Mr Maddakor and Councillor Batchelor. Yes, unfortunately that one I won't be able to answer. Equipment is going to be installed in your average council house kitchen there isn't going to be much room for anybody else. I just wondered whether you're using a different sort of heat pump to air pump than I have and how big they are and whether that is one of the things that is stopping residents from wanting to have this change. Thank you. Do you have a view on that, Eddie? Yes, that is obviously a consideration to heat pumps. They do involve more equipment. Internally this shouldn't really be a huge amount of difference internally. The hot water tank will be larger because it needs to store water in a different way and the volumes need to be there for the temperature. They're also pressurised as well so they will be bigger than a standard tank. The internal boiler elements the heat exchanging parts on there shouldn't be hugely different to a standard water or something. But in some cases they will be and then obviously you've got the external parts which the actual heat pump itself sits outside with the fan. Yes, they are some potential downsides that people don't like or don't want. But at this moment in time options for alternative heating are quite limited if we're completely honest. You're almost down to storage heaters which people in general don't really like. SLC pumps which they are very much a marmite type of piece of equipment. Some people absolutely love them but they are very very much based on how they're used and if they're not used exactly as they're intended then they can be potentially less efficient and people will have a poor opinion of them and it's very much based on the person and the prophecy. Thank you. Councillor Khan, thank you. If you're installing, you would no doubt be installing further solar panel systems and various proposals. Your previous solar panels were installed using a separate company and they used a feed-in tariff now the feed-in tariff has stopped and the system now is that you get paid for what you've produced and you export and otherwise you just pay what balance you use from the mains. How would that work if the district installed it would be benefitting from the sales of electricity would it all pass to the tenant would the tenant take charge of it? How would you manage that under the new system? It very much depends on how we approach the solar panel situation as you rightly say the feed-in tariff is very very non-beneficial if you like but yeah there are a number of options it just depends on what one works out the best for us whichever way we go the savings on the electric generation for the residents of the property you will be getting those savings anyway because you will be getting those input on what's actually generated. Thank you. Can I just allow Peter Campbell to come in and make a few comments if you'd like to Peter? Thank you chair remind members as well as this report we've also got a much more detail that's a management strategy which will be coming to members in a month or two's time a lot of the issues that have been addressed with Eddie today are covered in quite some detail within that strategy so members will have chance to go through that in quite some depth once that reaches you so that was, there is a workshop next week I believe with members and tenants with a view to going back to SEAC and to a cabinet later on so some of the issues and one thing to bear in mind is that one of the big things that we're suggesting is that we need to carry out a full stock condition survey of every property at the moment what we're putting forward is a situation as we know it once we have a stock condition survey we'll be able to have much more detail of what the starting point is for this move forward and we'll be able to work out much more details on that. Thank you. Thank you Peter Campbell. I have a few questions myself on the net zero report attached as appendices to the main report I think it's just wonderful that we've actually got some hard data here and it obviously is the right way to go about this to kind of gather some data we've had temperature measurement logging and humidity logging in some houses for a period of maybe six months or a year to see what the energy consumption was prior to upgrades and then we are making projections on that for the kind of savings that we could make with the modifications proposed and it could be most basic it could be extra lot insulation or checking that the lot insulation is still continuous in the loft space air source heat pumps, upgraded radiators and battery storage and actually maybe this could be confirmed the most amazing thing perhaps is that on one of the two test properties we're quoting 125% reduction of CO2 against current building performance so I assume that means that we are in a sort of CO2 surplus if you like in other words the year round energy generation from the PV is now greater than the amount of energy that we consume in keeping the house at that temperature which I think is wonderful because if that is the case then we are using our housing stock to offset some of the carbon dioxide emissions in the wider south cams area I just wondered it didn't say in the report what the assumptions were on the carbon dioxide intensity of grid electricity and I thought that was perhaps an emission because clearly that would have a bearing on electric heating we need to know what the carbon intensity of grid electricity is in order to say what the CO2 saving might be so I'm not sure you have an answer on that second point rolling all these into one I was quite surprised actually at the quite high temperature that the residents in these two test cases ran their houses at and I wondered whether you thought that was because they actually wanted to live in a house that's 25 degrees which I would find much much too hot or is that kind of typical do you think or is that actually as a result of the problems with controlling the temperature with storage heaters two questions from what I understand on these reports it is purely on the property themselves and the electricity generation carbon elements I don't think are within what's scoped in the report it is one of the things that I've got on to discuss with them at the next meeting these various elements that aren't mentioned within these current reports so there are some things which do need clarifying and that obviously will be one of them as far as the residents and their lifestyles and temperatures that they like to live in I found a few years ago where I was doing a lot of heat and upgrades previously with South Count the again we're looking at primarily on the older demographic of the residents if they've got some issues where they've maybe got arthritis or very limited movement and so on particularly with storage heaters the way that the older storage heaters used to produce heat where it used to sit very high in the room whereas the new ones actually sort of are fan-assisted so it starts at the bottom of the room and going up so those that are sort of bound to a chair for most of the day they need that level of heat to keep the whole room at an ambient temperature so that they feel comfortable there's been a number of properties I've gone into sort of in midwinter and like you say it just couldn't bear it but that's how they like to have it because of their circumstances and it's we've gone down the route of discussing it with them and trying various different temperature settings for different residents and it all comes back to the ones with particular issues want the temperatures at around a 25 degree mark just purely for comfort I recently came across replaced thermostats on my radiators a couple of my radiators and when one of them was broken and came to realise that my other thermostats had not been working for years and then I looked up about and when I found that the average life of a thermostat on a radiated thermostat is about eight or nine years that should be replaced relatively frequently now that strikes me as something which could easily cause significant problems with heat management if we're not replacing on a regular basis what's the programme speed of replacement on radiators in our properties they would generally be replaced either if they had failed or with a new system we wouldn't as a rule be replacing them on a programme I mean your primary control for most radiator heating systems is a room or a whole house thermostat the TRVs are generally there to restrict the level of heat in a particular room rather than balance the heat within the room for instance with your bedroom you would want a lower temperature to your lounge so you would set your TRVs in your bedroom lower than you would in your lounge to restrict the temperature and control it to a certain extent I was reading up about how these work and they work basically with a liquid which expands, an oil which expands which becomes harder with time and therefore ceases to work and if they don't work you can't balance the temperature in a particular room you're going to be using extra heat to heat that room and certainly it affects the ability to control it seems to me that I don't know whether there's any research being done on this and how much efficiency of replacing the TRVs affects the heat use, energy use and how much of an issue that really is Thank you Councillor Carnwell perhaps that's something that could be looked into along with our other maintenance programmes just to check that we don't have a problem with that Do any members have any further questions on this agenda item, otherwise perhaps we could close this now and move on to the next agenda item which I think is going to be presented by Siobhan Mellon Thank you Siobhan, if you're there the media progress report on the zero-carbon and doubling nature action plans The action plan provides the detail on how we're working towards the targets and aspirations set in our hero-carbon and doubling nature strategies and so these are achieving a 45% reduction on the council's greenhouse gas emissions from our own estate and operations and we're going to be looking at how we're going to be working towards the targets and aspirations set in our hero-carbon and operations, excluding housing on a 2018-19 baseline by 2025 helping the district have greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and helping the district double nature So the action plan is actually revised annually and this is the second iteration and it's concerned primarily with actions during 2021-22 and a third iteration will be developed and reported to SIAC at the start of the next financial year and in this we will look further ahead and include actions covering the period to 2025 So the action plan, as you'll see, is in three sections The first lists nine actions to reduce emissions from our own estate and operations of which one is completed four are green, i.e. on track and four are amber i.e. delayed but otherwise on track and in the next update at the start of the new financial year we will include information on progress towards the target of the 45% reduction The second section lists 21 actions to support the district to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 These are green and five are amber The third section lists 13 actions to support the district to double nature There's a small mistake in the numbering but there are actually 13 actions not 12, nine of these are green and four are amber So the committee is invited to review the action plan and provide any comments Maybe do we have some questions for Siobhan I had a question if I may So I suppose without shared services there's a calculation to do to apportion our part of the savings for example with shared waste I suppose what we are progress we're making with our electrified waste collection fleet is partly shared both in terms of cost and the benefits with city I think we've raised this before but if we got any further with our ICT power supply and any emissions that might be associated with that Do you please keep pushing on this one I have actually raised it but I'm still waiting for any information on that but perhaps we could ask Geoff memory to pick that one up because we haven't got any information on that This is the server basically the electricity from the IT servers I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of that eventually just for completeness sake Thank you very much Any other questions or points Looking at the doubling nature action plan the target that has been set of doubling the proportion of semi-natural environment within the county by 2050 is quite a large one and if you look at the actual annual requirement in terms of area converted from other natural use to semi-natural use I think I've worked out about 250 hectares a year for the whole of the county so probably 50 for South Cambridge We know what we are going to be able to provide to the major developments in the district through the major towns How do we plan to actually convert the transfer of land from not semi-natural to semi-natural at that sort of rate over the period because I don't think that the amount of land that will be proposed in the major towns will make a bit of an impact but not very large rather than just buying up existing semi-natural land which is what most of the wildlife bodies do which is very valuable but it doesn't actually increase the capacity I do see the district doing that in view of the resources that we have available So it's a very good question and not one that I'm equipped to answer I do know that part of the evidence base for the local plan has pulled together a lot of work on the opportunities that are available for improving natural areas and my understanding is that that work as to how that then moves into kind of delivery is still to be done but it's not an area that I'm personally very involved in so it's perhaps something we could come back to you with further information on Thank you I think Councillor Bear Park just pitched you there Councillor Ellington, so can we I'd just like to say thank you to Siobhan and the team for the hard work that they've been putting into progressing these actions very important work and I think you could be proud of what you have achieved and are achieving I just wanted to make a note regarding the Combined Authority Board which endorsed the Climate Change Action Plan of the Independent Commission on 28 October I think I believe that should be quite an ambitious programme the Combined Authority have agreed to form a climate working group and they have to report back by February next year and I think my comment is really I think you mentioned Siobhan that you would be looking to present the forward looking actions for the rest of the period until 25 I think it would be great if we could make sure that what we're doing is well aligned and is as ambitious as the plan that the Climate Working Group, the Combined Authority will be putting together between now and February next year Thank you Councillor Bear Park Councillor Ellington Thank you I'm very concerned about the tree planting and the biodiversity and so on it seems to me having been a gardener, most of me love that quite a lot of very well intentioned tree planting is being carried out at unsuitable times of the year with particular reference to the A14 planting of trees and bushes and so on on all of the flyovers and spaces down the sides of the road particularly of my bit between Barhill Loworth and Swavesea where I would say 90% of those that sit in their little plastic tubes are as dead as dodo's and there appears to be no action being taken to replace or replenish those and now is the time to plant them and plant them now they will be as dead as dodo's next year so it is about getting people to understand nature as well as getting all their good intentions Thank you that's a very valuable point I think and maybe we could follow up with Highways England and see what they have to say about that if indeed they are the responsible body for those plantings I understand the county council is having a little bit of a flurry according to my local county councillor Thank you Councillor Ellington Councillor Howell Thank you Chairman Something for the future really many years ago in Papworth had the bypass put around and subsequently Councillor Ellington just alluded to several thousand trees, bushes and plants were put around with all within the plastic containers from stopping the munchak and other predators which now means we have several thousand plastic containers still there and therefore I think long term we have to think it's all very good to put the trees in everything but what are we going to do with the equipment that we use to protect them or to put those trees in now somehow we've got to remove all these several thousand plastic containers which is going to fill up several skips so I think we've also got to think not only of the now and we are thinking of the future but we've got to think of the environmental impact that we are doing now for the future as well I don't know if there's any advice that can be given even now offline but it will be much appreciated Okay thank you I don't know if you have any comments on either of those two or previous questions Siobhan Can I suggest that I take it as an action to speak with colleagues and see if we can get some response from Highways England on these questions I think we've got to think about the time of year of planting replacing the trees that have died and also the plastic tree shields both the ones that are existing but also future plans because in terms and just further on those plastic shields it is now possible to purchase shields that are not plastic and that by a degrade and I am almost 100% sure that the ones that we have got from our supplier for our six free trees scheme are, yeah no I am sure were by a degradable so I mean that is something that it would be good if Highways England were also doing it One more question from Councillor Cartman It's more on the comment actually because when I worked in that sort of field when I worked in local government many years ago one of the experiences that we found and generally was commented upon is that the problem with planting the small trees that you are planting on these schemes is as much the fact that the trees are dead before you put them in as the fact that that the trees are actually the time you put the planting as long as it is within the winter season they basically you have to keep the roots wet moist until the time you put them in and often they just take them out and lay them out and when they got in all the roots have gone I don't know how easy it is but the protection about that is the fact that you have to have effective supervision and replacement of dead trees So it's Councillor Bear Park Yeah just another comment really I think just in terms of the three free tree scheme, the six free tree scheme because it's done through the parish councils it's going to be much more effective from Highways England. I've been in several meetings where there's been long discussions, parish council meetings where there's been long discussions about what type of trees, where they're going to be and they clearly care very much about the success of these trees so I think doing it through the parish councils is definitely going to succeed. I hope Yeah hopefully, exactly yes Thank you Okay so unless you have any further questions perhaps we could thank you for a detailed report and I should also thank Peter and Eddie for the previous stop modelling report which I thought was outstanding too so apologies for that and perhaps now we could move on to Eleanor Haynes is going to present on the Zero Carbon Communities Program update Yes hi, thank you chair. I've got a presentation to share if that's okay so I'll just share my screen now Can everyone see that okay? Okay so I'm going to talk through the Zero Carbon Communities or ZCC Program update which is set out in the attached papers and the updates intended to provide the committee with information on the progress of the ZCC Program and six free trees for comments and questions First of all we have the Zero Carbon Communities grant scheme which is in its third round of funding now So in round one, eleven projects are now completed and we have four more projects which have been granted extensions due to COVID or adverse weather conditions but these are still progressing well and the status of the projects can be seen in Appendix A where we've assigned a rags status to them and the success of the grant scheme was intended to be indicated by the completion of seven projects so that we can see that the scheme is doing well here but nevertheless we still want to get as many projects successfully over the line as we can So seventeen projects were awarded funding in round two and this distribution was according to the categories here so the most funding was provided for tree planting and then for community building and then cycling So all projects are underway and are due to be completed by the end of December 2021 and a summary of the projects can be seen in Appendix B and even in the past few days we've had a few more updates and further information on projects so this highlights that most of them are progressing well So fifteen applicants in round three have been successful and a total of 98,796 pounds has been awarded and a summary of the funded projects can be seen in Appendix C We had a series of unusual circumstances which haven't really happened before so where the Tithe Barn Trust rejected a grant of £15,000 and we had to withdraw a grant of £4,000 from Foxton Village Hall The criteria states that the work cannot be done prior to the grant being awarded and so therefore £25,544 remains unallocated and the options for this remaining funding will be presented to the grants advisory committee on 26 November So we look forward to working with these projects to deliver them and hopefully these images that you can see here into the real images of the project completion It was part of the project in round two we also delivered ten energy surveys of the community buildings through PECT and we then extended the energy surveys to include 15 more which are now due to be completed So the six free trees scheme started in 2019-2020 as the three trees, three free trees scheme which aimed to deliver every parish council in the district with three free trees So in that year 54 parish councils accepted the offer with 162 trees being planted So this year the six free tree programme has been successful with 72 applications from the parish council so far and parishes could choose six smaller trees or one large tree and so far purchase orders for 186 smaller trees and 22 large trees have been received and they're starting to be delivered and planted which you can see below in the pictures there So we've just also launched a series of monthly events and they're monthly online networking events called the Syracarbon Community's Green Connect and these are a series of community networking events which include a guest speaker, a short Q&A and then a series of breakout sessions where they're encouraged to introduce themselves and discuss some set of questions and the next event will be held on the 13th December on the topic of forest gardening, tree planting and biodiversity in South Cambridgeshire and this will feature a talk upon Babrum's Forest Garden project and so the next edition of the ZCC newsletter is underway and will be published in the first week of December and also following on from the success of the Climate and Environment Fortnite of Events which was held in February 2022 sorry, 2021 we plan to hold another one in February 2022 Thank you very much Eleanor Do you have any questions? Councillor Howe Thank you Chairman Yes, with regards to the actual tree planting I've been involved in several parish councils now who would like to take up this particular opportunity However, they might be well funded but they're not very good with regards to having much land planted on and therefore it's a small request that when we approach parish councils and ask them we provide them with a small map of whether it's suitable or not it's further down the stage with regards to what land south Cambridgeshire district council owns in that particular patch because they might be able to identify a place of land that we own that they can put the trees on because many many parish councils one of my own has no land whatsoever so they do act as you look elsewhere so that is something of a consideration for the future please Thank you Chairman Any other questions arising from that? I suppose on the we've done quite a lot on e-bikes I think within our three successive rounds two of which are underway on ZCC I just wanted we to get the feeling that that is encouraging people to acquire their own e-bikes and use them Do we need more sort of push on that do you think? I think it's definitely an interesting thing to look at we've received some statistics from Tevesham and their e-bike scheme and certainly it appeared that it definitely encouraged people to use the e-bikes there and certainly given the Covid restrictions there was a lot of rides seen on the bikes they have very good statistics around that and so I think it is definitely encouraging the uptake of them in bikes and we're definitely looking at how we could encourage this further That's exactly the result that we hope for so that's wonderful so thank you very much for your update and report on this unless there are any other further questions perhaps we could thank you if you are important to move on to Agender Item 9 and I think would this be for you Siobhan to talk about the future agenda items for the next meeting which I think is going to be on the 12th of January or Wednesday the 12th Yes so I've just shared my screen coming up What I have on the forward agenda is the biodiversity SPD There has been talk of a presentation by Rob Pierce on the future parks accelerator don't have confirmation that that is wanted on the agenda but there is certainly a possibility an update on plans regarding EV charging infrastructure and following Peter Campbell's mention of the housing asset management strategy that perhaps also should be on the agenda for 12th of January and then moving forward to 7th of March we have been asked to provide some information on proposals for true protection in the local plan we don't have a tree officer at the moment but if we have a new one then that could perhaps come on on the 7th of March agenda and the air quality update the 7th of March would be a good time for that one I'll just have a question about the air quality update on the 7th of March is that an update to the air quality strategy that we were presented with a couple of meetings ago or is it a strategy? I believe so yes I suppose if I may add at some point we should at some point revisit green investment I don't know if we can make space to discuss that at some point in the new year so we were expecting the return of our green investments officer in the new year and actually I think that hasn't been I mean it should be a standing item but that has been a difficulty but I imagine we'll get back as a regular standing item once Alex is back Yes I think that would be a sort of on Alex's seven days return I don't think we should land her with that on her first day but I'm sure she will be enthusiastic to move things forward when she gets back so that would be an interesting topic to visit I think we've reached the end of the agenda I just wanted to say I think I might inadvertently have thanked Peter McDonald for the report of course I meant Peter Campbell so sorry for that my slip anyway unless there's anything further then I think we can draw the meeting to a close Thank you Chairman, Chairman I'm sure you've caused the same we all do wish the Chairman the very best of health Thank you so we'll make sure that is unless she's watching you on the public portal I'm not sure but we'll make sure that's passed on to her Thank you so much, thank you everybody close the meeting