 Helo! Helo, Siobhawm. Rwy'n meddwl, Siobhawm. Helo, Rob. Welcome. Helo. Thank you very much. We've just been in a pre-meat with the chair and vice chairs, Pippa, Jeff and actually Martin wasn't there, actually. So they will be there in a moment. Okay, good. I'm sorry about the amount of information that I've given you, but... You're welcome. Thank you. I'm going to go off on... I'm going to close my video. Thank you, everybody. Good afternoon. Members, officers and any members of the public who are viewing the live stream of this meeting. This is South Cambridge's District Council, Climate Change and Environment Advisory Committee. My name is Councillor Pippa Haillings and I'm chairing this meeting. For the information of members of the public, I'm going to close my video. For the information of members of the public, our committee advises Cabinet on the actions required to achieve the council's targets on climate change and its environmental commitments through the doubling nature strategy also. So please, those present in the council chamber note that everything on your desk, including a laptop screen and phones is likely to be broadcast at some point. The camera follows the microphone being switched on, so councillors and officers are advised to wait a couple of seconds before speaking to allow the camera to catch up. And those participating via live stream, hello, nice to see you. Happy new year, happy new year everybody. It's very strange to be here in the chamber with just a few of us, but we know that conditions continue with COVID. So those participating in the meeting via the live stream, please indicate that you wish to speak via the chat column and please don't use the chat column for any other purpose. Make sure your device is fully charged and you switch your microphone off, unless invited to do otherwise. When you're invited to address the meeting, please make sure that you switch on the microphone and again let the camera come on to you. Speak slowly and clearly. Please don't talk over, interrupt anyone. We'll move very quickly to item number one on the agenda, which is Apologies. And Patrick, other apologies for absence today, please. No, no, chair. We've got no apologies for absence, but Councillor Grenville Chamberlain is attending the meeting virtually. Thank you very much. I don't hear you so well. Are you just checking to be able to make sure that we can hear everybody clearly. Thank you very much Patrick. Agender item, three minutes of the previous meeting. Are members happy to approve these minutes of the meeting as a correct record? Or does anyone have any suggested amendments to those meetings for those minutes? So I've got page one. No, page two. Page three. Page four. And page five. So if not, I move the approval of the minutes and if I can do that by affirmation everyone. Yep, thank you very much. Okay, so the committee therefore agrees the approval of the minutes meeting on the 23rd of November is a correct record. Agender item four, minutes arising from the minutes and are there any other matters arising members from those minutes or Patrick on those minutes? I don't see any here from anybody in the Chamber and so none there. So we'll move on to the first substantive item on our agenda which is being eagerly anticipated and awaited which is the council's HRA asset management strategy 2021 to 2026 and we know that that has come before our committee on a couple of occasions I think and we've been very, very interested in how this is how this has been developed and it's a key, key piece of what we do in terms of all sorts of issues within the council particularly of interest to us here in the committee both in terms of how we're going to meet our climate change targets in terms of our housing stock with very, very difficult issues around energy efficiency but also critically especially now in this context when we're hearing about rising energy bills and how they're going to hit households and knowing the number of households living in fuel poverty in our area is also that helps deal with those energy bills too and that cost of living keeping people warm, healthy and safe so I would like to receive a report on the asset management strategy relating to the housing revenue account and this is going to cabinet on the 7th of February and the director of housing Peter Campbell is going to present this report thank you Peter Thank you I'm just going to share some slides with you Patrick can you confirm when these are available please Yes we can see them now Thank you I've lost sight so can you keep me advised if there's any questions or anything come up whilst I'm presenting please Patrick Thank you So yes I'm Peter Campbell on the head of housing here to talk about the HRA asset management strategy and this is a document that's probably taken a year or so to develop and there's a lot of detailing it as we go through so why do we need ooh so what's it all about why do we need an asset management strategy well the HRA the housing stock is probably the largest asset owned by the council we've got about 5300 homes and that's growing we continue to acquire and build properties we've also got other assets garages, open space etc the value of our holding in the HRA open market value is about 1.4 billion and it's growing not only as our stock increases but to the value of stock increases we're the major housing provider in the area so it's important that we have a clear strategy and plan for managing our housing stock our approach to asset management is that it's more than just how we best manage the assets so what we're trying to do within the strategy is to explain the context why we're doing things and not just what we are doing we're very clear that we're placing customers front and centre in everything we do around the importance of involving our current customers tenants in what we do but also using the wider community could be our future customers we recognise that we're lucky the housing department is part of the council and we've got an opportunity to contribute towards the wide range of the council and unashamedly within the housing service what we want to do is what we want to strive to be their best and there's no reason why we can't be that so we have a number of principles within the asset management strategy we recognise that there's much more than being about bricks and mortar what we have a role to do is building places places where people feel safe and where communities thrive and there's a few main things around that we want our properties to be high quality and energy efficient we want the whole service to be customer focused we want to be supportive we recognise that we deal with some of those vulnerable people in society and we want to ensure that they have the support that they need and deserve we're accountable we're part of local authority and we're responsible to members and via the members to the wider public and we're professional we want to set the highest standard in everything that we do so why have we developed that at management strategy what the drivers, what the wider issues on the strategy will first have got the HRA reform so this is where the housing services are self financing we've got the ability to borrow for building et cetera this is the general trend of social housing reform the charter of social housing the charter for social housing residents which itself has its origins back in the tragedy at Grenfell Towers we've got drivers from Holmes England the standards that they set we can trace this back to the decent home standard which was the first attempt to have a recognise standard for social housing I'm moving forward and developing those to ensure that our properties do remain decent and fit for purpose and there's the Holmes fitness human habitation act of 2018 which is the opposite end so that controls the minimum standards which houses should be provided the strategy has lots of background data I make no apologies for that it may not be the most interesting thing to read but it's about setting the scene and setting the context hopefully by presenting the data it's very clear why we're doing some of the things that we're proposing and you will see time and time again throughout the strategy we make reference to involving customers and involving the customers in delivering our priorities the strategic priorities the first overall overarching to provide good quality sustainable homes affordable to live in where people choose to live so if this is important we provide social housing we don't provide second class housing we want all our properties to be the highest possible standard we've got specific targets below that I'm not planning to go through all these just some of the priorities which I think are more relevant to this committee priority A and probably the top priority ensure that homes we provide are safe and secure and meet or exceed all statutory safety standards and picking up from some of the tragedies that have happened elsewhere in the country it's a paramount importance that all our properties are safe and secure we meet all the minimum standard and sometimes clearly the risk of not doing this is tremendous it's inconceivable that we do something wrong and we're not just talking about a major disaster but we need to make sure that all our properties have the gas servicing carried out we have proper fire alarms we have fire doors etc etc we will meet or exceed all statutory standard priority B to have in place well designed repairs and maintenance systems and ensure that homes are well maintained and kept in good state of the pair to some organisations this is the extent of their asset management strategy this is all that they do we do so much more than this so this is only one leg of our strategy and as members will know we are currently in the process of appointing a new contractor to take a contract which could last up to 15 years to do the work that's currently carried out by MIAs and in fact I've just left a session which is looking at the tenders in order to come and give this presentation priority C which is very important to this to this committee to have a long term strategy and programme to improve the thermal efficiency of homes reduce the carbon emissions with the aim of being carbon neutral by 2050 so how do we do this is that we've got really three strands the first one is to plan to reduce energy the overall energy use by increasing insulation a fabric first approach which will reduce energy use regardless of the form of heating the second strand is the use of technology new forms of heating especially new technology we want to make sure that we just don't act on what's all to us but we test these out in reality so we fit tests in properties we record results over the long term and in real time and we monitor the effectiveness once they meet once this technology meets the real world and what we are doing also is that we're sharing this information with other organisations through a data sharing club that we're in and the third element about this is education is people in social housing moving to properties that are energy efficient may mean making changes to their lifestyle may change for example in ventilation with clothes drying we provide sufficient education to our customers to our clients to make sure they understand what the implications are living in the low carbon property and how they can benefit from it as well priority D is about involving tenants again to ensure that our homes are brought up and maintained at a locally determined standard remaining attractive and meeting modern requirements and tenant expectations so this is not just about bringing our properties up to a decent home standard this is developing a new local south cam standard which will involve tenants in designing the standards and bringing our properties up to that level priority E should place obsolete and economic properties with new homes that are better designed to meet future needs and to create a better balance portfolio portfolio properties look we're not in a bad position we don't have all rafts of high rise or poorly designed properties but we do have some and what we may have to do is to recognise that some of the properties are too difficult to bring up to a modern standard and there may be options to demolish these and to rebuild them rather than to try to bring the current shell up to a modern standard and it may mean that we need to make some difficult decisions and people may lose their homes through this but we'll have a better balance portfolio properties at the end and priority F to identify opportunities to grow the stock through purchase or direct build and to increase the number of counter properties available and importantly we're not just withy nilly these are properties that the type and the quality and areas where people choose to live and priority G is to ensure that our homes meet requirements of people with specific needs we have a high number of our customers who've got specific needs who need an adaptation to properties and we need to make sure that our stock is of high enough quality and has many adaptations that people need moving forward so what next we've got a commitment to improve our approach to asset management as I said previously we strive to be the best we're starting that by making sure that we have the data to make decisions we want our decisions based on reliable data so you will see some of the early actions within asset management strategy around stock conditions survey and tenant surveys about governing information and data to make sure that we are making informed decisions moving forward we're going to set targets and monitor those once we have the relevant data we'll set targets we'll make sure that they're robustly monitoring and making sure that our customers as well as members are involved in that process and through this what we want is a process for no surprise we want to have long term plans to how we'll improve our property and invest in our properties we're about setting standards and we're talking about setting the highest possible standards that are available rather than just a minimum standard and we want to create an environment where often as councillors and our customers can work together to improve the housing stock indeed I've just left a meeting which is calling the tenant submissions for the repairs contract within that meeting we've got councillors we've got tenants and we've got a group of my officers that have been working all day in doing this but we also recognise that that migrant strategy is very much a first step it's called building the foundations for a reason it's about getting to a place from which we can build it's a document that's determined not going to remain on the shelf it's one that we're going to look at but having said that we're already looking towards developing this and coming along with the next iteration thank you thank you so much Peter and as you said unconscionable to not be acting and having this and huge piece of work and I know that it's something that's been your priority since you joined us and we can just hear how pleased and proud you are of this work how it can set the journey ahead so I'd like to call the members of the committee to see if you have any comments responses to the asset management strategy which we'll be going to Cabinet thank you we have to count the gram of code and welcome it's good that you've been able to join us you're just trying to slightly lay that soul no and we're waiting until we're connected so that everyone can hear that's okay there's a slight hitch in getting connected I'd like you to be able to hear everything that way that way so my question was to Peter about on the second point he talked about installation for council housing stock and then the third point was education on the new technology point what types of new technology does he envisage and how difficult are they going to be to implement and how costly are they going to be and I suppose the part 3 to his sort of proposal there is about education in terms of how do we get our residents to use those new technologies sort of in the best way really thank you Peter okay then we've not made a decision yet which determines what technology we will or will not use and it's very likely that during the life of this strategy new technology will be introduced that isn't yet available or what's currently available is cutting edge very expensive technology will become more affordable and importantly more reliable so not wishing to dodge the question but just to assure members that what our aim is is to make use of the best technology that's available at the moment in time that we're looking at installation we're looking at some things that are available one thing that we've considered particularly with new build is passive house which is increased insulation and relies on low energy used within a property by basically making the property much more airtight than the normal property I'm making sure that the energy inside inside the property is better used that has a price premium of other properties it's difficult to work out what the differential is because it's not that we're starting off a low standard and we're stepping up to passive house which may be a 30% what we recognise that passive house is probably an incremental improvement over the existing high standards that we offer in all our new build and acquired properties but I chose that passive house for a reason in this example is that if I was going out to buy a new property and I made the decision to live in a passive house property myself and my family would make a longer term commitment to adapting our lifestyle to cope with that and we would think of the way that we live which may include accepting that there's less ventilation in a property accepting that if there were radiating a property there likely to have a lower surface temperature than would be expected from a traditional gas fired central heating system if somebody applies for social housing they perhaps not made that same sort of long term commitment towards adapting their lifestyle to to make the most out of their property any fact that many people will not have the information that allows them to do that so by education what I'm talking about is making sure that the people who are and will become our tenants having their possession the knowledge that they need to make the best of the technology and standards of our homes that they benefit from it and they too can benefit them from the law NGCOS etc so it's making sure that people have the knowledge which is relevant to their own particular property I'm sorry Council that was a rather long answer but I hope I've addressed the points that you raise Thanks very much Thank you very much Members any other comments Yes I have Councillor Pope Paul Bear Park and then Councillor Jeff Harvie and then Councillor Peter Thane Thank you chair Just a comment on the general comment on the strategy but also I have a question about short term challenges specifically regarding rising energy costs so just in terms of the strategy generally it's good to see that it's such an aspirational strategy I think generally you know residents and tenants would be very happy to hear that the council is striving to be the best in terms of what it's offering In terms of the comment on the short term I remember a few years ago someone said to me that we need to think about the heating systems in our homes as machines so they need to be well maintained but they also need to be operated correctly and with the rising energy costs I wondered whether there was an opportunity here to ensure that everybody has a clear understanding of how to operate their heating systems for instance do they have the information specific to their heating system within their home there are general points if you come into a cold house whacking up the thermostat will make it heat up quicker but actually it won't it will just cause it to overshoot but you know for instance if someone is away from their home do they know how to operate the holiday mode for instance do they have the information to be able to do that but all those sorts of things will help to minimise people's energy bills at a time when everybody is going to be struggling with very high increases in energy bills Good, thank you very much and what I'm going to do if it's okay with you Peter is to take a couple of questions so that you can do it and councillor Grenville Chamberlain you did ask a question I didn't see it on the chat so thank you very much I can take your question next Thank you chair, happy new year to you all first of all not so much a question from me but I'm just a point that the scrutiny and overview committee did in fact consider this report at its recent meeting and there were I think a couple of points which I'd like to make which are particularly relevant to this committee and the first is that we recommended that cabinet should ensure that the strategy seeks not only to maintain the fabric of its housing stock but also the estate surrounding that stock and of course that would particularly include a reference to biodiversity gains that we might achieve and I think the other point that I would make which again is particularly relative today is that when we are insulating the council housing we should give priority to those residents who might be most at risk of encountering fuel poverty because they will be the people who will be impacted fastest and most seriously so just a couple of points to me chair of thank you for that thank you so much council chamber then yes and we'll come back to that too and council Jeff Harvey thank you chair page 59 and 60 of the report and we're looking at a sort of three stage process, stage one is reducing the energy demand, stage two is using more efficient heating systems and stage three would be to offset any residual looking at things like solar panels but I was wondering if there are ways to make solar panels self financing why we wouldn't perhaps do those contemporaneously with stage one to get the sort of maximum benefit from them and then I wondered also sort of on a similar theme on page 60 looking at the possibility that south cams could actually create renewable energy off site and I'm wondering whether that's possible to do within the HRA account if you like which could be quite interesting and then I just thought second or third paragraph on page 60 I could be quite useful to just clarify whether those costs are actually in sort of today money or you know are they in sort of discounted cash flow terms or net present value terms or are they just by the amount of cash which are obviously going to be different things Thank you and Councillor Peterfain Thank you chair Yeah a very good report I'm going to focus on the comments on priority C priority C priority 10 to replace to put in place a improve the thermal efficiency of homes and reduce their carbon emissions to some extent also I think priority F is relevant here to identify when it takes off to identify opportunities to acquire through purchase so that sometimes we can make improvements sustainability of our stock by building new or in some cases replacing old with new I particularly welcome in that regard the I think the pieces highlighted in green are probably changes including on page 68 the recognition in response to earlier comments that we could acquire land as well as direct build where this is appropriate I thought it was just a passing comment perhaps unfortunate to start off by saying on page 21 no climate change implications have been identified but clearly that same sentence goes on to talk about the opportunities for thermal insulation and working towards net carbon zero and I feel very strongly that this council should be an exemplar in that social housing has always been built to generally higher standards particularly in the old days of the code for sustainable homes we've seen it all around South Cams because they take a longer term view and I think it's very important this council should set out show others what can be done within the constraints of what is affordable turning to page 58 I'm sure that's right to identify the capacity of the grid that's item one quite sure paragraph that is meeting the carbon neutral challenge and that of course relates to new demands on it if we're going to improve heating systems by going for heat pumps then that will put additional stress on the grid as of course will EV charges which we must recognise in our housing stock as well paragraph two there refers to electricity being currently more expensive than gas sadly that is a changing relationship and it depends of course on the efficiency of the replacement systems if we're going for heat pumps we must go for the highest possible coefficient of performance and that may mean that where possible we for instance go for ground source now we have the fortunate position as a council owning many different properties not always sometimes interrupted by houses that have been bought out in between them but that is a feasible option for us to put in collective heating systems with heat pumps whether from baws or from slinkies which many individual landowners or house owners would not be able to do we can of course as in the past offer those who have benefited right to buy the opportunity to join in with that I think we also need to just bear in mind that sometimes small improvements that may not seem relevant here can have a significant effect on sustainability and the science and climate change bike storage for instance many people including in our stock of houses find that taking a bicycle through the passageway to their back garden or indeed sometimes upstairs to a flat can be a significant disincentive particularly if we're talking about an e-bike which can be quite a valuable thing and I think we need to look at small improvements as well as the larger improvements but in general I'm very happy that this document insofar as it relates to the priority C is setting out a leading a way for us to lead the way for other holders of housing stock including RSLs Thank you very much You got some of the income Simply I wanted to comment to ask about the system build houses that you still have in stock you list them various types and how much of an obstacle that's going to be in terms of improving their performance first of all how easy are they to improve because I think presumably different systems have different scope and how you deal with system build houses, how you deal with houses half has been sold off because many of them have been detached I particularly noted that you've still got 30 aluminium houses I'm not sure that these are the original post war prefabs when you've still got some of these but they were very poor performance and I would imagine they would be difficult to pick up the standards so I'll be interested to hear about that Thank you and just also a couple of comments and questions for myself if you're noting these all down if that's right Peter so you can in the round respond to us so yes just once again I'd like to say what a comprehensive and integrated strategy where we see all four priority areas of the council brought to bear on our asset management strategy and also where we see the crossover absolutely critically between climate environment and social issues and looking after residents and making sure they're being able to live in houses that are decent and affordable to live in and good places to live so what I would just like to go back is one of the comments I think councillor Peter Fein mentioned which is about we don't just want at the end of reports or strategies for the obligation to say what are the climate change implications of this strategy to just be a box ticking exercise and as Peter Fein said there are implications as you've rightly said the implications are that this will contribute once it's implemented eventually will contribute towards our net zero strategy but I would also like to quote you on when you said about it's incontrable not to have this strategy but there is the other point which is no action on climate has a huge impact and huge implications so no action on our housing stock to enable them to be warmer and better affordable for the people living in there and to reduce what we know are some of the highest emitting factors which is heating in homes that's huge so I would say that the climate change implications is a decision not to act on this has huge climate change implications so I'd just like you to beef up that as an exemplar of how that is there it doesn't affect the strategy because the strategy has does deal with it secondly I really want to applaud what's on page 62 and the fact that this council has decided to be part of the net zero collective which is a national initiative and what it deals with critically is what happened and why previous green home grants and green new deal have collapsed and it's about the labour and skills shortage as well and that's what you're looking at in 62 and working with the net zero collective as you said not just in real time but in reality or you were saying we're actually testing this out in the real world you said in real time in the real world and it's about training and providing examples of what's needed in this retrofit to local businesses and also to people who are considering upskilling reskilling in this area and we know that with the green homes grant last time this was part of the reason why it failed because there wasn't enough certainty in terms of how long would it go on for how many jobs are out there should we do the upfront capital investment so it's great that we're looking at setting up what you call would be a centre of excellence for decarbonisation that's the kind of aspiration we need my question would be I know this is sort of still a long time but is the net zero collective initiative that we're part of locally working together with the skills hubs that are now within the region so that's with the apprenticeship schemes with GCP but also with the skills retraining hubs that have been built up so I think it would be good early on to start engaging with them that this could be future curriculum work for local college graduates and school leavers then my other piece would be around calculation of costs so councillor Jeff Harvey did mention that and I also would like to know where did those figures come from but I also note that what we need to do is a stock audit and in fact we've kind of put the horse before the cart a couple of years ago in fact when we started the climate change and environment advisory committee we asked what would it cost to retrofit the homes what you've done is said hang on first of all we really need to know what's our strategy for our homes and then we do the audit so when would the audit take place is that within our budget is it something that now we've got the strategy in place where we're prioritising so that what you'll be able to come back with and say is which of the houses not only what's the situation and status of our housing stock where are the opportunities and I know that it's not just costs you're also going to come back and be able to say later as a bit going to Councillor Graham Cohn's question who would be ready or able to engage with us on this because it is about education and we can't just immediately repair somebody's retrofits on this home around them so those were my points thank you Peter OK then I'll try and read my very poor handwriting and answer more to those questions that came up first of all thank you to Councillor Chamberlain the quite right the colour bits in this strategy are bits that have been added and or amended through the feedback process including through scrutiny and the meeting with tenants so thank you for pointing that out I will start I'll probably go backwards through this if that's OK first of all the stock condition survey yes we have got sufficient budget in order to carry out to carry out the survey but what I want to make sure that we do is this is a a one-off chance to do a survey to govern information on our properties and to do it properly what I don't want to do is to do something that's a bit half cock than having to do it again in five or six years time so what my plan is to do is to engage a specialist consultant to help us to devise a stock condition survey that suits the needs of this district so rather than just going buying a standard survey off a surveying company I want a survey that also allows us to to meet our card reduction plan so I will want them to look at the thermal efficiency of the existing walls and roof structure for example rather than just the fact that it's a 20 year old slate roof and it might may need replacing in five years time so that we will get information from the stock condition survey that will not only help with the ongoing maintenance of the properties to keep them in their current standard which the purpose of a standard survey but also to measure what sort of work will be needed to meet our card reduction targets and and to allow us to to plan in the future it may take longer it may be more expensive than doing a standard survey would be cheaper than doing several surveys so let's do it once and let's do it right that then comes back to one of the points a couple members have made about the calculation of cost the figures within the report are ones taken out of the survey that was done by Savill a couple of years ago which I understand was reported back to this committee previously and it is nothing more than somebody's best guess at a moment in time so that's hence the importance of getting the stock condition survey done to make sure that when we move forward we're working on accurate figures going back councillor Fein mentioned the issue about heating systems that were suitable for larger numbers so certainly we will look and consider district heating schemes when they're when they're appropriate we're different from most other authorities into much that we have far fewer group living schemes so normally district heating scheme will be put into a for example a sheltered housing scheme where there is a communal boiler as a direct replacement we have only one such scheme and the heating has recently been upgraded on that so that wouldn't be an option there immediately but we could consider that and we did consider a district heating scheme for that scheme but it would be uneconomic at the time but we'll consider that going forward and recognising that as a consequence of the growth plans for the district overcoming years and especially the growth is going to be around the major development such as Waterbeats and Northstone in reality more social housing in the coming years are going to be apartments and flats rather than individual properties individual houses and that type of property does land itself more readily the sort of district heating scheme that Councillor Fane identifies and coming on from that Councillor Fane also pointed out the mention in the report again derived from the south report about the strain that we could potentially put on the existing electric grid and hinted at in most cases our ideal solution for carbon reduction solution for properties on top of the insulation would be some sort of you know some sort of heating system where that would ground for ground source or rely on roof panels which was also backed up with the storage system so rather than reliant on the national grid to drop the top of electricity when needed we would try to store that the excess heat or electricity on site for later use that technology is available and the work that we've done with the net zero collective so far has suggested that that might be an option moving forward but we've also come up with some of the some of the limitations in the when we've been looking at what option is available to properties some of our tenants in their current way of living have chosen to have room temperatures which are higher than we could provide through using air source heat pumps for example and some of the tenants are preferred to have higher temperatures for a short period of time through using fires and traditional radiators rather than the lower levels of more consistent heat through a lower service temperature radiators and I think we need to have a discussion with tenants and individuals about what their expectations are from the heating profile from their home and so they're recognising that it will not be the same moving forward there may have to change their expectations as well and in fact that's probably a better example than what I came up with earlier in response to Councillor Cohn's question coming back now to Councillor Beharth's questions about knowledge and use of heating system thank you I think that's an excellent suggestion in making sure that we make sure that the information that we have is more easily available what we are doing is that we're putting together a couple of job descriptions at the moment for officers whose main role is to offer people money advice including any energy advice and how best to keep their homes warm and certainly information on that arising from that can be disseminated to a wider number of people and some of the work that I mentioned I'd come out of scoring the tenders for the repairs contractors a number of repairs contractors I've suggested ways of including energy advice to tenants as part of the part of the future repairs contract and what we'll need to strengthen that I think I've tried to cover everything but if I missed something out can you just remind me please thank you thank you very much there was Councillor Martin Carn just had a very specific question about the housing doc described including the aluminium housing doc sorry yes I did and that's more of a case of I've got really poor handwriting rather than trying to dodge the question this occasion I started to describe the way that our stock condition survey would be something that was more specialised rather than just a standard survey and that will be particular value for the non-traditional properties so we would need to look carefully at those with the stock condition survey and seeing what what's worked better elsewhere in the country and that can be sometimes it has resulted in demolition sometimes it's envelopeing the properties with a more thermal efficient cladding etc so I'm not going to answer the question now because we don't have the data available that I can make an informed response but we will do it to make sure that we pay particular attention to those properties during the stock condition survey and moving forwards and as if we suspect those properties are particularly challenging and they have high running costs I hope the committee would agree that those properties should be making their priority moving forward Thank you very much and if you'd like me Peter just want to pick up on two things and come back a little bit but one it's fascinating to hear about how you're building in this in terms of contracting officers who would include this advice as part of the service that's being provided and you're looking at within procurement of repairs contractors I think that's just huge I don't know if that's something you've done previously in your other work and examples or that's something given the current context and climate as we're going into this period now that just seems to be absolutely huge and probably hitting more parts of the country than ever before in a long while so I'm just thinking as well that often we are looking for best practice to provide to the LGA to share with other councils so that's one I think that could it may be that this is common practice but it would be really good to hear if that is an opportunity to share this or reshare and secondly would be to come back to the issue of the stock condition survey and kind of a recommendation I'd like to make and that is the planning at the moment to commission this you have the funding it's in the budget to be able to commission the type of survey that you're talking about which is the bespoke one and that the results would be there by here by the end of 2022 what I expect is over this year is that there are very likely to be funding pots coming out of the government around retrofitting between COP26 and COP27 so it's just knowing that we're in a good place to be able to be seen as an eligible council that's ready to be able as a good applicant for some of those kind of funds that are probably coming out so knowing that the results would come in at the end of 2022 but not losing sight of perhaps having some interim information including this asset management strategy that we could use as a hook if we were to go for some of that funding and certainly that's the plan and when we appointed the service manager for asset management, Eddie Spicer one of the skills that we looked at during the appointment was somebody who had skills in obtaining funding for climate issues so I think we're not in the best position because we're still lacking data but we are in a strong position that we were a few months ago without Eddie and Eddie's already suggesting improvements that we can make the service to increase the likelihood of successful future funding and as I say as part of the repairs tender we're having we're clear that the new contractors will assist in that I just make it clear that the officers that we're talking about you mentioned earlier about a joined up approach the officers that we're talking about really have come across work instead of them as a consequence of the pandemic so we recognise that there are not only a number of people who have become homeless and we've got a statutory responsibility to help those people but in reality there'd be a much larger group of people who've depleted their savings and now are in greater peril if they have another crisis in their lives of losing their homes so the promise has come from preventing homelessness during COVID and when we started talking about the impact of what was needed and money advice actually saving money on energy was a very obvious fit so I'm emphasising the energy saving role in this committee but it's part of an overall approach to make sure that we have a better advice service to avoid trying to help more vulnerable residents having crisis within their lives Thank you very much and it is key I think most of us probably hear in the committee and really do feel that that's what this is all about it is also about the social implications of changing the environment it is about health and welfare too so if I would like to summarise perhaps some of the comments that we would make to this before also just agreeing with members that we would recommend to cabinet this be approved by them as an asset management strategy the things that I've heard that we would like to take into account albeit you have underlined in yellow some of the things within the report I think the two that are mentioned by Councillor Gremlin which is also around in terms of surrounding areas in terms of biodiversity being there especially within the pandemic I don't know if I can see that underlined in yellow it may be there Peter but the biodiversity for mental and physical welfare and the prioritisation of the homes in terms of fuel poverty also recommend that on page 11 I think it is which is the impact page 10 the climate implications of this report I would just really like to see that beefed up in the way that we've described to be an exemplar as well about how a strategy can show in an integrated way what impacts it does have for climate change and also that you do say linkages for the labour and skills you talk about so the local college could be to become a training hub but also like to recommend that we do quite early on link up with the apprenticeships and the skills training hubs at the combined authority level and GCP level I think that will be really important too thank you and we look forward to seeing the results of the stock conditions survey because that will lead to big decisions so I think members would you all agree that that's the recommendations we have and recommend to cabinet that doesn't thank you so much once again for a huge piece of work Peter, thank you thank you members and we move on to item number 6 accelerator and Rob Piss, are you with us Rob? I am, I'm here Hello, thank you and for anybody who's watching you can explain what the accelerator is, the huge bugs and then you're going to really give us a helpful introduction to what's happened during that project and obviously councillor Martin Kahn has been part of that too so I'm sure we'll hear from him thank you Rob I'll just share my screen so I can get that going before I give a little bit of an introduction and find the right one Can everybody see that, is that okay? Yes we can, thank you Good, right, thank you chair As you said, my name is Rob Piss I'm programme director of the Cambridge and Peterborough Future Parks now I know some of you know a little bit about the programme but I'll just give you a quick piece of background so as you said councillor Kahn is involved and also John Connell as an officer I think is on this call is the officer representative it is a cross Cambridge and Peterborough HLF and MHCLG ministry of levelling up as they are now called funded project it started about two years ago and its main aim was to look for a sustainable future for parks across the whole of Cambridge and Peterborough and in that sense it is quite a complex project it involves all the local authorities so all the districts council combined authority and the local nature parkship and Neen Park are all major partners in the project and as such what I'll be doing today is giving you an update of where we've got to but quite an important point because as we come to the end of the project which will probably end in July this year the number of things we're putting forward like the active parks unit which I'll talk about today that will require the support of all those partners and there's a combined authority meeting at the end of January where the mayor has provided his support but of course the proposal which we'll get to at the end of this project in terms of the financial backing will require the combined authority to agree to that and I'll get to the point where the shares amongst all the current partners are set out in the slide at the end as well and principally is giving you an update where we've got to the major things that are coming out of it and as I say these have been shaped by considerable input from all the partners as the council can't be nominated member steering group John's been involved in the project team as well before I start I know there's going to be too much information on these slides and particularly I'm now just seeing where your screen is that they've been quite difficult to see anyway but what I'm hoping to do is make the main points myself and obviously councillor Cardin and John very happy to take any more questions after today's meeting and fill you in on what is quite a complex project and so I know there's going to be a lot of information but I should try my best to summarise it as we go along so I will move forward so I'll give you a little bit of background and pardon me I will move quickly through these slides I'll just make the main points but as I said you'll have them and you can come back with any further clarifications and questions after this and quite happy to do that is one of nine areas across the country all have a slightly different flavour in terms of what the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Trust were seeking to find out our particular favour in Cymru was looking to what collective leadership models can be created to give a good sustainable future to the areas or the counties, parks and green spaces the themes around the national programme it is a national programme we're looking at those kind of eight main areas and our focus I suppose is around new partnerships and new governance models but particularly new ways in which we can use parks to support health and wellbeing to support nature restoration and how we can work what is a three tier area necessary in order to support those parks and the different roles those partners can play so a little bit of background about where we start and I say this programme is about two years old like everybody else we've been impacted by the pandemic so we have an extension to the end of July we're probably not where we need to be but we're putting our best foot forward to work with our partners to see how much we can deliver before we have to hand it back to the structures that we've created through this project one of them being the active parks unit so the overall vision was to look for that sustainable future by creating a joined up approach and the opportunities were how we can seek to position parks to improve health to tackle climate change but the big one there is at the top as well that came along obviously after the project got started and that was responding to COVID-19 and obviously everybody's relationship with parks changed over the various lockdowns and everybody became to realise how valuable parks are and how they do contribute to our health and wellbeing can contribute to nature and climate change so people began to see parks in a different light I think and obviously where you are responding to growth was one of the biggest challenges as well for parks and green spaces and I'll say a bit more about that as we go looking forth from the project where what kind of collective leadership could put us in good stead for the future how do we bring a sense of a planning for the whole of Cambridge in a future but I mean planning with a small p in that respect to give our parks and place our parks and open spaces in the best possible light and are the new models of delivery that will help us deliver better outcomes I won't go into that as far too details I know but I would say to make the point complex project huge range of cross sector interests so not least the local authorities involved but your interests from the environment sector from the nature sector from the volunteer sector from the community and volunteer organisation sector particularly from health from developers so we had this huge range of stakeholders to engage which we did through a design process in 2021 but it helped to start to design some of the outputs that I'm going to talk to you about I'll give you some idea of some of the organisations right across the patch that we've dealt with again I won't go into any of the detail here but it was quite extensive the consultation and engagement in this kind of co-design very difficult under these circumstances as you can imagine in this kind of way of communicating with people but again we had to do our best and this slide really gives you the kind of sense of where that took us to so trying to boil the messages down through that process where the people wanted us then to focus on how can we add value at a Cambridge and Peterborough scale but respect local diversity independence all the districts and Peterborough deliver parks and open spaces in different ways some are outsourced, some are in the private sector some are where you are a lot of parishes are involved and partners are very clear they want us to respect that but they're also very clear that actually there's a lot of value where we can work together that could be curated and there are a lot of common priorities around health and wellbeing around building community resilience by encouraging volunteering looking at common approaches to nature restoration and of course contributing to climate change and where parks could play a role in that central one of course where people wanted to work together was around responding to Covid-19 and the green recovery and there were a number of themes that were very particular to everybody about wishing in the future to work collaboratively in incorporation seeing parks as a wider system and parks, nature people are no respecter of borough boundaries and so we need to recognise that and being something that we can work with as well in designing our approach into the future so those are the principles with which we work with to start to shape some of our outcomes and again too busy to go through these in any detail but hopefully you can use these at your leisure and come back with them detailed questions the points I would make on collective leadership looking at these three principles one of the models that we've come back to again and again was the recap model the recycling partnership which I guess many of you will be overfave with and how there elected members and all the authorities were very closely together where there is a common aim where they can see, they can create common value in order to achieve better recycling and environmental outcomes the same approach we're beginning to develop now around parks and obviously then it can be applied to the wider natural environment where you need collaboration across those different tiers of government particularly and outwards into the health system and outwards into the local nature system as well local nature partnership in order to achieve some of those outcomes because you can't achieve them as a single unit and in terms of model fertility that's where we started to build things where we saw we could curate some value that was useful to everybody whilst I say that respects that local diversity and one particular aspect of that is the active parks unit which should be central to what I'm talking about today and lastly which we're still working on at this moment is actually how then to reflect that in a flexible plan so people can see how parks work as a whole system but people actually can look after them in their own ways in which they see important and fit but come together where they know they can create value on them and work together to improve those outcomes around health around nature restoration around community resilience so they were the watch words we did I'll say a little bit now more about the case for the active parks unit because that's where people have come together and put in a collective bid with the combined authority to the mayor in order to support what comes after FPA Obviously I won't go into any detail on this slide but you probably can't see it on that large screen but as you'll probably witness through the last 18 months people have begun to view parks and begun to use different ways of valuing the outputs of parks particularly around natural capital so we can put a number on now the value of parks of chicken health and well-being in terms of carbon sequestration in terms of some of the other services or benefits that have always been there and that really we want to start to use and enable people to use more when they think about how they develop the parks and open spaces into the future because historically and as you'll know as a district council and many other council have had to been very challenged in terms of their resource allocation over the last few years the only way often that people have treated parks is in how much they cost and actually I think the debate is now moving particularly across the country as I work a lot outside of many of the authorities changing that debate from how much they cost to actually what value can they create and that's what we're working on now these are some of the issues obviously that are Cambridge and Peter specific some of them are very relevant to obviously south camps in terms of the impact of development but obviously other issues like health inequalities are pertinent to other areas of the county as well although I'm sure in terms of inequality and deprivation there are patches everywhere how parks can support tackling some of those issues is really important again we wanted to shape our outcomes in that part of our work on which we haven't finished yet is actually then using natural capital to put a value on parks and just the headline there every year or parks provide benefits of worth about £375 million per year if you put a value on mental wellbeing, physical health and carbon cess frustration this piece of work isn't finished yet because what we want to do is add to that the values that we can put on in what they call other nature based solutions or ecosystem services and get a full picture of the natural capital map of Cambridge and Peterborough including Southcams so people can understand where the values lie and what they mean in terms of how their existing parks and green spaces work but actually how their new parks and green spaces make work as well and there's a graph that actually shows where these initial values are spread across the districts and of course Southcams have got very high values there reflecting the extent of green space out there as I've mentioned already we did this very wide consultation but the strong message is coming back from both the health community but also the voluntary sector community we're very much the key thing we want is actually to support parks and green spaces and make sure they can deliver some of those benefits and captures of those benefits is much greater coordination and integration health of course is delivered it's a county scale lots of the voluntary sector organisations are saying yeah we don't know what Bright Hand doesn't know what Left Hand is doing what we do is can we have some way of coming together to increase our capacity to learn from each other to come together to increase the number of volunteer groups or friends groups etc and learn from each other and grow those across the park so those are the kinds of things that we wanted to work with when creating the active parks unit as well final thing and again I weren't well on this slide is around collective leadership piece and Martin is involved in the nominated members group we want to see that as FPA starts to wind up towards the summer how do you make sure that that group is built upon and actually can start to behave and act on where there is common interest in environmental policy that goes beyond the district boundaries and that's likely to be things like nature recovery strategies approaches to natural capital developing environmental policy which of course often may be done at combined authority level or county level or even wider spatial levels but how do you create the mechanisms then how do you build on what we've created in order to help people do that and continue to do that so a little bit around the active parks unit so we want to pilot it it's key functions will be some of those integrating activating and animating parks to deliver concrete outcomes around public health around communities and around nature and so those units at the moment that sit within the county council but actually work locally we want to give an active parks unit to pull on those strings work with those units and actually give them much more focus around parks and open spaces locally so give you some examples so with public health and we'll work it through this moment we want to see more public health spending directed through existing and future programs at parks and open spaces but actually tailored that to local circumstances so again working with your community development officers and through think communities making sure that they work on the ground to develop those opportunities not just around inactivity through public health through social prescribing with the link workers making sure that those link workers can find the opportunities that run on parks and open spaces and find those providers that deliver some of those programs that actually lots of GP practices are looking for now in terms of green prescribing or social prescribing and finally nature recovery wherever the nature recovery responsibilities fall looking at the opportunities that parks can provide to deliver some of that benefit as well and in the moment we're going through quite a large natural capital mapping exercise to supplement the maps that are already done with a very fine grain look around where all the natural capital assets are and the ecosystem services are right down to the fatal level particularly obviously a view from our perspective as parks around where they sit in and around parks but obviously those resources will be useful to all partners because they won't just be there looking at public facing publicly accessible parks and green spaces they will be covering the whole landscape as well and that'll give you some more idea about the kinds of things that we're looking for the active parks unit to do working very closely obviously with colleagues in all of the districts and all of those partners the core message I suppose to me about the active parks unit is about doing something concrete to realise those benefits so we can all talk about and even value the health and wellbeing benefits, the nature restoration benefits what it needs is concrete action to actually go and capture those and make sure those larger programs are beginning to use parks and open spaces to capture some of those benefits that we know are there I was interested to see the climate change report that came through via the combined authority mentioned parks and green spaces 60 times but there isn't one single concrete action around capturing some of the benefits it makes it comments on in terms of parks and open spaces so that's why we're working again with the combined authority and all the partners to create we hope this active parks unit. There are some of the functions that we're beginning to think about it will provide again this is a kind of work in progress we'll be looking to deploy it from April so this is an ongoing development and working across partners to make sure that works so I wanted to get to the end very quickly again providing some space for discussion around some of the issues that I'm sure you'll have around South Cymru but I just wanted to mention a bit around the mapping and now again the maps don't really lend themselves to this kind of presentation but those red lines if you can just make them out within this diagram show where your major development areas are and this shows where the standards for accessibility around some of the green space get people too so the orange, the purple ones are kind of informal park land and the meeting open space are obviously quite limited in terms of access to people around them and so those pressures I can imagine within the development zones to get the right map of green space is going to be something that's obviously important in terms of your planning policy and going through and happening at this very moment of time. One of the things we will be doing in early 22 is looking at developing maps then across the whole of Cambridge and Peterborough to start to look at where does natural capital and some of those benefits sit particularly in relation to other socioeconomic indices and so some of the pink areas here to show where a high population is but actually low access and you begin to see that's Cambridge in the middle some of the smaller areas there where there's limited access to the high population what we want to do is begin to overlay some of these things with health inequality with deprivation as well as seeing where the multifunctional benefits of green space can be and where they are relative to existing potential new green space so we begin to look at priorities particularly for activity around the active parks unit that is an ongoing piece of work as we work through. On the volunteering side we're developing a pathway to support volunteering across Cambridge and Peterborough and to support existing initiatives across all the districts and working with the infrastructure bodies that exist across Cambridge and Peterborough I should include this as quite an interesting and nice way of seeing a walk in the park about supporting people to begin to get groups together to start to volunteer from what it takes to get started We just need to wrap to get us into the conversation I'll zip through actually perhaps I'll finish there chair because I just wanted to have this slide at the end the only slides after it then are around the contributions that will go to the combined authority that are shared perhaps I'll stop there chair and leave those on the slide because I think some of these are the issues that are pertinent to South Cambridge obviously there's the access to new green space I've talked a little bit around responding to Covid-19 and then the role of the active parks unit were developing then utilising natural capital mapping work which we're going through in order to assist all areas then about how they secure some of the benefits particularly around national restoration as well as health and well-being as well as climate change the final thing I would say another piece of work which is ongoing is around stewardship and looking at what is a good model for stewardship and working across all their partners again and all the stakeholders to see the very many different ways stewardship is developed particularly for new space and what are the good ways and best ways of developing because we know from our consultation that there's some great stuff out there but actually in terms of stewardship of news places there's some stuff that could be improved or the practice could be improved as well so sorry Chad that's a very very rapid run through Thank you very comprehensive and it would be excellent to see the to receive the slides as well to be able to look at them in a bit more depth and we did want to be able to have not just to note the report but also to have a bit of a conversation around it which is why it's important to have this time Robin so we've just got quite a meaty agenda today so it's not that we're wanting to diminish but I'd like to call on Council Martin Carn Festival if you'd like to share anything especially if you want to put those issues that were just raised there if you think any of which we would you think we should be prioritising in particular I mean it's been very interesting I mean for start it's it was a difficult project because of so many issues that were brought in together so it was difficult to define exactly where you were you were directing but the comparison the information that's being brought up is particularly useful and it's been very helpful to look at different the way this management works I mean one of the interesting factors that came out to me was the fact that we came out to be the only local authority in the districts in the whole of the area which doesn't have a parks department we seem to outsource or our management to the parishes or the one actual facility we've got at Milton Country Park is actually managed by another body on our behalf and this actually I think it has emphasised the importance of actually having at least some involvement in the house to do with this because to have a champion within house if you're going to take these matters forward so I think the active parks unit is one way forward at the central level but I think we need to look at how we take this role on ourselves how are we going to manage it in our area are we going to take a more active role do we want to have people in the house who are responsible for driving policy and action or not we've opted out for some I don't know when but it's quite a long time ago now we've just been dropped out of that role and that has had an effect I think on activities in that field and I think we want to think about it Thank you, thank you Councillor Peter Fane Thank you chair that was a very interesting introduction to this it seems to me that the important principles here we do build on previous initiatives that we integrate this with various other initiatives there are many different initiatives going on that could contribute to this and that also at a more local level we use the opportunity to link up the very important green spaces and parks that we have not only for biodiversity and so on but also for people for accessing them and ensuring that people probably in those villages in particular can easily get access to those superb green spaces that we have in places I'm lucky I represent Shelf and Ward where we have of course Wandlebury and Prospect of a new Country Park as a part of a rather contentious return village where the inspector has overruled us at appeal The particular initiatives that I was thinking of you mentioned briefly regional parks I wasn't quite sure how those would fit within the model of delivery there had been attempts to do that in the past under the green infrastructure strategy 10 years ago now which was a very good initiative but of course that was at a time of regional strategies developing regional parks without that is very difficult I recall John Prescott's visit to Cochran countryside park in 2003 when he announced he was going to give them lots of funds to create the basis for regional park there it never quite transpired and it was never going to be regional clearly some other initiatives that I thought would be worth looking at it forgive me if these are already taken account I'm sure they are but clearly I couldn't read all the detail so we have for instance a proposal which was first raised in the 1980s recently been revived in Cambridge for the so-called Great Cambridge Park I don't know whether you've come across that but it's a very useful initiative led by a number of architects and landscape architects in the area and then we have also there was I recall an invitation from DEFRA as part of the national tree strategy in 2020 for local authorities to take part in creating further community forests there are some successful community forest initiatives in this region and they were offering assistance to create community forest in and around towns and cities not something that we in South Cam were able to really take up at the time but which might be an opportunity at a county level and of course that is based on cooperation with they're talking about 20% tree planting so it's not just about tree planting at all that's often misunderstood but based on cooperation with landowners which will be crucial and working with other initiatives things like the ELMS schemes which are starting to emerge and I think many more landowners for lack of traditional basic payments will be inclined to take those up and I hope we can build on that I think there are opportunities there to link with other initiatives which I hope we will be able to take up and which I've no doubt you've taken into account in drawing this up but I think the key point I would make is the need to integrate all the various initiatives that are going on sometimes there are so many different initiatives going on that it can be quite confusing and difficult for parishes and others to know how to link to this and I think this project could be a real opportunity to take that forward Chair, so I'll just respond very quickly to those two points Chair, do I have time? Yes of course, yes please do Just on the regional park point no, I think what we're trying to get over is what we're trying to argue is for people to see the parks as a kind of set of infrastructure but we're not saying it needs a regional governance structure that goes with that because actually we can create the partnerships that are flexible but I actually want to see that parks as I said people and nature are no respect to our boundaries parks can see the connections between them all it's a good thing for people in terms of active travel it's a good thing for nature in terms of nature restoration so that sort of view of parks across Cymru in peace are being a kind of a key piece of infrastructure if you like almost as important as roads and other things and we need to make sure that we look at them in that way so no not a regional park although you'll have seen in other parts of the country people are very interested in this kind of national park city approach which again isn't a formal or legal entity but a way of seeing parks as a network and people can exploit them and enjoy them in that way as well your second point I think I absolutely agree with and what I found through this project particularly is what this project has done is kind of fill a leadership vacuum around spatial environmental policy at Cambridge and Peterborough scale whilst we've been very focused on parks as you say there's a lot of other related environmental issues that can really only be thought about and engage with at scale that you know weren't being and actually by bringing all those local authorities together and those partners and the widest set of stakeholders at least we've begun those conversations where they hit and touch parks but as you quite rightly say there's a whole other sort of area of environmental policy which I would hope some of the governance structures that we have created after we've gone can be further developed and pushed forward and managed in a way and make sure that it's got a political and accountability input into it but a wider stakeholder's input into it as well Very much and councillor Graham Cunn Thanks very much chair I just had a quick point actually sort of building on what councillor Peter Fane had talked about and some of the things that my residents bring up about you know sort of parks open spaces nature reserves and so on In the Fenditland full bore ward we're also very lucky to be close to the gogs and we have full bore nature reserve and we saw those get a lot more popular during the pandemic with people using them for exercise and those people that don't have gardens and so forth so using those spaces a lot more I suppose as a councillor I am guilty of when I think about sort of like access and transport you know I normally think about that as sort of linking my residents to industrial zones or places of employment or city centres and stuff I think less about you know linking my residents to open spaces via public transport or decent cycle links and so forth so I think that is definitely something worth thinking about for councillors another thing that my residents raise sometimes is that as those areas get more popular my mail box goes up with complaints about the fact that there is people travelling to those areas so you get additional parking, littering some antisocial behaviour sometimes because they are just being sort of more wider used and understandably those beautiful areas people want to come from distant villages to use those spaces which obviously is a good thing we want them used and we want people to enjoy them and exercise in those it is just that sort of planning and thinking about how the access and how accessible they are going to be within the local community it is not really a question you have got me thinking about a couple of things there locally Just to make two quick comments in response I mean linking with transport and active travel that is why we will hopefully make the impression on the combined authority that parks and green spaces are also should be seen as this integrated set of key assets that deliver a huge amount of value and benefits and therefore making sure when you are doing your transport planning you are actually taking into account how you enable people who may not have a car who may not be able to access it normally can access the green space they need to and on your popularity absolutely it is double edged sword and that is where perhaps it is Councillor Carr's point about the management of spaces and being able to coordinate and manage spaces across the whole area becomes important about those types of policies in terms of access in terms of car parking et cetera and double edged sword in terms of if you want people to benefit but actually overuse can be a problem Thank you very much Rob and so I would just like to make a couple of comments and one I think it's Councillor Martin Carr and also John Connell on the call said it's really important that you've been saying that this work continues so it's good to hear about the active parks unit as I understood I asked a few questions before today's meeting that the council has contributed towards some of the costs that enable that to have the costs of that unit to go forward as each of the participating councils have done so I'm glad that's been done so painlessly and it's just yes that's key to moving forward and I'd like to go back to Councillor Martin Carr's point about having a champion so I invite John who is on this call as well also to think about perhaps we can come back to the committee at some point you know how do we champion this part and I think that's a really important point going forward you know who you have elected members we have officers as well especially within a council like where we don't have a parks unit and perhaps it would be parks and green space and I think that leads to my second point is you know within south camps we know what the pressures are here within south camps most of our villages you know residents for where I am for example feel that we do have access to green space but what we have come to realise for that is that is arable land that's private land around us where there is huge development pressure and that could be cut off quite quickly and so it's about that mosaic of being able to show in planning terms as well I think your natural capital work that you were talking about because we have to balance public benefit over harm of some things and if we can value what green space means to us we know that green belt actually isn't about this it's about protecting us from the spoil from urban spoil and between camps but actually if we can really understand what the value as well in terms of public benefit that you mentioned quantifying not only mental and physical health but also those other values of ecosystem provision that you mentioned I think that could be hugely useful to all of us and into lots of those local plans and we know that local green spaces through the neighbourhood plan is also a very powerful tool to justify and it's by getting those kind of quantification of the values giving examples of that that local communities can demonstrate how important those spaces are to them when justifying the designation as a local green space or protected immunity because it's that mosaic of green spaces around existing settlements as well as providing for them in the new settlements and you'll slide up there which shows what the pressures are and whether or not we're really ensuring that there is green space provision for the new settlements too but we mustn't forget the ones that are already here and could lose what a sense of a walk around the field when suddenly that field is changed in terms of land use change that you've lost that access so I think it's also about existing places as well as new settlements that we need to really think about this particularly if it's not just parks it's also parks and green spaces because we don't have huge amount of parks as many other places may have so those are critical, little lungs for all of us so thank you very much for that report we note it, I think everybody and we definitely do want to see the future of this going forward thank you very much thank you for your patience as I said I'll make the offer again if anybody needs any further information not patience at all we're all listening intensely absolutely to that thank you very much Rob I understand that in three minutes there will be a fire alarm and it's a test one so we don't have to leave the chamber but it will be rather loud do we just continue or do you stop and what should we do just for the benefit of the live stream it's hard to say exactly when we've just given a rough time it should only be for about 10-15 seconds and then it should end but obviously nothing will be able to be heard during the time of the fire alarm we won't try and speak through it thank you, thank you very much for that good and then we move now to item I think an update on the plans regarding electric vehicle charging infrastructure Luke are you with us Luke Waddington and before you start Luke it's welcome welcome to the climate environment team that there is at South Care Richer you've been recently contracted for this particular role although we know that you're well known to South Care Richer but thank you very much for this oral update for an issue that's of huge huge importance to us yes thank you chair and thank you for welcoming me to the team and good afternoon everyone so I'll be providing a short update on the work the officers are doing to identify and deliver opportunities to install publicly accessible electric vehicle charge points in South Cain Richer as is required by our zero carbon and doubling nature action plan so there's currently several opportunities that have been identified for installing public EV charge points in the district which have not yet finalised so a written report on these projects will be provided in due course once the plans are confirmed but in the meantime yes we'd like to take the opportunity today just to provide a verbal progress update so we're presently focused on investigating opportunities for EV charges just on council controlled land within our ownership however this can present a challenge in that unlike many other local authorities for example who are installing EV charges in their own public car parks as you're obviously all aware Cain Richer doesn't own any of its own public car parks and this reduces some of the options that are available to us when compared to other local authorities trying to do the same thing although we don't rule out the possibility of installing charges on land that we don't own some of our previous work attempting to unsuccessfully deliver EV charges for taxis underlines how difficult this can be particularly around dealing with third party landowners which was a key challenge during that project so that's why the focus at least for now is for land within our own control where we have a bit more control over proceedings so to that effect by the end of March 2022 we're expecting to have two rapid electric vehicle charge points installed at South Cain Richer Hall and this will be achieved by upgrading to the 20 charge points which have already scoped into the wider Cain Richer Hall project however what these rapid charges will do, they'll be available for taxis and for the wider public rather than just for staff and so we'll support the transition of local taxi drivers to EVs particularly following the recent changes to the taxi licensing policy which are obviously requiring EV uptake within the local taxi trade but in addition to taxis they'll also provide rapid charging to staff and other vehicles Luke, we did have a fire alarm probably you didn't hear it because we didn't have a microphone so if you just repeat that last bit which you said, just the last couple of sentences yeah of course, apologies I didn't hear that, sorry so I'll start again from that paragraph just talking about the rapid charges that will be installed at South Cain Richer Hall in addition to the 20 charge points that are already scoped into the wider greening project which will be available to taxi drivers and to the wider public as well as for staff to support the transition of local taxi drivers to electric vehicles following the recent changes to our licensing policy which are obviously requiring EV uptake within the local taxi trade and they won't just be for taxis they'll also be for visitors or anyone else in staff who need to charge their electric vehicles in under one hour that's a sort of the bonus of the benefit of the rapid charges and obviously particularly for taxi drivers you need to sort of minimise the amount of time that they are on the road so yes, moving on to other sort of opportunities on our own land there's another opportunity to integrate EV charges into an existing green energy retrofit project which is currently taking place or will be taking place in combination scheme at Elmcourt in over so officers are presently working with the contractor and with colleagues in housing to scope another pair of public charges into this retrofit project and similarly to that there are more potential sites for more public EV charges that have been identified within communal car parks to further free shelter accommodation schemes so again working to progress these sort of three pilot sites with the housing department and looking to do some resident engagement around that because obviously that will be an important part for the next stage of that particular project and it's hoped that hopefully if they go ahead the TV charge point at these locations could provide charging facilities to accommodation residents and their visitors but also to nearby residents who could make use of them and perhaps those who don't have their own driveways where they can't charge at home themselves and to visitors to the villages as well obviously yes we're also encouraging or investigating opportunities to work with with our partners including the county council to integrate with some of their projects that they've got currently for transport infrastructure upgrades particularly to the park and ride sites which are within our district and also engaging with the Cambridge and Peterborough combined authority in relation to their alternative fuel strategy to understand what way its outcomes can do to assist in delivering electrical charging infrastructure in the area while aligning with the combined authority's strategy and there's a series of the combined authority running a series of briefings around that strategy in the next month or so so hopefully we'll be able to work with them in the near future and also as some of you may be aware there's an upcoming fortnight of climate environment events running across the end of February and the first week in March so this can also provide an opportunity for us to encourage parish councils local businesses other local organisations to think about perhaps installing EV charges on their own land as I mentioned obviously the council South County don't have any public car parks of our own so perhaps these groups may be able to supplement electric vehicle charging infrastructure in their own car parks and provide assistance from us at this session as well so it'll be an introduction to electric vehicle charging providing information on funding the very funding that is out there as well as the installation process and will hopefully be a gauge for interesting interest in EV charging infrastructure among these groups so that's the end of my update and thank you very much Thank you very much Luke Any comments? Just a quick one chair Am I right in thinking because we did have a pot of money for tax specifically taxi charging EV charging points have we lost that funding because we haven't installed the charging points Luke? Yes I can take that As far as I'm aware yes that was a project that was running a couple of years ago that was being led by the city council to look at located EV charge points specifically for taxi drivers across both our district and across the city as well but it didn't result in any successful sites within south Cambridge there were sites found in city but not within our district for various reasons some of which I sort of alluded to but mainly around working with third party landowners and the difficulties and delays that that brought about and also around the cost of connections to the grid particularly for charges that are that are going to be of use to taxi drivers which are the rapid charges they're significantly more powerful than the standard what's called fast charges and so require a greater sort of calibre of connection which in turn brings about much higher connection costs so they were some of the the kind of challenges that were encountered and that resulted then in the sort of lack of any specific provision in southcams for taxi charges as part of that that sort of part of money and hence why we're sort of looking again at sort of trying to provide these rapid charges where we can for instance at south Cambridge at all if I could just add that the funding didn't need to go back to government because city were able to use that to put additional charges in the city which of course are relevant for our taxi drivers as well just as clarification yeah thank you thanks but obviously we were hoping for other results as well but it's a difficult thing and in fact I was speaking with the former minister for transport about on the launch of the transport decarbonisation strategy and one of the main concerns is that we still don't have any guidelines on who is mandated across the country to make the strategies what level of government or whether it's actually private sector or government there is no clarity yet in terms of guidelines and so I think that's one thing that we still need within the national strategies to know who's responsible for sorting this out because at the moment it's very much postcode lottery for people and it doesn't help what we saw from the car manufacturing industry was the two greatest barriers at the moment to uptake of EV with price and the EV charging strategy so I think what we've pushed forward and Siobhan knows this we've kept saying let's just do stuff until this is sorted out and not wait for the big areas to do it to get as much as we can so Luke it's fantastic but we're just getting ahead and seeing what we can do while that itself is sorted I have a question though so we've just had a presentation which made me think about it which is about parks and so Milton Park so we do that is ours and people the thing about charging is it needs to be if it's not a really rapid one it needs to be somewhere where you're going to do something while your car is being charged or you create a destination while your car is being charged and so had you thought you probably have but had you thought about Milton Park and the other place I was thinking a bit out of the box but these are recycling waste manager recycling centres where you go and which is out again whether it's our land or not but we have an agreement in terms of leasing that land so I was just wondering whether you'd considered those places as well thank you yes so taking the last one first the waste management sites I hadn't I wasn't completely sure that I'd perhaps wrongly assumed that they were the county council's sites or that they were within their ownership or I wasn't sure what the sort of arrangements were around that but I can absolutely look into it yes and then the other point about Milton Country Park so that was I believe looked at for as part of the taxi drivers charges the rapid charges and I think from memory it didn't work for whatever reason there it may well work for for more general charges for slower charges although I know that for the funding the sort of government funding that you can we can potentially access for public charging does require has access requirements in terms of that being available 24-7 and I'm not sure whether the car park at Milton I know from using it myself it sometimes has the barrier across it so I don't know if you can get a vehicle in there at any point in the day or night but again I can certainly look into it further thank you thank you yes on a similar theme I wonder if you looked at the ice rink because I know you mentioned Park and Ride but the interesting thing about that is it has a hugely oversized group connection because they need a lot of power when they freeze the ice which they don't normally need so I think it normally has about 850 kilowatts of spare group capacity which is quite useful for rapid charges I would imagine yes definitely yeah that's been mentioned to me before about that particular location and I sort of had a go at trying to find out who to contact about it and I hadn't really got as far as I perhaps liked in terms of getting to speak to someone who could actually help but but yeah I can sort of pick that up again definitely and if anybody knows who may be the right person to speak to about that then by all means please let me know but yeah another potentially a good location and obviously sort of being fairly close to Cambridge but still within our district so yes like that could be useful With our district close it's ours and it has that extra so Jeff brilliant thanks again always count on Jeff too come back with one so definitely would be great if you pursued this and again it's a place where people can you could have the rapid charging but you could also have the other capacity charging that could perhaps pay for itself in the end even if we're not looking at the government funding for places where you're going to visit so you will spend time there so it's fine if your car is charging at the same time so thanks very much for that Luke and be very good once it will be good to let as you're saying during the climate and environment fortnight week again another plug for that everybody the climate environment week starting on February 21 great events being planned but yes I think with parish councils letting them know as well that we are looking at that sheltered accommodation scheme so in those particular parishes how we get that information out there but those could be used as well and of course there would be key for taxis and people who are using taxis in those areas thanks very much Luke and we look forward to hearing further updates from you thank you and we now go to agenda item 8 again which features hugely within our agenda pack another one which is eagerly anticipated which is the biodiversity supplementary planning document that we have John Connell hello hello must have feel quite relieved to have got this far following the extensive consultation and thank you for all the detail that's provided in this report as well in terms of how the consultation is conducted what you've done with all of the responses as well which is hugely helpful and hello Jane hello Jane Jane Green Jane's got a dash a little while so I'll give you a brief update Pipa sorry chair so yes I'll just read you just a brief just a brief presentation I don't have any slides there's plenty to see if you've got the document available but good afternoon chair members as I've said I'd like to briefly update you on where we are with this item the Greater Cambridge Biodiversity SPD for 2022 and ask if possible if it could be sent to Cabinet for adoption at the February meeting of Cabinet I believe which is on the 7th because we'd like to use it as a material consideration in the planning and development process for the Greater Cambridge LPA the SPD is at the end of a 15 month journey it started in November 2020 and it was first bought before this committee in draft form in June 2021 prior to the public consultation and subsequent amendments the SPD consultation ran between July and September 2021 and we received detail and specific and generic feedback from approximately 40 respondents typically with broad support for a new SPD for biodiversity and we've provided you in the documents packed with a statement of consultation it's about 219-220 pages in there which include all of the responses but also I believe there's a track changes version so you can see for your delight and delectation exactly what has changed because there were quite a few changes and amendments to the document so the final draft incorporates guidance on relevant sections of important new legislation particularly the UK Environment Act 2021 which appeared in November early November but also the National Planning Policy Framework from June 2021 and those two documents really provide quite substantive amendments to the legal guidance on what would expect around things like biodiversity net gain and the like so while many of the amendments were changes to wording details within the text that would be highlighted by through the consultation as I've said the most significant changes came from the publication of the UK Environment Act and the NPPF probably as you already know the most significant change to emerge from the Environment Act was this duty for 10% biodiversity net gain to be placed on all developments whether they're Town and Country Planning Act or indeed nationally significant infrastructure projects like DCO projects like for instance the E428 or the Cambridge wastewater treatment plan so that possibly quite controversial but in terms of what we're looking to do doubling nature agenda very good news for us I think and for the council and residents of our district alike so the biodiversity supplementary planning document for Greater Cambridge shared planning has we believe delivered an accessible current and accurate planning resource which will enable developers to plan and deliver schemes with more confidence that they're protecting and enhancing biodiversity than before the SPD will be used as a tool by local planning authority officers such as our ecologists and others to give a clear steer to developers on an ambiguous steer this is what you need to do to stay within the regs and to enhance the biodiversity as well as setting out expectations there are some expectations in there a little bit controversial but we did set out aspirations for possibly 20% or more higher figure on biodiversity that might come might come with the new local plan so we think it's a clear document we think it's obviously it's time it's something that's been needed for some time our last SPD was over a decade old so we feel very happy that we've got this we've brought it to this point now we've been through an extensive consultation the timing of the environment act was in the end perfect we were quite worried that that would be delayed further and we've managed to get all of that good stuff from the environment act into the SPD I should reiterate that it is an SPD and therefore we're not creating any new policy there's nothing there's no attempts to sneak anything in it's guidance it's a guidance document on existing policy it just so happens that some of that policy is brand new UK government legislation which is highly relevant the project just briefly the project duration I said was 15 months the project budget which we spent was about £20,000 and that really paid for the consultant to draft that early version which we sent out consultation and officer hours were about 660 when you add up everybody's everybody's time on this that's across about 15 different officers so it's really a multi functional team that came together and so yeah we're very happy to present this to you today and hopefully you guys can take it forward and we can see it in cabinet I would finally note that this SPD was adopted by the planning and transport scrutiny committee of Cambridge City Council yesterday evening so we're almost almost there and I'll leave you with that I'm not sure if Jane would like to say anything Jane's the sponsor of the project and I've been the project manager but as I've said it's been a really multi functional team and it's been a real team effort to produce what we have for you today we can't hear Jane sorry apologies nothing really to add from John's full update there it's simply to commend it to the committee and hope that you will endorse it on its way through to cabinet but equally both of us are happy to answer any questions and if you may have wonderful thank you thanks very much thank you both John and Jane and John I hope you can say with us as long as you can I know you've got to rush the other agenda items we're waiting to good members yep Councillor Graham Cohn thank you chair just another quick point firstly thanks for the report I think it's very good and there's a lot of information in there so I'll be supporting it going to cabinet in its current form I just wondered if if we looked at the neighbourhood plan stuff within the document I wondered if there's any way of making it more accessible for community groups whether that be neighbourhood plan groups parish councils various different resident groups that we've talked about already in this meeting looking at housing and things like that is there any way of summarising or making it more accessible to them when they're thinking about biodiversity very locally what I would say is that we will be having a lot of information on the web we couldn't we had to strike the balance with the SPD document as to what we included and what we didn't and you probably wouldn't be surprised if I told you that we've had criticisms from both sides when I say both sides what I mean by that is folks saying well you know it's just too long it's impenetrable and another saying it's just you know there's not enough detail in this so we've really tried to strike the balance with regard to the content within the document so I hear what you're saying about the neighbourhood plan and accessibility but I would probably suggest that once this thing goes up on the web there will be a lot of ancillary information that goes alongside and it's probably the best place to put more accessible neighbourhood plans is probably a standalone items within that website as opposed to doing anything more with them in the SPD itself did I get that right the other thing I'd add so I think you're absolutely right I think probably what I'm talking about probably sits somewhere else even outside the document to keep it more developer focused and getting the key things in there I'll take that on board I think the other thing I was going to add Chair to that is that we regularly go to parish forums and residence forums and agents forums so we have them on a quarterly basis so the next one that we'll be doing later in a couple of months we will be highlighting this to members of parish councils and bringing it to their attention and if any of them do want any more help with neighbourhood plans or anything else the officers are here to help with that we've got a dedicated officer in Harrison Torkington and she will then link back into the respective specialist officers be it's on ecology or any other aspect Thank you, thank you very much Councillor Jeff Harvey and Councillor Martin Carn Yes, thank you chair No, I thought it was a great piece of work I did read quite carefully through all the comments we got consultation and I noticed there was some concern from some of the developers though not all about how we would pay for 20% in particular by diversity net gain and I thought really it kind of misses the point because I think this document is really a signposting document in that respect and in that regard it's performing a useful function because really that should long term lead to an adjustment in land value which is the correct thing and if it turns out to be the case that then for example leaders would come from agricultural use if the farming community would say you would rely on that particular land value in order to make our farming business viable then that's a completely separate issue which needs to be addressed elsewhere I would say so I think we've done the right thing to signpost this Thank you very much Councillor Martin Carn I simply wanted to say yes that it's a very valuable document I don't think it's the sort of bedtime medium you take to read bedtime yes but it's a technical document which is for the developer and you have to therefore cover all the points and meeting this sort of criteria to take into account it's pretty heavy reading for anybody but it's essential so it absolutely fulfills the role I also take the point about it not being only elaborating the detail of existing policy obviously I'd have a lot more comment if I was going to add to the policy but that's where we are and that's where we work and no doubt once we have a new local plan we will be looking again at how this integrates at that so I think it gives a good guidance to the developer where he needs to go and what he needs to do I should perhaps express a declaration of interest that I for many years as a member of the Chartered Institute of the College of Environmental Management I've just resigned my membership it's meant in many times in the document so I've just got that interest Thank you. Thank you chair I also very much commend this document and in case it's of concern I wouldn't be suggesting an additional option under 12 of amending it because clearly that is not appropriate at this stage I would just mention the recent report of the inspector in the application for the Stakeford retirement village might seem strange to look at a particular application but I thought the inspector's comments were quite indicative of an approach by PINs very much commending the agreed 234% increase in biodiversity on-site of course resulting from a proposal for a country park which is not something we'll get in every proposal just a point that arose there is that part of that site is intended to be used for the Seaset Cambridge South East Transport busway and of course the biodiversity from that might be reduced by as a result of compulsory purchase under a planning process which is not one for us but one for ministers and there might be no biodiversity replacement I suspect there could be but I think it's important just by that in mind a further point and it's referred to at 72 I think the biodiversity net gain on-site will be relatively simple in many cases although difficult to go above 10% but it will be achievable the challenge will be where there is a need for biodiversity net gains off-site and the rules for that it doesn't seem to me very clear in my day job advising farmers who I think whose collaboration would be essential to make this work in many cases they are not clear what they can do other than plant a few trees and that is I think not the sort of biodiversity net gain we're necessarily looking for and anything we can do to give them clear guidance that they may not be getting from DEFRA from the look of their initial publication last week I think would be very helpful to take this forward Thank you, Councillor Fould. Thank you chair, I have a few points so just bear with me as I go through these so the first one is relating to the response from the action for swifts so they provided quite a detailed response on question number 5 which is about 14 pages long but it resulted in quite a kerch response which just said noted and some of the wording was intended to reflect the comments and I thought what they presented was quite a lot of evidence and quite a few examples of good guidance but it didn't result in a particularly large amount of change to issue 5 and I appreciate where this is at at the moment the stages out but I wondered whether there was an opportunity just to revisit their comments to see whether there's anything there that I'll give a couple of examples so for instance in issue 5 although issue 5 has been updated to say bird box on every house rather than every two houses it doesn't mention flats so they had suggested one every two flats but there's no mention of flats and given that a lot of development going forwards will be flats that could be quite important they also mentioned somewhere else as well in section 549 regarding ecological appraisals that it should use the wording in the design and construction SPD perhaps or reference that because it was a bit more specific about how to do appraisals and there may have been other to be honest I haven't been through their comments in complete detail in entirety but it would be I just wondered if it would be worthwhile given given the feedback that they provided whether it's worth another look Can I respond to that? Yes, absolutely yes So my understanding I'm not sure what version you're looking at but my understanding is that Guy Belcher got back to Dignior from Actions for Swifts and that whole section was rewritten and approved by that group and that went into the SPD so we absolutely It looked like they provided a lot of examples and evidence about good guidance that could go into an SPD but if that could be that's fine, I haven't spoken to them I remember this particularly because it was one of the things that we did need to look at again initially our response was to amend but our amendments weren't really in keeping with what they expected so in discussions with the ecologists we did go back to that group and we have a much more substantive change and amendment in the SPD that made it in Council of Air Parks so that was addressed Good to know I have a couple of other comments Let's find the right pages In Biodiversity Issue B5 section 554 on page 43 Number 3 talks about bird boxes on commercial buildings and community buildings and it says a minimum of 10 boxes for the first thousand square meter footprint and one additional box for every hundred square meters I wasn't sure does that mean that up to a thousand square meters there's no need to put in any bird boxes and when you get to a thousand square meters you then need to put in ten Well again that's the guidance we got from Action for Swifts so what we've done is we've taken the best practice the language from the best practice and we've put that into the SPD if what you're saying is that's confusing then possibly we need to go back and look at that but we've tried to reflect the best practice that's out there but it seems that you're it is possibly confusing I'm not confused when I read that it looks ten boxes for the first thousand square meters then one additional for every hundred I'm not sure when that's unclear, sorry could you I was wondering if it could be simplified so I think Action for Swifts referenced the Oxford City Council guidance which is one every two hundred and fifty square meters of footprint which is simpler and just a bit more straight forward it means if you've got two hundred and fifty square meters you've got five hundred and fifty and seven and fifty and three but here it kind of looks like for the first thousand square meters you don't need to do anything I'll take that point yes I'd say it's pedantic detail but it's nevertheless detail that's important if it's going to confuse people I'll take that point and just one further point is in section 5528 on page 51 the words until until legislation and have been removed and I think what's left doesn't make sense because it says however further guidance from Government is available small site should aim to meet the details of B5 so I think you just need until until further government guidance it might be too many words being taken out yes I couldn't establish what it was supposed to be until however until further government guidance okay that's an easy fix unambiguous yes absolute until okay good eye wow otherwise thank you very much indeed I thought you were going to go to another one I thought there'd be a list of those on page 50 thank you very much and from me I've just got it's sort of mainly I think comments but also reinforcement of perhaps what's in here John and Jane and the whole team which is that we need this now we can't wait until the local plan when we can put in new policy and I think it goes beyond it explains existing policy and updates it with what's come through from National Environment Act the 25 year environment plan also a signpost what's aspirational and I'm very very pleased to see that we've sort of fought back and said responded to some of the concerns that we mention the aspirational target of 20% and we insisted that that be in there it's not an obligation but it is what we would expect and I've talked now to and heard from structure developers like Network Rail also from large health they're all starting to look at 20% even though what it's likely to come out maybe still 10% which would be a shame but I think we have to absolutely keep that and as you said the minute this is adopted this becomes a material consideration everything that is in here which is that clarity as well for us right from now in 2022 and not waiting for the new local plan so it's absolutely critical I want to commend the responsiveness and just what you did with the Swift group is exactly that I think the responsiveness to the comments which shows that we do listen and we consult it's serious and we listen you can see the amount of amendments that have gone on to this document so thank you for showing us the track changes because often that's not there so you're very very very clear I'd like to point to the risks that you mention on page 29 which is in terms of the report to us you know the risk to not approving this is that we cannot shape developments going forwards you know in a way we would want to do without having this supplementary planning document we just don't have you know clarity in terms of the teeth in our current planning policies that's absolutely critical however as I did in the prior agenda item so and this you can do because it's not changing the supplementary planning document John but I do want our climate change implications in our reports and strategies to be more kind of and you know we all know we're doing good but for example in this one which is number 15 of the report it's you know the report to committee talk about climate change implications saying obviously it's just good because we're going to have guidelines around biodiversity I think the key thing is you know we've declared both an ecological and a climate emergency the UN agencies have finally agreed that the climate and ecological emergencies are inextricably linked and that you know to have resilience and adaptation to the climate shocks we can't avoid we need that through natural solutions and also to store you know the carbon we need natural nature based solutions so you know again it's it's that's how it's affecting you know it's critical to our delivery of that in terms of climate change I think and our doubling nature strategy I'm very very happy to see that the local nature partnership is sort of decided you know there's clarity there that this is the body that in terms of statutory requirements we need a body responsible for coming up with the nature recovery network which then goes back to okay where do we start to look at in terms of opportunities if it has to be offsite you know offsetting then where are those opportunities they need to be supported by the local nature recovery network come back to Councillor Graham because that's when local communities can also help to include their local areas in the local nature recovery network why is that critical because at the moment we're only looking at existing designated sites which therefore leave out a lot of these local spaces so the local nature recovery network will enable us to include those as well which I think is good I think the baseline target again of reminding everyone that from is this right it's the 30th of January 2020 so I know that there are concerns that if this comes through then a lot of people wishing to develop or developers will just go out and cut everything down so they're not liable to having the assessment and the credit system with the deferometric so letting everybody know the baseline exists from now so if in our local areas we have areas that we are concerned about let's make sure that any of the ecological monitoring by local people or professionals is in the recording centre the CPU Cambridge and Peterborough recording centre because that baseline exists if anybody cuts it down now they are liable now and that's critical that this biodiversity supplementary planet also makes that absolutely clear because it's a disincentive because everybody's already liable but I don't think many people know that and both house owners land owners or developers and I think the other thing is obviously there's a huge concern about biodiversity again as you said it's controversial and that this sort of off-site and so what is clear in this is the mitigation hierarchy that says we go first for protecting and enhancing before then looking for somewhere off-site and I think again the supplementary planning document puts the burden of responsibility on that in terms of design and developers and we've got to keep that front and forth because there is it's too easy to say just trashing it because you might have a few credits somewhere else but actually the mitigation hierarchy is key to this as well but I do think when it is necessary having off-site as a possibility at the moment the reality is we've got no teeth about biodiversity in planning we've got so little that we can really use to make any difference this is going to make a difference and our new local plank will make a huge difference about what we can do in terms of teeth so I would like to ask the committee if we recommend this as amended to cabinet thank you thanks very much John and your team for all as you said that integrated work across thank you very much for recommending it to cabinet and I look forward to them adopting it in a couple of weeks time thank you very much great and maybe John I don't know is it going to be if it's a couple of weeks time maybe in the climate and environment week it will be quite nice to announce it wouldn't it I have been talking to our comms team about I believe that the leader wanted last year when we were discussing this I believe the leader wanted a big splash and in fact yesterday the city were asking well can we do some comms and I think we want to do a joined up comms piece and quite what that looks like is not up to me but I think there will be stuff I just mean in terms of climate environment let's make the most of the fact that there will be a few events and hopefully there could be some information provided about this during those events of course thanks very much great thank you very much John for that members we are now at the last agenda item which is the date of the next meeting which is proposed on 27 March at 2pm that's okay with everybody yeah okay and as you can see in our papers those are some of the issues that are there for planning if anybody had anything else they'd like to raise as issues they'd like to bring up for the agenda can't speak to fame John I'm not sure what it seems to matter for the committee but I know that two of the parishes in my ward have recently declared a climate emergency including some encouragement for me just to make sure that we consider climate in everything that we do but to be frank we're not very sure how we should take that forward and I think maybe the district council might be able to help parish councils who are interested in doing that in making it in something real and perhaps that's something we could use to discuss at some stage I think that's an absolutely excellence it's been I know we've talked with Siobhan about it but you know some kind of parish council toolkit for now you declared a climate emergency what can you do what are the simple things there's lots and lots of different manuals and things out there and it's just sort of bringing this together there you are Siobhan yes we don't have to have a discussion now but agreeing to put that on to the agenda yes absolutely I think at this stage that's all to say but we will definitely put that on the agenda if not for Mark then for the one after fantastic thank you very much and at almost 4.30 I'll bring this meeting to a close thank you everybody thanks again Siobhan for all the work he's putting this together as always and thank you everybody members and I hope at some point we can all be in the chamber together and that bit lovely thank you Grenville, lovely to see you it's nice to see you too and very sad to be doing it this way the sooner we can get to get into the meeting together the better thank you thank you although I would say as long as we've got kind of a curvy going I don't think we should make it as safe as possible but anyway thank you I'm glad to see you happy and well happy new year everybody