Decision details

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Planning and Sustainability, presented the report of the Director: Housing, Commercial & Customer Services, which updated Cabinet on progress being made to meet the Council’s target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and meeting the challenges of current and future impacts of a changing climate.

The Cabinet Member said that this report was the annual update on progress to Becoming Carbon Neutral by 2030 and she wanted to thank the teams across the Council since this was embedded across the organisation, which took climate change very seriously.  In thanking the teams, the Cabinet Member paid particular thanks to Ian Wykes, the Council’s climate change lead, for bringing everything together into this quite lengthy report. The update, which related to the 2024/25 Municipal Year, would usually be brought to Cabinet in the autumn and the Cabinet Member would look to doing so moving on.

The Council continued to be on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, having reduced its carbon emissions by 63% since it declared climate emergency in 2019.  There was a lot of misinformation being deliberately circulated on this subject and it was clear that some of this was now starting to affect the political consensus, which had up to now been united in the need to reduce carbon emissions in order to stop the planet getting warmer and warmer.

Carbon dioxide was a natural gas, which existed in the atmosphere and was needed as it was part of the natural carbon cycle.  It was a gas that trapped some of the heat from the sun around the earth, which made the earth habitable. The cause of climate change was primarily the burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, which released carbon that was locked away deep underground.  Since the start of the industrial revolution, the excess carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels in huge quantities had been building up in the atmosphere and was now approximately 50% higher than it was at pre-industrial levels.  Aesthetic excess carbon dioxide was now trapping more of the sun's heat, causing global temperatures to rise and the rate of change was faster than any observed in millions of years.

The fast pace of change being seen did not allow time for species to evolve and adapt to a warmer climate, and this had huge implications for our own species. When talking about carbon neutral or net zero, this did not mean removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but was about returning to that balanced carbon cycle where the amount of carbon dioxide released from people’s activities into the atmosphere and through natural processes was then matched by that, absorbed, and removed from the atmosphere. There was not a debate on this and the scientific consensus for climate change was overwhelming.

The Cabinet Member said there were those who agreed that climate change was happening, but say that the UK had done enough, and this was a problem for countries like China, but that wilfully ignored the last 300 years of developed countries like the UK burning fossil fuels and the impact that that had on today.  It also ignored the fact that western countries had effectively offshored carbon emissions as a lot of the products that people bought and often then discarded were manufactured in countries like China.

The climate change being witnessed was caused by human activity, and was a global challenge, which required a global response including that of the borough. The Council would continue to play its part with action on climate change bringing many other benefits, not least reducing the actual costs of delivering the Council’s services. The borough’s residents also understood the importance of taking action on climate change, and both nationally and locally, surveys showed that a majority of residents remained concerned about climate change and wanted to see action taken and the Council would continue to work to improve the energy efficiency of its buildings with retrofitting renewable sources of energy where possible.

The two major projects of the year, which were the installation of air source heat pumps and thermal efficiency upgrades at Wellington Leisure Centre and Open Gates Leisure Centre, and a Newport Swimming Pool and Fitness Centre where the Council had previously installed an air source heat pump. The Council had now added a pool cover that again helped just to keep the heat in the water when the pool was not in use and that these measures had reduced carbon emissions from leisure facilities by over 230 tonnes per annum. This significantly reduced the Council’s operating costs for those facilities, meaning that they were more efficient for the Council to run and keep those leisure facilities open and available for residents.

Since 2019, projects like this, along with the rolling out of LED street lighting, had reduced the Council's energy consumption by 28%, which had been a significant help at a time of globally rising energy costs.  Rising energy costs, which were pegged to gas prices, did not just affect the Council, it also affected its residents and businesses too.  Therefore, to help households reduce their energy bills, the Council continued to support those residents in fuel poverty through its Warm and Well Telford grant that extended the eligibility beyond the national government scheme, meaning the Council could help more people and through its Telford Energy Advice Service, which had advised over 4,000 residents at four thousand households, since its inception.

Through New Place, the Council had built 132 rental properties that were highly energy efficient with solar PV and EV charge points and made them cheaper to live in. It reduced the actual bills for the tenants in those properties and, in Donington Wood Way, the Council had 18 homes that had been built to the emerging future home standard and was monitoring how those performed now that they were lived in, just to see what this was like before the Council began to roll out more of that.

For the borough’s business tenants, the Council would continue to identify energy efficiency and renewable energy generation projects within the property investment portfolio, with solar PV fitted commercial units and more being planned. This supported those businesses and their costs and the Council continued to support the business community more broadly through the Telford Sustainability and Energy Cluster, who worked together to share best practise and identify opportunities for collaboration and who were excellent champions of taking action on climate change because they knew it made absolute economic and business sense.

On transport, another EV minibus was added to the fleet in the year covered by the report, which meant that the Council now had 15 EV vehicles across a number of Council areas.  The Council was installing EV charge points in Council car parks and had secured further funding for on-street charge points, which would make it easier for more residents to switch to electric vehicles if they wanted to. The Council would continue to promote active travel with the new school journey project, with bikeability training, and further investment in the Council’s cycling and walking network.  These projects had much wider benefits, helping people stay healthy because they were being physically active whilst getting around, but also provided social interaction. Those children walking to school now in groups, along with their parents, were getting that social connection that they might not otherwise have. The Council’s solar farm at Wheatley Sows continued to generate clean energy and bring revenue funding into the Council directly supporting frontline services and, despite some recent damage to the site, the solar farm still continued to bring income in and the Council was actively looking for another suitable site for renewable energy generation.

The report also set out the work the Council was doing to adapt to climate change that was already evident. As previously discussed, and agreed by the Environment Scrutiny Committee, the Council was taking a risk management approach to climate change adaptation to ensure that the Council could continue to provide services to its residents despite the impacts of storms, flooding etc. which were set out in the risk register appendix.

There was much more in the report and a lot of work around biodiversity enhancement had been done as well as a lot of work to protect and enhance more of its borough and green spaces.

In conclusion, the Cabinet Member said there were those who wished to challenge the political consensus and undermine action on climate change. She had been very proud that when this had been brought to full Council in 2019 that the Council did have that political consensus and a unanimous support for action on climate change and she was also proud of the way that the Council had worked with the Environment Scrutiny Committee again in a cross party way on this agenda to develop things like the adaptation plan and also to monitor progress on climate action.

RESOLVED, that the following, be noted:

(a)  The positive progress the Council had made in its journey to become carbon neutral by 2030 and that, by the end of March 2025, it had reduced its carbon emissions by 63% from a 2018/19 baseline.

(b)  The importance of climate adaptation and the additional work the Council had done to develop a corporate climate change risk register, as set out in Appendix B to the report.

(c)  This report was in relation to the Council’s response to the Climate Emergency Declaration and would be referred to Full Council for information as part of the ‘Matters Determined by the Cabinet’ report.