Issue - meetings

To consider the introduction of a Green Pledge Scheme.

Councillor Carolyn Healy - Cabinet Member: Neighbourhoods, Planning & Sustainability presented The Green Pledge which set out the introduction of a Green Pledge scheme to encourage the protection and management of non-council owned green spaces within the borough.

The Green Pledge would provide long-term management and safeguarding of green spaces which were of local importance and were not in the ownership of the Council.  This would assist the Council in its commitment to the provision of locally accessible green spaces for local communities and to protect wildlife, the provision of leisure and recreation and offering positive health and wellbeing for families. 

Cabinet Members welcomed the report which was a voluntary initiative to support the ongoing commitment to climate action, improve biodiversity and create a strong community partnership to protect and enhance greens paces.  It would contribute to the health and wellbeing commitment to tackle health inequality and reduce obesity, stress and depression and the wider health impacts.

The Conservative Group Leader thanked officers for the report and he welcomed the concept of the green pledge and the commitment to manage land in a more positive way.  He asked the Council to be wary of greenwashing and cautious in relation to land ownership.  This was an opportunity to undertaken engagement with residents on the estates and with management of the industrial estates to improve the green spaces what were not particularly managed well and to ensure these were safe and welcoming environments.  In relation to engagement and decision making, was there an opportunity to widen the decision-making process to include more people.

In response, Cabinet Members confirmed that they would work with residents paying a management fee to bring forward schemes on the open spaces and develop other schemes as they came forward.  Criteria of schemes would need to be really clear and monitored, particularly around the issues of ownership/management and greenwashing. The priority would be to work closely with those closest to the site where issues could be teased out.  A paper would come forward setting out the criteria but in the meantime, it could be considered how to bring others into the decision-making or whether an annual review or a group be set up to oversee how schemes were progressing.

RESOLVED: that

a)    the creation of the Green Pledge scheme be approved; and

b)   Delegated authority be granted to the Director of Prosperity and Investment and the Director Policy and Governance, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Planning & Sustainability to complete the declaration process of Green Pledge sites.