Agenda and minutes
PDF 323 KBVenue: The John Meikle Room - The Deane House. View directions
Contact: Sam Murrell, Email: s.murrell@somersetwestandtaunton.gov.uk and Marcus Prouse, Email: m.prouse@somersetwestandtaunton.gov.uk
Webcast: View the webcast
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Apologies
To receive any apologies for absence.
Additional documents: Minutes: Apologies were received from Cllrs Tom Deakin (subs Ed Firmin), Cllr Richard Lees (subs John Hassall), Cllr Steve Griffths and Cllr Andy Milne. |
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Minutes of the previous meeting of the Community Scrutiny Committee
To approve the minutes of the previous meeting of the Community Scrutiny Committee held on 30 November 2022. Additional documents: Minutes: A request was made by Cllr Dave Mansell to have an update on the confidential item from the last meeting.
Otherwise the Minutes were approved as a correct record.
Prop: Coles / Sec: Lloyd Unanimous |
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Declarations of Interest
To receive and note any declarations of disclosable pecuniary or prejudicial or personal interests in respect of any matters included on the agenda for consideration at this meeting.
(The personal interests of Councillors and Clerks of Somerset County Council, Town or Parish Councils and other Local Authorities will automatically be recorded in the minutes.)
Additional documents: Minutes: Members present at the meeting declared the following personal interests in their capacity as a Councillor or Clerk of a County, Town or Parish Council or any other Local Authority:-
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Public Participation
The Chair to advise the Committee of any items on which members of the public have requested to speak and advise those members of the public present of the details of the Council’s public participation scheme. For those members of the public who have submitted any questions or statements, please note, a three minute time limit applies to each speaker and you will be asked to speak before Councillors debate the issue. We are now live webcasting most of our committee meetings and you are welcome to view and listen to the discussion. The link to each webcast will be available on the meeting webpage, but you can also access them on the Somerset West and Taunton webcasting website. Additional documents: Minutes: No items for public participation had been received. |
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Community Scrutiny Request/Recommendation Trackers
To update the Community Scrutiny Committee on the progress of resolutions and recommendations from previous meetings of the Committee. Additional documents: Minutes: The Committee noted both the Written Answer and Recommendation Trackers. |
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Community Scrutiny Forward Plan
To receive items and review the Forward Plan.
Additional documents: Minutes: The Chair advised that the Community Scrutiny meeting to be held on the 22nd February would be the final one. Due to administrative process, and the requirement to get all minutes signed off at the last full council of SWT, there would be no meeting in March.
The meeting of the 22 February would be very busy and would round up those requests made by Councillors in preceding months. There was no room to add any additional items.
The Committee noted the Forward Plan. |
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Executive and Full Council Forward Plans
To review the Forward Plans of the Executive and Full Council.
Additional documents: Minutes: The Executive and Full Council Forward Plans were noted by the Committee. |
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Annual Update of Progress of the Climate Neutrality and Climate Resilience Plan
This matter is the responsibility of Executive Councillor for Climate Change, Councillor Dixie Darch
Report Author: Jonathan Stevens, Assistant Director Climate Change, Regulatory Services and Asset Management. Additional documents: Minutes: Cllr Dixie Darch presented the report which was the second and final update of the Climate Neutrality and Resilience Plan.
It is divided into 8 workstreams: Built environment, energy, industry, farming and food, natural environment, waste, water and transport. Only 50% of the outcomes in the report are under the control of Somerset West and Taunton Council, so partnership working with other agencies, public sector and stakeholders are key to delivering on the strategies.
Some good news stories included:-
· Built Environment – 117% reduction on carbon emissions at Wellington Depot. Essentially the depot is putting electric back into the grid through use of solar panels. · 1.5million decarbonisation funding received from Central Government to allow improvements to the Wellington Depot and Alcombe Childrens Centre, Minehead. (This will include a move to greener energy sources, as the gas boilers as these sites are coming to end of life). · EON – 20million eco-funding received to enable whole house retrofit (holistic approach) on the least energy efficient council housing.
The committee welcomed to the report and comments and questions were raised on the following points:-
It was asked whether the EON funding would bolster existing retrofit budgets, or whether this would be a new fund? The Council Housing Retrofit plan does have a budget, but this is a long-term plan which relies on drawing down external funding from other sources as and when it becomes available. One of the aims of the strategy is to identify those energy companies (and other funding sources) in order to maximise those opportunities when they arise.
Tree planting on Exmoor National Park (ENP)– This partnership approach was working very well, and it is hoped that it will be extended to other parts of the County. 110 hectares of ENP land had been identified for tree planting, and an employee of SWT was working with the park to physically plant and manage the trees. Bi-monthly meetings were taking place, and the employee had good knowledge and education on tree planting, woodland management and layout and types of trees required to meet the needs of various sites. It was enabling the planting of trees efficiently and more importantly allowing for good after care to enable the junior trees to flourish. (Last year due to the drought, 50% of trees planted by SWT did not survive their first year). ENP has a much better survival rate with 70/80% of trees surviving. This has been attributed to the after-care and initial thought going into the types of tree at site specific locations. SWT maintains its 3:1 ratio of replanting following removal of a tree.
Fruit Trees – Can these be planted? It was agreed that fruit trees are included in the re-planting schedules, but these need to be the right tree, in the right location and properly managed to ensure they flourish.
The Committee recognised that good work had been done to secure funding bids to progress the energy plans, especially in respect of carbon retrofit to Council Housing. It was ... view the full minutes text for item 71. |
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To consider Reports from Executive Councillors - Councillor Dixie Darch
To consider reports from Executive Councillors on their respective Portfolios;
i. Councillor Dixie Darch – Climate Change
3.2 of the Scrutiny Terms of Reference state that the Scrutiny Committee may review and scrutinise and ask questions of the Leader, lead Councillors, the Executive in relation to their portfolios.
Additional documents: Minutes: Partnership working is extremely important in the delivery of the Climate Change Action Plan, especially as SWT moves towards incorporation into the new Somerset Council. Building on existing relationships and forging new ones with parish councils, will be a cornerstone in tackling the bigger climate change issues. It will also be easier to share resources and learning once the five councils combine, especially around the weightier areas of highways, transport and built environment.
Cllr Tully said it was important that the Somerset Council contacted the parishes and didn’t isolate them from the issues. He had particular areas of concern in Monkton Heathfield around the canal and associated attenuation ponds. Any foreseen work should be discussed with the parish council, so that they could inform residents and offer insight into local issues.
Cllr Mark Lithgow said that he had read concerns about the increased weight of electric vehicles affecting the stability of levels in multi-storey car-parks. The battery engine was much heavier than traditional car models and would increase the weight lode on each floor. Was this something that was being factored into future engineering plans and or was there a contingency being drawn up to mitigate this? At the present time, it was not being explored, but no doubt as electric vehicles become more popular it may have to be looked at in the future. There has been an increase of 19% in the take-up of electric vehicles in the last year.
Cllr Brenda Weston – How will terraced housing with no off-street parking deal with electric vehicle charging in the future? They are at an obvious disadvantage, because they would have to run cabling across pavements and streets. A trial is taking place in another part of the country to address this issue. Gullies are being dug through the pavement so that the cable can be sunk and not provide a trip hazard. Some government funding has been made available to specifically address the problem of those properties which have no offstreet parking (LEVI fund).
Cllr Dave Mansell – SWT has been very progressive in promoting cross party working and allowing other members to work with officers to participate in the formation of policies and practice as part of the main administration. Will the new Somerset Council administration allow for this? Cllr Dixie Darch felt that this was a political question rather than an operational one and said that she would feed this request/question back to the Somerset County administration for comment.
Cllr Whetlor asked how the National Grid will cope if there was suddenly an upsurge in electric vehicle take-up? There are lots of different types of charger with different wattage and this could put undue pressure on the electricity supply in specific areas. 7Kilowatt is sufficient for overnight charging of a domestic electric vehicle and would not overload the grid. The danger comes when everyone plugs in at the same time on a higher wattage, which would have a similar effect to several households boiling a kettle ... view the full minutes text for item 72. |