Key priority 3: Reducing carbon, achieving council net zero, creating biodiversity
We will continue to decarbonise council buildings, homes and the way we work, striving to achieve net zero by 2030. We will maximise opportunities to retrofit our council homes and buildings to reduce carbon, make them warmer and reduce the cost of bills.
And we will provide support to our residents and businesses to help them to do the same.
We will drive increased biodiversity in our borough and fully utilise our planning system to encourage developers to enhance our natural environment, mitigating the impact of new buildings.
What we will do over the next three years
Our aims:
As a town, we are rightly proud of all our parks and green spaces. We have many different wildlife habitats in our borough, some of which are significant and protected spaces, and the town also has a long and distinguished history of tree cover. It is vital we manage our spaces to protect and enhance biodiversity and approach development in a way which leaves the natural environment in a measurably better state.
Our Climate Emergency Action Plan sets our overall roadmap for reducing carbon emissions to achieve net zero and we will continue to deliver actions identified in the plan. In particular, we have opportunities through the Golden Valley development and our housing investment programme to deliver new low and zero carbon buildings in our borough. We also have an outline decarbonisation plan for retrofitting our social housing and will explore external funding options to make progress on this.
The integration of our housing services also means our fleet of vehicles has grown significantly, and we will look at how we can reduce the carbon emissions associated with this.
Our actions:
- By the end of year 1 of this plan we will publish our first Biodiversity Duty report.
- By the end of year 1 of this plan we will prepare a tree strategy, which will establish policies for the management of tree stock owned by the Council, feed into local planning policy and help deliver against our climate commitments.
- By the end of year 1 of this plan we will produce an action plan for Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace, meeting our obligations to the Cotswolds Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation.
- By the end of year 2 of this plan we will complete construction of the Innovation Centre at Golden Valley, which will be a low carbon building. As tenants move in, we will monitor operational carbon emissions and track this against our zero-carbon goal.
- By the end of year 2 of this plan we will complete decarbonisation assessments of the key operational buildings owned by the Council.
- In years 2 and 3 of this plan we will report on the actions we have taken to fulfil our biodiversity duty.
- We will fulfil our biodiversity net gain (BNG) obligations within the planning system.
- We will use our housing investment programme to build low or zero carbon new homes.
- We will accelerate retrofit of our social housing as funding becomes available.
- Over the term of this plan, we will transition the council’s fleet to electric vehicles where there are viable options and explore interim measures where viable options are not currently available.
Supporting key performance indicators:
- Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) secured
- Council carbon footprint
- Number of operational properties assessed for decarbonisation
- Percentage of council housing stock retrofitted with carbon reduction measures
- Percentage of electric vehicles within fleet