Leader's blog 30 March 2022
Published: Wednesday, 30 March, 2022
This week's Leader's Blog has been written by Cllr Chloe Turner, chair of SDC Environment Committee:
The district council’s Environment Committee meets this Thursday - 31st March - and high on the agenda is our first annual report on the 2030 Strategy (how we can limit and adapt to a changing climate).
The Council has fully embraced the 2030 challenge. The Strategy & Plan we published one year ago - with input and support from so many of you - has been recognised nationally as one the best council responses to the climate and nature emergencies. We are running pioneering projects on our own estate: putting our industrial heritage to good use, we’re now heating our offices with the mill streams beside them, and we’ve begun the huge task of making our council homes energy efficient.
We have active projects in every one of the seven themes you helped us set, including the establishment of our Walking & Cycling Task Group, whose recommendations are also coming to the meeting on Thursday – ways we can help the county council, as transport authority, make active travel a reality around our district, and what we as a district council can do ourselves, to help people get about without resorting to the car.
With much of the district’s carbon footprint being outside the Council’s direct control, we always knew we couldn’t do this alone. So we’ve been building partnerships to help get things done: with neighbouring councils, with other local and national organisations, and with our communities, through the Youth Council, the local Climate Action Network groups, and our newly established Community Engagement Board.
There is so much more to do – we’re very aware of that. But we ask you to join us again: everyone is needed, so we’ve included within the 2030 report some of the many ways you can take your own action towards our district’s climate goals."
Cllr Chloe Turner
Chair Environment Committee