Agenda item

To consider the report of the Council Leader  (attached).

The Leader, Councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, submitted a report which noted the steps taken by the Council thus far in response to the proposal considered in the meeting of the Council on 7 March 2018, with regard to climate change.

During the discussion, the following observations were submitted by individual members:

·         That the Council could do small things to help the situation, such as ensure that resources were available to charge electric cars in the Council's car parks, and progress with Active Travel in order to enable people to cycle to work safely.

·         Members of all political groups should be part of the taskforce set up by the Cabinet to consider what further work needed to be done in order to achieve the aim of ensuring a zero-carbon county.

·         A cycle track should be created alongside each new road constructed.  Solar panels should be placed on all new houses that were constructed, as well as a system to reuse rainwater. 

·         That Greta Thunberg, the young girl from Sweden, had brought all of this to a worldwide platform and, although the population of Wales was only 3 million and the world population was approximately 7 billion, there were small things that could be done here in Wales and in Gwynedd, e.g. plant more trees and install more solar panels, where it would not impact the landscape.

·         That this was a very good plan and that the Council needed to be very ambitious in this field, as climate change would impact the future of our young people.

In response to some of the above observations, and to questions asked, it was noted:

·         That the Council intended to invest £465,000 in installing 84 vehicle charging points across the county, but that there were some difficulties with the grid.  Discussions were already ongoing with regard to this, and it was important that the discussions continued. It was also good to hear that the Government had allocated funding in its draft budget for climate change matters and, although the investment was possibly not sufficient, it was at least a step in the right direction.

·         That the taskforce set up by the Cabinet would consult in full with every member of the Council on their action plan so that everyone could take part in the discussion and put proposals forward. Everyone who had already proposed ideas were thanked.

·         That there was reference to statutory matters such as the need for new houses to meet the highest possible energy efficiency standards in the template in Appendix 1 of the report. The requirements of the existing building regulations were quite high, however they should be revisited to examine whether they went far enough. However, it was important to bear in mind that there was an additional cost associated with these matters.

·         It was hoped that it would be possible to work with the private sector across all aspects of the work, bearing in mind that the private sector was ahead of the public sector with regard to this.

·         That ensuring national guidance was crucial to realise the aim. 

RESOLVED to accept the report noting the steps taken thus far, and the future intentions.