To consider the
report of the Council Leader (attached).
Minutes:
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.
Supporting documents: