Residents will soon be able to have their say on a climate change action plan that has been put together for the Chichester District.
At its meeting on Tuesday 8 September, the council’s Cabinet approved the Draft Climate Emergency Detailed Action Plan to go out to public consultation at the end of the month.
Councillor Penny Plant, Cabinet Member for Environment at Chichester District Council says: “This is an important plan which looks at both what we can do as a council to reduce emissions in our work, as well as what we can do to help individuals and other organisations across the district to reduce their emissions too.
“As a council, we are already doing significant amounts of work to reduce our carbon footprint and make our buildings a lot greener. For example we are using solar panels on the roof of our offices at East Pallant House to generate hot water and electricity and we are also investigating installing electricity-generating panels on our other buildings. We are also developing new policies through the Local Plan Review to set standards for sustainable construction, energy efficiency and water usage in new developments across the district. Part of this work includes policies for sustainable drainage, flooding and wildlife corridors.”
Some of the actions included in the plan are to:
- Deliver measurable carbon reduction in new developments and through the council’s own operations
- Source funding for reduced carbon initiatives
- Promote lifestyle changes, such as energy reduction and using renewable energy sources
- Develop local plans for reducing food waste.
- Identify opportunities for increased tree planting, and
- Promote sustainable transport.
The consultation will also ask people about ways the council proposes to engage with residents about the plan over the coming months. This includes a Citizens’ Jury, which will be asked to make recommendations to the council; working groups made up of different organisations to help develop greenhouse gas mitigation projects; and a public behaviour change campaign.
Residents will have six weeks to comment on the plan, starting on Friday 25 September. The deadline for comments is midnight on Friday 6 November 2020. Once all the results have been analysed, the updated action plan will be heard by the council’s Environment Panel on Tuesday 17 November 2020.
