Agenda item

To receive an update on the Croydon Climate Crisis Commission.

The leader of the Council, Tony Newman introduced and outlined the report in a Presentation

A Guest representative from the Citizens Assembly added that there was a good diverse mix of people on the Assembly. All involved contributed, engaged and voiced their different views and opinions. There was some commonality of ideas and trends such as communication, awareness and engagement with the public.

Following the presentation, Members has the opportunity to raise questions.

A Member expressed that this issue cut across the portfolio of many Cabinet Members and asked what was being done to assign political leadership. The Leader responded that this issue was an important issue and as a Cabinet was everyone’s responsibility and not specifically one person. As a result, leadership responsibilities had been assigned to all Cabinet Members.

An invited guest commented that it was difficult to interpret what the ambition of the Commission was through the presentation given and would question if aspirations were ambitious enough. The leader said that the task at hand was a mammoth one and would want to see ambitious recommendations come out of the Commission.

A Member challenged the lack of pace since the Climate emergency was declared in 2019 and that the Corporate Action Plan would not be available till 2021. The Leader acknowledged this point and advised that events of Covid had impacted pace. A draft report or early recommendations which may prompt early intervention or action would be welcomed but it would be down to the Commission to decide the feasibility of this. The Executive Director of Place agreed that there was a need for increased pace and whilst the impact of Covid had slowed down the work of the Commission, there were also positives that had been experienced such as the implementation of Low Traffic neighbourhoods (LTN).

In response to a Member question on what the key opportunities and challenges in light of financial and resource constraints were, officers said that the benefit of Covid had been the environmental impact whilst there had been challenges due to economic impact. Further details would emerge as wok progressed and it was important to find a balance in order to achieve the aspiration of a truly sustainable Borough. The Leader added that whilst there has been impact on finance and resources, the true impact would be on attitudes and responses to change. There were proposed changes to the transport network which was underway with improvements to road networks to support pedestrians and cyclists. The challenge to the Mayor and Central Government was for investment in green economy and jobs and it was important for a case to be made collectively on these matters.

A Member commented that more should be done to identify and utilise skills within the community as opposed to paying for consultant expertise where unnecessary. The use of expertise of partnerships such as Croydon College was suggested as a means to counteract financial pressure.

An invited Guest commented that following attendance at the Commission meetings a small gap had been identified in that actions groups would like to be included and have an opportunity to contribute to work streams. The Director of Consulting, NEF welcomed this offer and opportunity presented with and agreed to engage and follow up with the Guest following the meeting.

A Member further commented that alongside the development of the action plan, it was important to identify projects that required limited resources. Officers said that this was an idea that has been supported right from the beginning, and would continue to be built into the work of the Commission. The Commission do not have the resourcing and were reliant on information on work or projects that were occurring from the Council.

In response to a Member question on how it will be ensured that the Carbon baseline assessment is achieved, how its achievements would be assessed and what monitoring framework would be in place to track progress, the Leader said that the Carbon Baseline was critical, air monitoring was currently not where it needed to be nor was it Borough wide. The priority was to look at how to fast track some actions. Officers added that an LGA tool was being used that allowed monitoring of direct emission and enabled working out of current carbon emissions which gave results of activities owned by the Council and those not of the Council to enable comparison. It was important to note that there was currently no baseline data for everything and that the baseline target referred to the whole borough and not just Croydon Council

It was asked how policy conflict would be monitored such as withdrawal of key services and how to balance expectations of the community. Officers say that they recognised the broader challenge of impact of different policies but it was vital that residents took personal responsibility by assessing what sustainability mean for their individual household and how they could play their part in realising outcomes.

A question was raised on what was being done to engage the public and stakeholders whilst ensuring that they were kept up to date and aware of what was happening. Officers said that engagement had been difficult in the last 7 months but they were keen to continue the approach in activities where possible. It was important for the Council form an understanding of developing an effective engagement plan and they were waiting for details to emerge from the Commission to enable this to be completed. The finer details of the engagement plan was still being finalised.

The Chair thanked officers and guests for their attendance and engagement with the Sub-Committee