Agenda item

Progress update from Exeter City Futures and City of Exeter Greenhouse Gas inventory

To consider the report of the Chief Executive & Growth Director.

 

The Strategic Scrutiny Committee considered the report at its meeting on 16 June 2022, and its comments will be reported.

 

Decision:

Agreed:

 

RESOLVED that the Executive:-

 

(1)  Acknowledge the requirement of a comprehensive and whole system approach to delivering Net Zero Exeter 2030, and that no single organisation, including the City Council, could solve the challenge of reducing city greenhouse gas emissions to zero. The Executive also acknowledge that a 20 year timetable ahead of national and county targets for net zero was very ambitious, requiring place based co-ordination and cross institutional cooperation. The Executive welcome the Exeter Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, acknowledging the pace and scale of change required to deliver on the Net Zero 2030 goal and the required step change in resources, activity and policy making both at a local and national level.

 

(2)  Invite Exeter City Futures CIC to reflect on the challenges of resourcing the step change in activity to meet the Net Zero 2030 Goal and options for meeting the challenges be provided for consideration by the Executive and Council.

 

(3)  Welcome the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to look into the practical issues raised for the construction sector and the supply chain to meet the demands of retrofitting the housing and commercial stock, and support scrutiny members pursuing a wider brief as a critical friend of Executive in addressing the financial, technical and policy issues.

 

(4)  call for immediate and concerted effort to be taken on one specific intervention required under the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, such as the goal of connecting homes and non-residential buildings to a district heat network and explore the practical challenges to securing delivery with limited capacity against the 2030 time line to report a plan of action to the Executive by December 2022.

 

(5)  welcome the decision of the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to acknowledge the importance of biodiversity and carbon sequestration to address the challenge of delivering a net zero Exeter. The Strategic Scrutiny Committee be invited to advise the Executive on practical proposals for linking the planning and development system with the climate and ecological emergency and how to deliver net biodiversity gain on development sites and offsetting carbon in Devon.

 

(6)  Note that Councillor Zion Lights (Member Champion for Net Zero), had been appointed as a Director on the Board of Exeter City Futures, replacing the Chief Executive & Growth Director as the Council’s Director on the Board.

 

Reason for Decision: As set out in the report.

 

 

 

Minutes:

The Executive received the progress report from Exeter City Futures Community Interest Company (CIC) outlining the work being undertaken to progress the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan, which included the Baseline Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory for the city, the reductions required to achieve Net Zero in 2030 and also identifying specific and timely metrics for monitoring progress towards carbon neutrality in each emissions sector.

 

The report outlined the scale of the challenges faced in achieving a Net Zero city by 2030 and provided measurable key performance indicators for use as a strategic dashboard on the performance for the city and provided suggested options for achieving the Net Zero goal. The report had also been presented to Strategic Scrutiny Committee on 16 June 2022, and its comments had been included in the report presented.

 

Referencing The Creative Bureaucracy and its Radical Common Sense book by authors Charles Landry and Margie Caust, the Chief Executive & Growth Director emphasised the seriousness of the challenge the world now faced and how Exeter, and the City Council in particular, were seeking to respond.

 

Referring to UK Government and local authority initiatives, he identified a gap between the City Council’s ambitions and those of some other local authorities and also the Government itself. Exeter City Council had declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and pledged to work towards creating a carbon neutral city by 2030, which was 20 years in advance of the national 2050 net zero target required under the Climate Change Act 2008. It was therefore showing leadership of place at a critical time and he proceeded to detail both the seriousness of the problems and initiatives that could be taken.

 

The strategy for delivering a Net Zero Exeter was broadly understood and the circulated report set out measures that could be taken, but the challenges and complexity of implementing these were largely self-evident. Measures included:-

 

·         optimise the amount of renewable energy from photovoltaics (PV) on residential and commercial properties;

·         connect over 11,000 additional homes to district heating networks;

·         minimise energy use within buildings by retrofitting commercial buildings, and retrofitting the homes in the city with a fabric first solution, such as cavity wall insulation;

·         replacing all gas boilers with air heat pumps - 42,000 in total;

·         replacing all fossil fuel cars - there were 50,430 licensed vehicles in Exeter - with Electric Vehicle (EV) battery cars;

·         making the most of the short journeys in the city by walking or cycling and increasing the amount of cycling;

·         plan all new homes so they don’t need to be retrofitted; and

·         make sure all new homes are within 15 minutes of facilities and designed in a fashion to avoid the need to use the car, and improve recycling rates.

 

The City of Exeter’s institutions collaborating for local impact was an explicit aim of the Exeter 2040 Vision and, in Exeter, the City Council and County Council had vital roles to play in putting in place a policy framework to deliver the Net Zero goal for Exeter. The city’s institutions regularly met and explored the challenges through the Liveable Exeter Place Board and the city was therefore in a better position than many places in galvanising organisations behind ambitious goals.

 

The Centre for Energy and the Environment at the University of Exeter had been commissioned to establish the GHG inventory for the city to quantify the reductions required to achieve Net Zero in 2030. The GHG inventory had set out the reductions required by sector to meet the Net Zero 2030 goal which would require policy development in the coming months. Some of these were:-

 

·         optimising the contribution of existing roofs, domestic and commercial, to accommodate PV;

·         planning policies on new build, mechanisms for enhancing biodiversity, biodiversity enhancement and multi-authority agreements on renewable energy;

·         rolling out more district heating networks;

·         immediate provision of EV charging infrastructure both for buses, fleet and private vehicles;

·         additional retrofitting for HRA properties;

·         planning policies in support of cycling and pedestrians with reprioritisation of spaces and infrastructure to support cycling; and

·         stepping up of recycling and roll out of food waste.

 

There were insufficient resources for traditional project management delivery in support of this ambitious programme but it was considered possible to pull together resources for a core team to roll out the scale of initiatives required sector by sector to meet the 2030 timeline. Joint ventures with the private sector would be important and reference was made to initiatives in other areas such as Bristol’s commitment to electric vehicles and the North Devon biosphere.

 

Councillor D. Moore, as an opposition group leader, had submitted questions on this item, but was unable to be present. The questions and answers are attached to the minutes.

 

Councillor Jobson, as an opposition group leader, spoke on this item. She sought clarification on a timeline for meeting the challenges in view of the resource set change required and how average residential households could meet the practical challenges and the costs of implementing identified solutions. For example, the costs of EV battery cars were high and currently unaffordable to many households. She also referred to the possibility that individuals and families would forsake the opportunity for city centre living and adopt a preference for the suburbs to enable them to continue to commute and use their cars for a multiplicity of other reasons. In this respect, research was urgently needed if the 10 million kilometre a year’s reduction in travel to 2030 was to be achieved. She also hoped that the issues identified would be placed in front of Scrutiny before being tabled before Executive and Council.

 

The Leader gave assurances that the matters identified would be considered by Scrutiny prior to further updates and report to Executive and that the timeline for considering the resourcing challenges would be the Autumn. He advised that there was no assumption that the cost of transition to Net Zero would be funded by the Council Tax as the scale of funding was likely to go well beyond the scope of normal tax funding and the impact of the cost of living crisis. He further advised that there had not been research on individual household costs and behaviour and also that the Transport Authority’s Strategy for Exeter was for 50% of all journeys within the city to be active travel - the Council was simply communicating the scale of that challenge.

The Leader further stated that the Council had made a commitment to meeting the challenge of Climate Change and that it was unfortunate that some authorities had shied away from the challenge and had adopted the Government’s target of 2050. He gave an assurance that every effort was being made to ensure that the city’s partners were fully on board.

 

During the discussion, the following points were made:-

 

·         Exeter benefitted from the presence of a car share scheme and Co Cars. One Car Club vehicle took at least six private vehicles off the road;

·         Exeter’s recycling rates were on track to improve and the actual amount of waste collected in the city was 296kg per person per year compared with Devon’s of 360kg;

·         a goal was to increase public awareness of the importance of recycling;

·         the Council’s commitment to retrofitting was a good news story providing an example to the private sector;

·         welcome the leadership role assumed by the Council; and

·         the need to move away from the reliance on internal combustion engines and to replace with electric powered vehicles is vital for the future.

 

The Portfolio Holder for Climate Change emphasised the scale of the challenge by referring to the breakdown of estimated greenhouse gas emissions in Exeter in 2019 by sector. He stated that Net Zero was one of the Council’s core corporate priorities, with Net Zero Exeter 2030 explicit in the Exeter 2040 Vision. The report highlighted the size of the task ahead and he asserted the Council’s commitment to meeting these challenges.

 

In response to the points made by Members, the Chief Executive & Growth Director re-iterated the challenges ahead which would require a whole systems approach with Liveable Exeter as a vanguard in this process. With 53,000 houses set to be built over the next 20 years in this part of Devon it could be anticipated that, unless the modal shift of 50% of all journeys within the city take place by walking and cycling, traffic problems and congestion would increase to the point where the highway network would no longer be able to cope and the necessary response from the Highway Agency and transport authority would be to oppose further development. The Government was continuing to fail to set necessary standards for house builders in-spite of its stated commitment to combat Climate Change, a commitment which still permitted the fitting of gas boilers, which ultimately would require retrofitting and, crucially, its failure to set a Net Zero Target date lower than 2050. Such a target was not the City Council’s approach.

 

The city possessed leading scientific research into climate change and developers approaching the planning authority were fully aware of the Council’s Net Zero ambitions and the refusal to adopt lenient construction requirements. The Council had consistently shown leadership in the challenges as, for example, through the HRA retrofitting programme and its move away from an Economic Development team approach to a Net Zero commitment. Partners across the city were also cognisant of the challenges and, in response to the need for change, were seeking solutions through identifying investment and innovation opportunities which, would not only address Climate Change issues, but also benefit the local economy such as the creation of green infrastructure jobs.

 

RESOLVED that the Executive:-

 

(1)  acknowledge the requirement of a comprehensive and whole system approach to delivering Net Zero Exeter 2030, and that no single organisation, including the City Council, could solve the challenge of reducing city greenhouse gas emissions to zero. The Executive also acknowledge that a 20 year timetable ahead of national and county targets for net zero was very ambitious, requiring place based co-ordination and cross institutional cooperation. The Executive welcome the Exeter Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, acknowledging the pace and scale of change required to deliver on the Net Zero 2030 goal and the required step change in resources, activity and policy making both at a local and national level;

 

(2)  invite Exeter City Futures CIC to reflect on the challenges of resourcing the step change in activity to meet the Net Zero 2030 Goal and options for meeting the challenges be provided for consideration by the Executive and Council;

 

(3)  welcome the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to look into the practical issues raised for the construction sector and the supply chain to meet the demands of retrofitting the housing and commercial stock, and support scrutiny members pursuing a wider brief as a critical friend of Executive in addressing the financial, technical and policy issues;

 

(4)  call for immediate and concerted effort to be taken on one specific intervention required under the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, such as the goal of connecting homes and non-residential buildings to a district heat network and explore the practical challenges to securing delivery with limited capacity against the 2030 time line to report a plan of action to the Executive by December 2022;

 

(5)  welcome the decision of the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to acknowledge the importance of biodiversity and carbon sequestration to address the challenge of delivering a Net Zero Exeter. The Strategic Scrutiny Committee be invited to advise the Executive on practical proposals for linking the planning and development system with the climate and ecological emergency and how to deliver net biodiversity gain on development sites and offsetting carbon in Devon; and

 

(6)  note that Councillor Zion Lights (Member Champion for Net Zero), had been appointed as a Director on the Board of Exeter City Futures, replacing the Chief Executive & Growth Director as the Council’s Director on the Board.

 

 

Supporting documents: