Three years on from SMDC’s declaration of a climate emergency and we still don’t have a plan that stands a chance of getting to the District’s 2030 Net Zero target.
But we continue to harry, to suggest, and to work in every way we can to achieve that goal.
Last month ten MCA members met in person with a team from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council to discuss how we could better work with each other to pursue our goals. Cllr Joe Porter, the Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Biodiversity, was there, of course, but he was flanked by three other Cabinet Members: James Aberley, Ross Ward and Paul Roberts, the SMDC leader. They were backed by officers from the council: David Smith and Gillian Wright, the new climate change officer. It was at least partly pressure from MCA that was responsible for the appointment of someone like Gillian, in the face of opposition from SMDC.
A wide range of topics was discussed at the meeting, as well as specific ways in which cooperation could be increased. As always, clarity, transparency and accountability in the climate (and biodiversity) process were the foremost of our requests. We did not emerge from the meeting with anything approaching a fully formed new climate plan, of course, and the major action needed in crucial areas such as domestic energy and transport remains a distant prospect.
Still, we expect that there will be a slightly faster pace of progress in a few defined areas such as EV charging points and the use of solar energy in public buildings. What does seem certain now is a better response from SMDC to our enquiries and suggestions. The officers now respond to emails and phone calls and a couple of Cabinet Members now engage in open dialogue with MCA through Facebook. MCA is already re-engaged with officers in initiatives such as the Staffordshire Moorlands Green Network and in general information sharing.
The meeting yielded a little more detail on the forthcoming SMDC Plan for Nature, essentially the council’s preparation for when it plays its role towards the local Nature Recovery Network (NRN). The NRN will be a County responsibility under the new Environment Act, which will only really come into life with the publication of guidelines for biodiversity net gain (for new developments) at the end of 2023. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has been engaged by the Council to prepare the Plan, but it was clear from the meeting (and an earlier meeting that MCA had with SWT) that there is some disagreement over the likely timetable.
MCA also expressed its worries that preparation of the plan was delaying action in other areas such as a new Tree Strategy for SMDC, now some months overdue.
We also expressed our concerns about delivery under the new plan, given the constraint on resources at both SMDC and SWT – and the patchy evidence for delivery under SMDC’s Green Infrastructure Plan. The Board (made up of SMDC and various other groups including the NFU and SWT) has not met for some time and elected members have not had the chance to scrutinise the Plan’s delivery since the start of 2021.
MCA members have already seen evidence of lack of follow-through – for example, no maintenance of the Brough Park Community Orchard (an MCA member had to remove tree guards which were now strangling the saplings). It is these kinds of on-the-ground concerns that we will have to press SMDC on in the coming months – as well as our wider plans for more information-sharing (and perhaps community maps of projects) if strategies such as Green Infrastructure and the Nature Recovery Networks are to work as they should.
At least, we are now talking.