The last few weeks have been significant ones for Moorlands Climate Action’s core aim of getting action on Climate in the District.
In late January, Council leader Paul Roberts agreed to take back the SMDC Climate Plan ‘Aiming Low’. The commitment was made in response to strong criticism of the plan in the council chamber – criticism which was given strength by a report produced by MCA on the eve of the meeting.
There were many points made about the plan’s weaknesses but above all these centred on the lack of clear and measured baselines and a trajectory to get to the 2030 Net Zero target.
Three and a half years after the declaration of an emergency we are still lacking a plan with numbers.
That failure was thrown into relief by the publication of a fully measured and costed climate plan by Cannock Borough Council in the week preceding the presentation of SMDC’s update.
Cannock decided that 2030 was now a target they couldn’t reach – and the question of final targets will doubtless be one for after the May council elections – but at least elected members in Cannock, and the public, now have the figures before them.
SMDC have not yet signalled in detail how they will improve their plan, but we expect that we might be involved in the process.
MCA members had earlier met with Cabinet members and officers to review progress and discuss a focused set of asks for improving the plan (we had also produced an item-by-item critique of Aiming Low).
There had been progress in that meeting on one of our key areas – housing and energy.
After years of an effectively hands-off approach to this issue, SMDC agreed to make domestic energy one of three focus areas (the other two are nature and youth engagement).
They will now undertake detailed mapping of the area’s domestic energy needs, while at the same time actively engaging with the county-level Staffordshire Warmer Homes programme and Your Housing.
Until now they have let these bodies (the key avenues for channelling funding for energy refurb into the District) get on with the task, with results that have been predictably uninspiring.
We now expect officers will ensure that funding opportunities (and they will be coming soon) will not pass the District by; separately, MCA has now developed a relationship with Your Housing, including their new Energy Officer.
We now have a good understanding of their new approach to their housing stock and hope to be meeting with them soon to discuss this.
Elsewhere, SMDC has signalled that putting solar PV panels on large buildings under their control is now firmly on the agenda, with the council looking at a bulk buying scheme with other authorities.
Cheadle Leisure Centre is set for a rebuild, as is the Fowlchurch Waste site, and Brough Park Leisure Centre should now get a significant upgrade, following a successful Levelling Up bid.
The expense and complexity of redoing the energy profile of large-scale buildings has been highlighted by the case of Moorlands House and LEDs – and rocketing building inflation is threatening projects in other councils.
Still, it is clear that renewable energy for SMDC-controlled assets is no longer the distant pipe dream it seemed just a year ago, when councillors and cabinet members were staring wide-eyed at computer images at MCA’s first Energy Fair.
The sense of a change in gear was unmistakeable when in late-January Cabinet Member James Aberley presented the long-awaited plan for EV charging points in public car parks.
The plan seemed confident and bold and garnered the support of all sides of Moorlands House.
A few days later, an application for a new solar farm near Upper Tean went through unopposed in the Planning Committee.
The month before, the same committee had approved a new battery storage facility at Cellarhead, having earlier overturned an officer recommendation against.