Electric vehicle charging points to be installed in Telford

It has been a year since Telford and Wrekin Council voted to declare a climate emergency, making a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint and embrace greener ways of working, travelling and living – and help residents to do the same.

Electrifying the council’s own vehicle fleet and enabling people who live and work in Telford to make the switch will play a key part in this, according to Councillor Carolyn Healy, portfolio holder for climate change.

Councillor Healy spoke about the council’s plans – which also include improvements to cycle networks and building more eco-friendly homes – as she took questions from members of the public in a live question and answer session on Facebook.

She told viewers positive steps had been taken in the last year, but more needed to be done.

Councillor Healy said: “Since declaring a climate emergency in July last year we have been working on our climate change actions, we have calculated our greenhouse gas emissions footprint and that shows some of the actions we have taken in recent years have had quite a dramatic impact.

“We have broken our carbon footprint down so that we can see where the key areas are for us to focus on.

“Unsurprisingly they are around buildings and transport, which are two of the main areas where we have our largest carbon footprint.

“Based on that we have developed our first action plan which was approved in February, and we have been working through the actions.

“I am very clear that this is a live plan, it’s something that as new opportunities and ideas come forward we will continually update, it’s not something that’s static.

“We know that there is much more that we can and should do.

“Our commitment to climate change goes beyond what we can do in our organisation, we have a vision for the whole borough to be carbon neutral by 2030.

“For that we have set up a borough climate change partnership for which we had our first meeting recently with representatives from local businesses, schools, town and parish councils and other community groups with an interest in this agenda.”

Important

Councillor Healy said the council was keen to promote active travel and build on the borough’s strong cycle path network.

She also said electric vehicles and community pool car schemes would play a major part in moving towards carbon neutrality, as not everyone would be able or willing to swap their car for a bicycle.

The council is currently in the process of purchasing six electric vehicles and was having conversations with contractors about moving their fleets away from petrol and diesel.

Councillor Healy said: “Our current contract for our subsidised bus routes ends in 2021 so we need to be having those discussions with Arriva which is our main provider of bus services.”

When asked about electric vehicle charging points, Councillor Healy said: “This is something we are actively looking at, both in terms of our own car parks and office accommodation, and also looking to form a partnership with a commercial provider to have fast charging stations within the borough so it makes it easier for people to convert to electric vehicles.

“Where we then have gaps in what the commercial sector can provide, we can look at whether we can perhaps step in to provide those things directly and plug the gaps to make a good network of charging points.”

Questions were also asked about light pollution, and Councillor Healy said the new LED street lights installed in 2017 made a significant contribution to reducing this – as well as having a positive impact on the council’s carbon footprint.

She said 98 per cent of the borough’s street lights were now LED, significantly higher than the national average of 61 per cent, and powered with renewable energy. She added solar powered lights were also being trialled in areas where it was difficult to connect to the electricity network.

Participants asked how the council planned to ensure new developments were constructed to the highest environmental specifications. Councillor Healy said this would be addressed in the upcoming Local Plan review.

She added: “We are also looking at the stock we already have, in terms of making homes better insulated so they need less fuel to heat them.”

Councillor Healy said that while reducing carbon was the clearest indicator of success, it was also important to change people’s mindsets.

She said: “We all have to believe that this is an important issue and all have to play our part and recognise how we can take some actions individually in addressing the climate challenge.”