Council's climate leader pledges issue will be front and centre

Speaking as world leaders head to Glasgow for COP26, Councillor Ian Nellins said the authority was making great strides towards its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 – but acknowledged there is a lot more to be done.

Councillor Nellins was appointed as portfolio holder for climate change, natural assets and the green economy by leader Lezley Picton following the local elections in May. It is the first time the council has had a dedicated cabinet member for the environment.

He said: “There has been a lot of work going on in the background for a long time in Shropshire.

“It’s such a broad portfolio – it covers insulating houses, electric vehicles, rivers, flooding, trees – and I have now been handed active travel as well.

“The environment affects every area of the council’s work.

“No matter what, there will be people who have an argument for and against everything, so you need to strike a balance.”

The council’s climate action plan, approved by cabinet last year before Councillor Nellins was elected, sets out a series of projects grouped into the themes of ‘power up’, ‘power down’ and ‘carbon sequestration’.

Schemes like retrofitting buildings, tree planting and increasing renewable energy generation would all play a part in shrinking the council’s carbon footprint, Councillor Nellins said.

“But Shropshire Council only accounts for one per cent of the carbon emissions of the county,” he added.

“It’s the rest of Shropshire that’s going to be the issue.”

One scheme being rolled out at the moment is the installation of 50 electric vehicle charging points across the county.

Councillor Nellins said: “A lot of people who have got electric vehicles at the minute probably do charge at home because it’s cheaper, but people coming into our towns – whether they are working or visiting – need to have somewhere to charge their vehicles.

“There are also a lot of people who don’t have private parking at home to consider.”

The major barrier to a lot of the council’s ambitions on climate change is funding.

Councillor Nellins said: “Those 50 electric vehicle chargers are all being funded through grants.

“The more grants you can get the better, but it’s easy to underestimate the time it takes.

“From next year’s budget onwards we will be putting money from the council’s revenue budget into environmental issues.

“We are looking to invest year on year in our revenue budget to do everything we can for the environment.

“It comes down to money and people don’t want their rates bill to go up.

“There are financial implications to everything the council does – but equally there are environmental implications.

“Next year we have said we will work towards having a quarterly report on what’s being done.

“We are never going to do enough in some people’s eyes.”

On active travel, Councillor Nellins said: “Shrewsbury needs a lot of work to it and we can see that.

“A lot of people say active travel is all focussed on Shrewsbury. It’s the bigger town so anything we do there is more likely to have a bigger impact.

“The long term aim for active travel is for all the main market towns – Ludlow, Market Drayton, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Bridgnorth – to have active travel facilities, with a 10-mile radius of cycle paths around them so people living in the villages can cycle in.

“These things all come down to finance, but we do have plans for all the other towns.”

Councillor Nellins said it was also important not to penalise residents who are unable to make eco-friendly lifestyle changes because of financial barriers.

One example is when he gets asked why the council still provides grants for gas boilers. The simple fact, he said, is that there are a lot of people in fuel poverty and alternatives like air source heat pumps are out of reach.

He said: “We have a duty of care to people here now as well as in the future. Striking those balances can be very difficult.”

Councillor Nellins said the authority was always “prepared to listen” to its Green councillors and local campaign groups, acknowledging they sometimes have “better ideas”.

“They are just decent people who are trying to raise an issue,” he said.

Attending his first meeting of Shropshire Climate Action Partnership, Councillor Nellins said he was “expecting a load of people who were going to give me a hard time”, but was “pleasantly surprised” to find everyone was just keen to work with him to achieve the same goals.

He said: “We clearly would like to do more, but as with everything, we have to think about how we can finance it.

“We are on track to hit our target of net zero by 2030, but there is still a lot to do.

“There are a lot of really good people doing a lot of work behind the scenes that might not always be seen by the residents across Shropshire, and there is a lot of stuff in the pipeline which hopefully, when it comes to fruition, will help not just the council get to net zero but will help the whole county to do it.”