In Huntingdon for today’s meeting of the Combined Authority’s Environment & Sustainable Communities Committee.

At the previous meeting I proposed that the Combined Authority should declare a climate emergency. Work on this is under way, aligning it to the authority’s work on the ‘locally determined contributions’ which we need to establish to help meet global climate change targets.

There’s a public question from Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Climate Action Coalition, asking in essence what the Combined Authority will be doing to speed up delivery of some of its key environmental targets.

There are questions and comments from the Mayor and councillors on the Director’s update, including on the future of eight ‘£100K homes’ at Fordham. I ask for clarity about the status of these homes as an acceptable form of affordable housing within the development. There’s a discussion about the new Centre for Green Technology being built at Peterborough, and the need to align the FE ‘cold spots’ (including Ely) with skills development opportunity and, as I point out, also transport access for young people.’There are questions and comments from the Mayor and councillors on the Director’s update, including on the future of eight ‘£100K homes’ at Fordham. I ask for clarity about the status of these homes as an acceptable form of affordable housing within the development. There’s a discussion about the new Centre for Green Technology being built at Peterborough, and the need to align the FE ‘cold spots’ (including Ely) with skills development opportunity and, as I point out, also transport access for young people.

The Mayor mentions the Wisbech incinerator, and I note that we are waiting for the outcome of the Environment Agency consultation on the permitting of the facility, and of Fenland District Council’s decision to obtain advice on whether there are grounds for judicial review.

There’s an update on the Combined Authority’s residual housing programme. The current total of units to be delivered is 1438; 827 of these have been completed and occupied, with 611 still to go. There were supposed to be 2000 in total, but the Government withdrew the remaining funding following concerns about the management of the programme under the previous Mayor.

Next there’s a presentation on Huntingdonshire District Council’s Biodiversity for All project, which is using £1.3M from the Combined Authority to ‘accelerate the delivery of measurable biodiversity net gain in Huntingdonshire’, and engage the community in doing so.

After a short break, we move on to the review of the Combined Authority’s Climate Action Plan, and there’s a discussion on inviting constituent councils to be the ‘accountable body’ for the delivery of some of the projects. The committee is also asked to agree funding to Natural Cambridgeshire and Fenland SOIL – the conference organised in Ely last year by Fenland SOIL was impressive, and it’s really excellent that the organisation has engaged the farmers, who after all are the people who actually manage the land in the fens.

A Combined Authority project to retrofit energy efficiency measures in care homes hasn’t really taken off, and it’s been difficult to encourage interest in the scheme. The recommendation is to extend the programme to December 2025, but I second a proposal from the Vice Chair of the committee which would cap the programme now and release funding to be used for other climate related purposes. That is agreed unanimously.

We receive and note a budget update, and an agenda plan. The next meeting is proposed for June, despite our usual meetings being bi-monthly – and when I question this it’s explained that with local elections in May we can’t be clear about membership of this and other committees until those councils have had their AGMs. There is a lot to discuss, we all agree, so we ask officers to consider how we can make sure business moves on.

The meeting ends at 12:45PM.