Carbon footprints, decarbonisation funds, local area energy planning, Greater Cambridge’s emerging Local Plan, and digital strategies, all featured at today’s Environment & Green Investment Committee meeting.
A report on the carbon footprint of Cambridgeshire County Council, and of the county as a whole, was the first item on the agenda. 2020/21 was an unusual year, with Covid lockdowns and reduced economic activity. So it’s not surprising that the Council’s carbon emissions from its own sites and assets, and from its purchased electricity, were down twenty per cent on the previous year. Adding in indirect emissions, from the activities of the Council’s contractors and suppliers, the Council’s carbon emissions were down a staggering forty per cent. Much of that drop is likely to be temporary.
The most recent carbon figures for Cambridgeshire as a whole are from 2019, and show a steady decline.
Most of this is due to the decarbonisation of electricity generation for domestic, commercial and industrial use.
The next two items were reports from postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge. They are part of the CUSPE scheme – Cambridge University Science & Policy Exchange. This enables students to volunteer for a short term project to inform the Council’s policies and strategies. It’s good for the Council’s policy development, and good for the students too.
The first report was on the potential for a Decarbonisation Fund. This would help local businesses offset those last difficult-to-eliminate carbon emissions by buying locally generated carbon credits. It was clear to the students as they began work that what businesses also needed was reliable and trustworthy information. So part of their recommendation was for the Council to talk to partners about setting up a decarbonisation advice service. They also recommend the Council’s flagship energy project at Swaffham Prior to be first to put itself through the process of earning those carbon credits.
The second report was on the potential for creating local heating networks in Cambridgeshire’s market towns, to put large numbers of homes and buildings onto renewable energy. Huntingdon, March, and Ely were chosen as examples. In a way this was a more complex proposal. The next steps here will involve conversations with local planning authorities and the Council’s partners.
The Committee also discussed the officers’ response to the first proposals for the new Greater Cambridge Local Plan. One of the issues that attracted most discussion was the likelihood that formal sports facilities to serve the new population of the North East Cambridge area development would not be included on-site. It seemed problematic that a new community designed to accommodate very few cars would not locate sports facilities in easily reachable distance.
Finally there was a lively conversation about Connecting Cambridgeshire’s latest digital connectivity strategy. One element of this was preparation for the copper switch-off in 2025. Old copper networks will be phased out and start to be replaced with digital systems delivered over broadband connections. “This will affect all public services, businesses and domestic premises, making people even more reliant on digital connectivity and will require signposting and awareness raising, particularly among those who do not use mobile phones, or cannot access the internet,” says the report. Many homes still rely on this network. But so do a great many specialised applications such as alarm lines, payment terminals and health-monitoring equipment. Many older telephone systems, fax machines, payment terminals and alarms that do not have SIM card capability will no longer work after the 2025 deadline. Councillors including Cllr Ros Hathorn (Histon & Impington) weren’t sure everyone who needed to know was aware of this impending issue.