Attendees
| Doug Eltham | Devon County Council (Chair) |
| Lucinda Brook | Plymouth City Council |
| Aaron Harverson | Active Devon |
| Catherine Causley | East Devon District Council |
| Lewis Connor | East Devon District Council |
| William Jackson-Nichols | Devon County Council (Secretariat) |
| Emily Reed | Devon County Council (Secretariat) |
| Adam Williams | South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council |
| Donna Sibley | North Devon and Torridge District Councils |
| David Rose | South West Water |
| John Amosford | Public Health Devon |
| Mark Burton | South West Net Zero Hub |
| Jacqui Warren | Torbay Council |
| William Elliot | Teignbridge District Council |
| Collette Germon | Devon Partnership NHS Trust |
1. Introductions
The group introduced themselves as a number of new members had joined.
Doug Eltham then gave a recap of the Devon Climate Emergency project and the plans for 2025. Doug highlighted the structure of the project, which includes a strategic response group and a tactical group. The strategic group, chaired by Meg Booth the Director for Climate Environment at Devon County Council, oversees the overall strategy, while the tactical group delves into detailed actions.
Looking ahead, the Secretariat is organizing workshops to prioritize the partnership’s focus for the year. These workshops, scheduled for the next couple of months, will involve external support to ensure effective planning and execution. The aim is to reinvigorate the project, ensuring that efforts are impactful and resources are allocated to the most appropriate initiatives. The meeting emphasized the importance of these upcoming workshops in shaping the direction and effectiveness of the climate emergency efforts in Devon, Plymouth, and Torbay.
2. Minutes from Previous Meeting
Emily Reed reviewed the minutes and actions from the previous meeting.
Emily noted that Adam had shared the Bioregional Learning Centre’s paper, and there was an action for all members to consider how they could support and promote the adaptation communications calendar.
Updates were also provided on the electric vehicle evaluation tools and telematic trackers.
3. Project Progress Report
Emily Reed provided an update on the progress report, highlighting a slight decline in followers across their communication channels. This decline was attributed to issues with X (formerly Twitter) and a lack of capacity to manage the accounts effectively. The meeting shared how organisations are managing X these days.
Emily also discussed the recommendations from the Climate Task Force, which emphasized the importance of having senior leaders and personnel who can implement actions present at the upcoming workshop supported by the Carbon Trust. The task force also stressed the need to involve businesses and community groups in the partnership to ensure effective implementation of the carbon plan.
Emily shared that the progress report has been updated. It now includes a risk that the potential transition to unitary status impacts on capacity to tackle climate change negatively, so we are aware we need to maintain action on mitigation and adaptation in an evolving context.
ACTION: Emily to check with Lu and Jacqui how Plymouth and Torbay represent businesses and communities into their climate forums.
4. Monitoring of the Built Environment Section of the Carbon Plan
Emily Reed summarized the monitoring indicators for the Built Environment, noting several areas that were significantly off track. These included the reduction in energy demand and the installation of heat pumps. The discussion then focused on various actions:
B6: Support to develop a retrofit strategy is being organised and it is hoped that workshops can be arranged for March/ April to engage stakeholders in in the development of that retrofit strategy.
B8: The group discussed evaluating planning conditions for energy efficiency upgrades during home extensions. There are issues around the capacity of the Devon Planning Officers Group to compile examples of policies elsewhere.
Will Elliott shared information about how the draft Teignbridge Local Plan is approaching energy efficiency requirements in homes. The group concluded that there was still more to do across Devon to explore opportunities to require energy efficiency upgrades when planning is sought for changes to residential buildings.
B11: There are concerns that a shared evidence base may not capture the local variation in land value and therefore may not be that useful. Furthermore, Districts and Cities are at different stages of their local plan updates so the evidence base may not be up to date enough when authorities come to use it.
B12: Local plan requirements for zero-carbon buildings in operation and embodied carbon targets was discussed. It was noted that while some progress had been made, there were still challenges in setting and enforcing these targets due to building regulations.
Part Z is currently a proposed amendment to the UK Building Regulations, rather than an official part of the regulations. This proposal aims to address embodied carbon emissions in construction by introducing mandatory assessments and limits on carbon emissions for major building projects.
B13: The viability of building net-zero carbon homes using modern construction techniques was reviewed. The group noted that while construction costs had increased due to supply chain pressures, there was still progress in demonstrating viability.
Jacqui shared that an issue currently being reported is the lack of workforce to install heat pumps.
B14: Ensuring vegetation and maintenance arrangements in new developments to aid building efficiency was discussed. It was noted that this action had not been fully addressed and required further attention.
ACTION: Emily to update the Built Environment Progress Report to reflect the conversation.
5. Any Other Business
Jacqui Warren shared that Torbay Council have been working with SWISCO on transitioning vehicles such as tippers to electric. Collette Germon added that electric tippers were not proving to be very practical, especially in hilly areas like Torbay.
Lucinda Brook shared updates on Plymouth’s Net Zero partnership, including the establishment of various task forces such as a domestic retrofit task force and an engagement working group. These task forces aimed to produce recommendations for the Executive Board and were seen as a positive step towards achieving net-zero goals.
ACTION: Emily Reed will ensure Ellen is aware of the retrofit strategy developments in Plymouth.
ACTION: Doug Eltham to investigate the status of the climate advisory panel for devolution.
Appendix 1 – Project Progress Report
Period: December to January 2024
Partnership Update
General Communications
For the second month running the overall number of followers contracted, in December this was by 0.6%. This was due to a slight loss of followers on X and the newsletter which was not offset by the growth in Instagram followers. The reduced capacity of the team following the resignation of the Climate Emergency Support Officer is impacting on channel growth, though for X it is compounded by challenges around changes to the culture of the channel. The new Climate Emergency Support Officer is starting on the 13th of January which will provide greater capacity.
Partners’ Notable Activity
Activity is recorded centrally on the Taking Action pages of the Devon Climate Emergency website.
- South Hams District Council have established a new community woodland in South Brent, planting 2,500 trees with community volunteers.
- Exeter University recognised for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership’ by the Times Higher Education awards.
- Plymouth’s Young Climate Ambassador scheme seeks to engage youth aged 11 to 17 in local climate issues, fostering a generation of environmentally conscious advocates.
- A single bus journey will cost just £1 on all bus services in Devon and Torbay across three ‘Super Saturdays’ this January.
Oversight of the Devon Carbon Plan
The Progress Reports detailing known activity against each action are on the website. A summary of the number of actions categorised by each RAG status is provided below, split by theme.
Note that each theme of the carbon plan is reviewed every 6 months, which means the RAG status will not change significantly within the monthly periods of this progress report.
Blue = Completed
Green = Generally progressing well
Amber = Progressing but geography or scope is limited
Red = Not started or activity significantly limited
Grey = Not yet assessed
Built Environment
Common Issues:
- Finance required to expand geography
- Finance required for more people resource, particularly spatial planning
- Uncertainty regarding the implications of a written ministerial statement on Local Plans.
Economy and Resources
Common Issues:
- Clearer guidance from government on aspects of waste management needed
- Finance required for more people resource
Energy Supply
Common Issues:
- Availability of capital finance
Food, Land and Sea
Common Issues:
- Complexity of agendas, e.g. Land Use Framework and Local Nature Recovery Strategy
- Finance required to expand geography and scope
Transport
Common Issues:
- Public concern about EVs and reallocating highway space for sustainable modes
- Grid capacity
- Availability of capital finance
Cross-Cutting Themes
Common Issues:
- Finance required for more people resource, particularly spatial planning
- Finance required to expand geography
The first phase of monitoring indicators are online. The University of Exeter has helped to expand the indicator set, which will be added to the web page early this year.
Oversight of the Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Climate Adaptation Strategy
The Climate Impacts Group is continuing its programme to review all the risks and near-term actions each year. No change to the RAG ratings this month.
Feedback from the Climate Task Force
The Devon Climate Task Force held its latest quarterly meeting in December and made the following recommendations to the Response Group:
- Use the Local Resilience Forum emergency response trigger to ensure sufficiently senior leaders, as well as personnel who will implement actions, attend the Carbon Trust workshop.
- Ensure the workshop focuses on practical, high-impact actions, and addressing barriers to success.
- Ensure the Carbon Trust workshop includes a focus on broadening outreach to businesses and community groups.
- Secure or provide funding to research business resilience and understand what businesses are doing around climate resilience.
- Develop a project to capture and share peer-to-peer learning about climate adaptation through resilience stories from businesses.
- Engage with Defra regarding options for environmental management and regulatory issues affecting farmers’ adaptation efforts e.g. water abstraction licencing.
Devolution Update
In Devon and Torbay, and also Plymouth, the devolution journey continues. Draft regulations to create the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority are progressing through Parliament and are due to come into force early in 2025. However, the Government’s “English Devolution White Paper”, published on the 16th December, sets out further changes to give places and communities more control over shaping their area.
Following the Devolution White Paper, the Government has outlined a programme of local government reorganisation for two-tier areas, where there are District and County Councils. Councils will be invited to make proposals for new unitary councils. The implications of this for Devon are evolving at pace and look likely to have significant ramifications for local authorities in the partnership. Consequently, the risk register has been updated to reflect the risk that negotiations regarding a transition to unitary status creates uncertainty and reduces the capacity of partner organisations.
