Progress has been made in South Lanarkshire to cut fuel bills and carbon emissions.
Last December, a motion was passed to ‘cut fuel bills, cut carbon emissions and kick start the green economy’ which aimed to introduce a range of measures across council buildings to increase efficiency and sustainability standards.
Councillors at the Climate Change and Sustainability Committee this week heard of the successful progress that has been made so far.
Councillor Kirsten Robb (East Kilbride East), praised the work, and said: “Thanks very much for all the work on this, I’m really pleased to see the new item of work – the plan to produce the energy plan by the end of 2023. I think it’s really important because council buildings make up 78 per cent of the council’s total carbon emissions, so that would be good to see that coming forward.”
Councillor Ross Clark (Larkhall), echoed these sentiments, and said: “I’d like to welcome the fact that were getting this report today. It’s important that we are getting updates on the motion and what were doing in light of it, although much of the actions which are mentioned in it are stuff that we’re already doing or it’s already in plans or it’s for review, whether it’s national guidance or actions, so going forward it would be useful to get further reports if there’s any more new actions or further acceleration of actions.”
The approved motion included a range of points related to services across the council to take additional action on improving energy efficiency with the aim of saving money for front line services.
Aims include reducing the council’s risk to future energy price increases, cutting carbon emissions, improving wellbeing, reducing fuel poverty and kick-starting the green economy.
Targets that have been progressed include the council producing an energy demand reduction plan for council buildings such as consulting on a set point of 18 degrees where it is safe to do so, reducing heating times or boiler temperatures.
Progress has been made as an update on the introduction of a new Energy Demand Reduction Plan within the Property Asset Management Plan for council buildings was provided to Housing and Technical Resources last month.
This new plan will outline key sections to promote behavioural change across council departments alongside considering physical changes required to improve council building efficiency.
Another aim of the motion was to request an energy statement from developers when they submit an application for planning permission to outline how the development will adhere to the principles of ‘Fabric First’ and how high standards of energy efficiency will be achieved.
Progress has been made on this as the adopted South Lanarkshire Local Development Plan 2 requires applications for major developments to include an energy statement, to highlight that proposals are designed to deliver that at least 10 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions reduction standard in the building regulations is met by installing low and zero carbon generating technology.
Further reports will be provided to councillors on progress made in relation to all aspects of the plan.
And the council will continue to maximise opportunities to enhance sustainability within its new domestic and non-domestic buildings within the budget parameters available and through identifying appropriate external funding opportunities.
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