To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak.
Minutes:
1. Mr Pete Underwood, representing Abingdon Extinction Rebellion, made the following statement
“Good evening. I’m Pete Underwood, one of the coordinators of Abingdon’s Extinction Rebellion group and we’re keen to establish links with local councils to see how we can help collectively address the climate and ecological crises that we’re all facing.
Our presence at this meeting represents the first step at engaging with the Vale of White Horse council and we would welcome the opportunity for more detailed conversations about how we can assist you. Please feel free to speak with me at the end of the meeting if this is something of interest.
With regards to this meeting’s agenda we welcome the proposed opposition to the Oxford Cambridge Expressway. We urge the council to oppose this project in the strongest possible terms.
The Expressway is a fundamentally flawed concept on many levels, as detailed in the agenda and by campaign groups such as the No Expressway Alliance. The Expressway completely contradicts the direction we should be taking to mitigate climate and ecological disaster and should be stopped.
We also welcome the proposal of a Climate Emergency Advisory Committee and urge the council to establish the committee as soon as possible.
Actions must be taken to address the climate and ecological crises and therefore talking about carbon neutrality and environmental protection will not be enough. We need action.
Therefore, it’s critical that the committee is suitably resourced so that it can be effective, and its advice should be taken seriously by the council. Please do not use the ‘advisory’ role of the committee as a reason for inaction.
To help the committee with generating advice, we feel that a creating a citizens assembly that represents the vale is important and necessary as it will help create solutions that work for all of us, not just those with power and a vested interest in maintaining the status quo”.
2. Mr Pete Underwood asked the following question:
“Will the council be willing to create a citizens assembly as part of its stakeholder engagement in order to help address the climate and ecological crises, whether or not the Climate Emergency Advisory Committee is established”?
Councillor Emily Smith responded as follows:
“Thank you for your question. I agree that it is really important that this council’s response to the Climate Emergency includes drawing on ideas from local groups and individuals from our communities.
If the Climate Emergency Advisory Committee gets approved tonight, this will create an obvious point of contact between the council and members of the community keen to work with us on this agenda. The exact format will need to be agreed by the Chair of the new committee, but we have built into the procedure rules the opportunity for anyone to come and address the committee with ideas. I would hope that the committee will consider how best to engage with the community.
As you know, Oxford City have started work on their Citizens Assembly about the Climate Emergency. I spoke to the leader of Oxford City a few weeks ago about it. It is expensive, the City have budgeted £200,000 to cover the costs – and the Vale would not be able to afford that in this financial year. But I am watching with interest how the City one works out and I suggest that this is something our new Climate Committee liaise with City colleagues about and could consider whether this approach could work in the Vale.
So, I am not in a position to say yes, Vale should have citizens assembly, but I think it is an idea worth considering for the future”.
3. Ms Sally Mears asked the following question of Councillor Emily Smith, Leader of the council:
"Can you guarantee that areas of important conservation and biodiversity along the A34 too will have a Strategic Environmental Assessment and will not be harmed (eg by housing developments)?"
Councillor Emily Smith responded as follows:
“Thank you Sally for your question.
Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), under European Directive, must be undertaken on any policy documents that propose development – including any along the A34 - to determine the likely environmental impacts. And an assessment of appropriate mitigation must be undertaken to address likely environmental impacts.
So, SEAs are undertaken on all of our Local Plan policies and Environmental Impact Assessments done for all planning applications for sites above a certain size. But this does not include smaller developments.
National planning regulations determine which developments are subject to these assessments and the Council has to work within this legislation. So, in short, I am not able to guarantee that SEAs will be carried out on all development sites that may come forward along the A34.
What the council can do, and will be doing, is reviewing our planning policies, and introducing new policies to try and strengthen environmental protection. We have asked officers to begin work on our next local plan with improving environmental sustainability. We are also looking at whether supplementary planning documents can be used to ‘hang off’ our existing local plan to increase the council ability to insist on more sustainable build standards and increased mitigation of environmental damage.
Again, new supplementary planning documents are something that a Climate Committee would be able to help research and help Councillor Catherine Webber to put into place. And I hope that if you, and anyone else, have specific ideas we would love to hear about them so that we can see what we might be able to take forward”.