Herefordshire is on a rapid journey towards achieving zero carbon by 2030 to create a county that we all want in the future. Like many places across the UK, Herefordshire declared a climate emergency in 2019 which was followed by the development of a Climate and Nature Action Plan involving people across the county.
At last week’s parish council meeting, David Hitchiner, Leader of Herefordshire Council (HC) discussed “Herefordshire’s Journey to Net Zero Carbon” where he presented the what’s planned for 2023.
The document was prepared by Dr Ellie Chowns, Cabinet Member for Environment and Economy at HC. It outlines what has been achieved so far and what we can expect this year.
Priority projects for 2023 include:
• Active travel – walking
• Home energy efficiency audits
• Decarbonisation of corporate buildings
• Decarbonising/Electrifying the school transport fleet
• On street residential electric charge points
• Energy and Climate Business Conference
• Supporting the development of the retrofit supply chain and PAS 2035 skills training
• School travel plan support
• Taxi and private hire low carbon strategy
• Farm carbon audits
• Business energy audits
• Renewables survey
• Updating the LCLIP for Herefordshire
• Herefordshire Council Tree Management Plan
• Developing zero carbon website
The Built and Natural Environment team have also undertaken various projects to address the Climate and Ecological Emergency:
• Development of the Nature Strategy which sets out a series of priority actions for the council to address both the ecological emergency and wider benefits including climate change.
• Due to commence working on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and Nature Recovery Network Mapping which will identify land for proposed habitat restoration this may well include the creation of woodland, orchard, tree planting which will increase carbon sequestration.
• We have also recently had sign off to commission a tree management plan for the councils own land this will set out good practice in terms of tree planting, management and replacement and will advise on a strategy for Ash die Back to ensure removal only where necessary and replacement planting of a wide variety of species to ensure longevity of the trees in situ. We are proposing to include within the management plan a mechanism to assess level of carbon sequestration our tree coverage brings within the county.
• We are also involved in a number of biodiversity projects to offset highways maintenance; including tree planting within areas of open space within the market towns and tree, shrub and hedgerow planting at our wetland sites.
For more info go to https://zerocarbon.herefordshire.gov.uk/