Covering note to Press Release (Local Plan Press Release May 2020 Final ) on Wednesday 13th May:
You will be aware, as we are, of the need to start acting on the declaration on the climate emergency that Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council made in July last year. In their declaration the Council promised to work with local people to bring us to “net-zero” by 2030.
We are fast approaching the first anniversary of the declaration; yet little seems to have be done in terms of action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the emergency.
Basingstoke Transition is a group of local volunteers that wants to build awareness of, and take part in, actions to reduce our emissions. We have spent much of our time trying to engage with cabinet members responsible for developing our plans to mitigate the impact of the emergency. We feel we are having only limited success. Despite many emails and meetings, despite attending committee meetings and full council, we can see little (or no) concrete actions to address the immediacy of the emergency. The Council’s main response to date has been to start a process to revise the Local Plan. However, this process is not due to be completed before 2024 at the earliest.
We think this is too little and too late. BTN experts have written a brief report (Initial Contribution to Local Plan May 2020 Final ) on what is causing the climate emergency in Basingstoke and how we might respond to it. It provides a baseline of where the borough is in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions, how that has changed since 2005 and what the main causes are of the emissions. It then goes on to make suggestions on how the borough can start moving towards its “net-zero” by 2030 target. All the data in the report are sourced from national statistics and are fully verifiable and have been produced by experts on climate change.