Update 5/4/20 We are meeting by Zoom for our First-Tuesday-of-month business meetings, starting Tues 7th April 2020 – please email secretary <at> basingstoketransition <dot> org if you want to “attend”.
Here is a link to the 2020 Coronavirus Act – which gives the government a lot of power to modify the workings of local government by regulation (without parliamentary scrutiny).
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents/enacted
BTN wants to protect its members from infection, but we are also aware that the need for “transition” is not reduced in the long term by the effects of the current situation. We’ve had to cancel our AGM, planned for 5th May. We hope to continue our monthly business meetings on the first Tuesday of the month by teleconferencing – watch this space.
The Borough Planning and Development Committee meeting on Tuesday 24th March, which was meant to hear the Manydown outline planning application, was cancelled. The plans under consideration had been drawn up before the Council declared a climate emergency, so we had written to the committee (BTNtoBDBCDevelCtteeMarch2020ManydownFinal223k) expressing our concern. We have been advocating a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) (mheathtomruffellSPDforclimatechange81k) to enact the provisions of the climate emergency declaration in the current Local Plan.
We were engaged with the Council in planning Green Week 2020 for 19th-26th September and we’ll let you know when we know more about this.