Councillor mileage allowance

At its budget setting meeting on 25th March, Blaby District Council took the courageous step of limiting the mileage rate for Councillors using their cars on Council business to 40p/mile. This compares with the agreed national rates for Council staff of 42.9p for engines up to 999cc, 47.7p for engines up to 1199cc and 60.1p for engines above 1200cc.
The amazing think was that the the new rates were proposed by the Conservative cabinet as part of their cost saving initiatives for the new financial year. The proposal was enthusiastically supported by the Liberal Democrat Group on the Council.
Blaby District Council runs an all party Climate Change Group, which is looking at all energy use in Council activities. The first response when the question of mileage rates was raised was that the Council was bound by national agreements. However the (Conservative) Cabinet lead member for the Environment followed this up and found that the Council could make its own decision.
The big challenge now is to persuade all staff to follow the Councillors lead and accept a lower mileage rate. It may be that this will have to be done over a number of years to allow staff members to switch to cars with lower running costs and of course lower emissions.
The Council is also working on a 'Travel to Work' plan. Early analysis shows that over 75% of staff travel to work by car alone. There is still some way to go to formulate a policy and again it should be introduced progressively so that staff have time to adjust. Watch this space for developments.

85% reduction in emission from homes

Camden and Islington Councils organised a conference to highlight the massive reductions in energy use in homes that can be gained by using Passivhaus technology developed in Germany over 20 years ago. The saving can be 85% and this will go a long way to achieving the Government Code Level 6 target of zero carbon homes. Simon Hughes the keynote speaker at teh Conference strongly supported the technology and urged Councils to included the passivhaus standard in their planning documents. Over 160 architects, planners, builders and Councillors attended the Conference which was supported by the Building Research Establishment, Inbuilt Ltd, Passivehaus Buildings and WARM.
In spite of the fact that the Government has issued 'guidelines' for its Code Level Targets for housebuilding, they do not seem to have made any attempt to promote Passivehaus or any other low energy house technology, prefering to leave the industry to promote it. Understandably, industry is reluctant to move without a definite steer from Government, which it is not getting.
Liberal Democrat Councils, like Cambridge, are stepping into the breech and are beginning to incorporate these kinds of technologies into their planning regulations, in the teeth of opposition from the industry and the Government's own inspectors.

Third Time Lucky?

The Government having not done very well with two recent energy saving programmes (zero-carbon homes and replacement boilers) are hoping that they will be third time lucky with the newly announced renewables programme. They appear to be offering up to 36p/kWh (notice the up to) as a feed in tariff for solar panels plus an extra 6p for anything fed into the grid. As the solar insolation in winter is only one fifth of that in summer over the UK, it looks like most of the power will be fed into the grid in summer when the demand on the system in lowest, but then you can't have everything. The Renewable Energy Association and the Wind Energy Association are pleased, Consumer Groups and Friends of the Earth are not so pleased.
Liberal Democrat Councils will evaluate the potential of the scheme for their areas and inform residents fully of the benefits and drawbacks. Those Councils with planning functions will assess how they build renewable schemes into their planning policies if they have not already done so.

Another Almost a Waste of Time

A government scheme to promote 'zero carbon' house design and construction has resulted in only 24 approvals since its launch in 2007. The proposal was to scrap all stamp duty on homes up to £500k if they were designed and constructed for 'zero carbon' emissions.
This is yet another example of the Labout Government putting spin before substance. The scheme was launched as usual to a fanfare and has produced a very small result.
Presumably the aim was to encourage innovative design and construction of homes and enable developers to try a number of different schemes to evaluate them for cost effectiveness. A very laudable aim, but hopeless implementation.
What chance is there of all homes being 'carbon free' by 2016 which is the government's target? Very little I imagine. In fact the targets set for carbon emission reduction in new homes is still not enshrined in building regulations and Local Authorities which have tried to impose them have been fought by developers. Only Liberal Democrat run Councils are challenging the building industry, stipulating emission reduction targets in any meaningful way and attempting to co-ordinate targets to set developers a level playing field.

New boilers for old

As usual, the Government is great on announcements, poor on delivery. It's a good initiative to subsidise the installation of new efficient boilers for old inefficient ones. Unfortunately the amount of funding is only enough to benefit a very small proportion of the installed boilers in the UK and this has led to a rush to find out more information and the relevant page of the Energy Saving Trust web site crashing. In addition the industry representative from the Association of Plumbing and Heating Contractors has said that the resources of their members will be overstretched for a short time, then it will all go dead.
Its clear that the Government did not listen to what the industry said about the scheme. In any case it should have been rolled out through local authorities not the EST, but this Government has totally refused to give any powers of action (as distinct from Scrutiny) to local authorities. Only the Liberal Democrats will do that.
This is just one small sign of Government incompetence on teh green agenda. If you want a really big one, look no further than the proposals to generate 25% of our electrictiy from off-shore wind by 2020. There is no industry to deliver it and no thought has been given to the masses of electricity which will be sloshing round an electricity grid which has been developed on a model of large power stations consistently pushing power in one direction to users. What a mess!

Is your Council paying people to pollute?

Is your Council paying people to pollute? I know my Council is. The milage rates paid to employees (and Councillors) on my local Council for casual users are:- 451-999cc - 42.9p/m; 1000-1199cc - 47.7p/m and above 1200cc - 60.1p/m. So the bigger the engine, the more CO2 emitted and the more people are paid. I'm asssured by our officers that these are the nationally agreed rates, although this has not stopped us paying a generous milage rate for those who cycle.
The first question is - 'Is there any Council out there which pays a fixed rate irrespective of engine size or a LOWER milage allowance for bigger engines?'
I would like to suggest that LibDem Councils propose a change to this system when they are next up for national negotiation. As a starter may I propose that for the next 3 years all casual users are paid at the same mean rate. In this way users with small cars will benefit and big car users will be penalised. From year 4 onwards, all milage payments should be based on CO2 emissions of the vehicle, with the milage rate INCREASING, the lower the emission and vice versa.
In the interests of fairness, the TOTAL amount of milage paid out should reflect the TOTAL cost of all casual car usage for a Council.

LibDems and the Age of Stupid

I submitted this Blog to LibDem Voice, but they ignored it. They thought a spat about the Tory Christmas card was more important! I stuck to their rules as well by not putting it here first. So here it is now:-
A group of talented people calling themselves Team Stupid have produced a film called 'The Age of Stupid' where someone living in a future world devasted by climate change looks back at the stupidity of today's politicians. The film was direct by Franny Armstrong and starred Pete Postlethwaite. In March this year the film was shown to an audience which included Ed Miliband, the Climate Change minister. He subsequently attended a meeting with Team Stupid at which Franny proposed to him that the UK should reduce emissions by 10% in 2010. Miliband took no notice but these artist folk went on with it anyway. they set up a web site www.1010uk.org and started campaigning.
Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes supported the campaign. LibDem groups in 4 'Core Cities' Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle have committed to it and Simon Hughes now has a list of 20 LibDem Councils, representing 3.5m people, committed as well. However, it's no surprise that when Simon proposed that Parlaiment sign up government departments to take part, Labour should reject his proposal.
its really exciting that a group of artists and a film maker should have made an impact in such a short time. All LibDems should be campaigning on this. I really hope that all LibDem run Councils sign up to 10:10 and really make it happen. All LibDem opposition groups should follow Simon's lead and put a motion to their Councils. I have begun a web site to help LibDem Councils to work together on Climate Change issues www.libdem-ccn.org.uk. Let's really go for this and show that 'Only the Liberal Democrats have the principles, the policies and the political will to act on Climate Change.'