Select Committee on Communities and Local Government Committee Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 55-59)

COUNCILLOR IAN MEARNS, DR PHILIP WEBBER AND MR OLIVER MYERS

12 NOVEMBER 2007

  Q55 Chair: Can we ask you just to say who each of you is and what you do within the LGA?

  Dr Webber: Philip Webber, Head of the Environment Unit, Kirklees Council.

  Councillor Mearns: Ian Mearns, and I am Vice-Chair of the LGA's environment board and Deputy Leader of Gateshead Council.

  Mr Myers: Oliver Myers. I am Interim Head of Sustainability at the London Borough of Camden. I also chair a national network of energy officers called UK HECA.

  Q56  Chair: We do not want all of you to answer every question, and I will leave it to you to decide who answers what. That seems most appropriate. Can I start off, and obviously we are going to focus in this bit of the session on local authorities and their particular role. What would you say are the major policy tools available to local authorities to encourage more energy-efficient housing within their area and what more you think government should be doing to support you?

  Councillor Mearns: Good evening and thank you very much for the invitation to come along. We had an environment board meeting just last Thursday when we outlined priorities for our work for the year as an environment board. We have obviously highlighted three areas, which are our main work programme, though I think all of them involve the agenda this evening. First and foremost, it is tackling climate change as an entity, the second one is housing and the third one is waste management, and they all have an impact on the climate change agenda. I understood that this evening's inquiry session was going to be focusing on the present housing stock.

  Q57  Chair: Exactly. We are talking about the existing housing stock and its relationship to climate change, not the other topics that you mentioned. It is really in that specific area: what mechanisms local authorities have to influence that in their areas.

  Councillor Mearns: I think local authorities have started to talk about climate change in a very serious way, and it is one thing talking about it and another thing doing something tangible about it. As you are probably aware, something like 280 authorities have now signed up to the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change but it is a big thing, changing that signature of a declaration into actual action on the ground. Having said that, I talk from my own local authority perspective, and I would think ne'er a week goes by without our own Cabinet discussing climate change, carbon emissions, what we are doing as a local authority. Every week we are discussing issues with of that kind. For instance, a Warm Zone within our borough which has a budget of about £22 million funded by energy generation companies and which is putting cavity wall insulation and loft insulation into about 70% of the properties in the whole of the borough. That is vitally important from our perspective as a local authority in as much as it is providing a great service to local people, tackling fuel poverty, but also making sure that there is a fantastic reduction in the energy consumption of the properties in our area. That is an example.

  Q58  Chair: Is that your Decent Homes programme?

  Councillor Mearns: No, it is separate to the Decent Homes work.

  Q59  Chair: So it is owner-occupiers?

  Councillor Mearns: As well, yes, and private rented and the social landlord sector as well. That is a "for instance" but, as a local authority as well, we do need to look at a whole range of issues: what are we doing ourselves in terms of energy procurement for the buildings that we own and run services from: schools, social services establishments, housing departments, et cetera.


 
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