The City Council’s Draft Climate Change Strategy is probably one of the most important documents to be published in the city for many years. The Coventry Society’s response to the consultation is printed below…..
The Coventry Society welcomes the City Council’s commitment to producing a Climate Change Strategy and urges its swift adoption and implementation. This is all the more urgent given the World Meteorological Organisation’s recent report that there is a 98% chance that the next five years will be the warmest on record; and that among major cities in the UK Coventry is seen to be ‘behind the game’ in its climate change response. Urgency is needed in our Climate Emergency.
We thank Brett Willers and his staff for his time in explaining the detail of the drsft Strategy to us on 4 May, and of the greater detail now available based on Andy Gouldson’s work to define a Net Zero Roadmap for Coventry. This essential information base also provides, among the possible 80+ actions identified in the draft Strategy, some key priorities that the Council ought to consider urgently. Though difficult to achieve, Gouldsons work suggests that their prioritisation will have a greater and more cost-effective payoff for the City. We urge their consideration.
In welcoming the Strategy we do have a number of concerns. These include:
- The need, at a national level, for a clearer steer on Climate Change policies and actions, and the necessity of greater resources to achieve these, particularly in the sphere of planning, transport and infrastructure in order to make a reality of net zero targets locally. Without this national commitment our work locally will be nugatory.
- The uncertainty given by the adoption of different strategic goals and targets compared to the West Midlands Combined Authority, and in particular how this might impact upon transport decarbonisation (seen as the most cost-effective set of measures by Gouldson).
- The difficulty of following through on and monitoring over 80 proposed actions. While we can understand the keenesss to spell out every action that seems necessary we fear that so many actions will lead to a loss of focus. Andy Gouldson’s roadmap suggests priorities for the Council which could be highlighted in the final Strategy.
- The urgency, but the difficulty, of tackling issues in the domestic housing sector. It is in this sector that Andy Gouldson identifies the most carbon-effective options related to insulation and energy efficiency mainly in domestic buildings. In this context, we understand the significance of the forthcoming revision to the Local Plan, and the Coventry Society is engaging with the Council’s planning staff on this crucial work. In particular we understand the need to strengthen, locally, the planning and building regulations insofar as they apply to the construction and refurbishment of domestic dwellings, in order to raise insulation standards as well as broader initiatives to address climate change. We heard also of some interesting initiatives by Citizen Housing and Midland Heart to address the twin concerns of fuel poverty and climate change as well as the Coventry Building Society making mortgages available for households in properties that require major investment for energy insulation. We understand the key challenge is in the private rented sector where tenants rightly fear that insulation investment will drive up rents to an unaffordable level. We urge the Council to seek to address this.
- A certain opacity in the City Council’s work which threatens to fly in the face of greater public engagement. Two examples are clear: the lack of any public involvement in the commisioning and procurement of a ‘strategic energy partner’ which is currently underway and to be concluded by the end of 2023; and the membership and transparency of the work of the City’s Climate Change Board, which excludes all but one voluntary organisation and appears to work without regard to the necessity of informing the citizens of this city about its work. Greater openness in addressing our climate crisis will surely garner public support.
- In relation to public suppport we would urge much greater focus on engagement at the neighbourhood level in the City, so that the Strategy and its actions don’t represent things being ‘done to’ its citizens but involve them fundamentally in designing and achieving some of the worthy ideas in the Strategy. As a Society we will always seek to work with others, and indeed we will, if requested, work with other voluntary organisations to promote the engagement work necessary.
- Finally, while we understand the need for the various themes in the Strategy we do feel that the details and actions in relation to the theme of Equitable Development are absolutely fundamental in achieving a ‘just transition’ in the City and we would urge greater public explanation of the ideas within this part of the draft Strategy.
Coventry Society
26/05/2023