Three public questions have been submitted.

Ms Susan Kortlandt had submitted two questions.

1.     To the leader and to the leaders of the opposition parties - What is the total carbon footprint of Brentwood Council from all its current operations, including housing, offices and works?

Response from Cllr Hossack:

I think as a bit of a clue in your question, it's not an insignificant task to baseline the carbon footprint of all of our operations including 2500 houses,  multiple halls, Brentwood Centre, our depot, multiple fleets of vehicles and cars and those things are changing all the time.  You have rightly illustrated that is a very large task and as a Council, as an organisation, as an employer this is probably the largest task of any organisation in Brentwood.   This is the development of a strategy as a piece of work and our newly appointed Climate & Sustainability Officer is undertaking this baselining exercise will bring the information together on the carbon footprint and it will form part of the baseline that our performance will be measured against moving forward. 

Response from Cllr Aspinell:

I hope that whatever details we get back includes our council housing which is considerable.  I look forward to that report when it comes to us.

Response from Cllr Barrett:

To add to points made, I think in terms of the council, this is a big piece of work but there are several London boroughs and other councils in the East of England that already have done these equations and this summaries which would be able to work from.  There is a suitable it's a carbon workbook for local authorities that again we can work from and have these figures appear in turn at the same time.  There is also a wider piece of work, it's not necessarily just our emissions day-to-day but our capital carbon, how much carbon we put when we're building new things especially when at construction phase.  In construction, laying concrete is one of the most carbon intensive things you can do.  As a council that's building we have to think how we net off or produce alternatives to reduce those emissions as well as we develop.  I think that's very important in terms of the future planning as well. 

2.     I note that the Council is preparing an Environmental Strategy aimed at taking the “Council and the Borough” towards Zero Carbon 2040”. How will you ensure that progress is being made?

Will there be intermediate targets, scrutiny, and control measures? By when do you intend the Council’s own operations to be carbon neutral?

Response from Cllr Hossack:

A strategy has been created which will be published next year and will identify where we as an authority we want to be and by when.  The strategy will lead to clear targets and objectives identifying appropriate areas of work the council should concentrate on that will create the most reward in this sector.  In doing so, measures be put into place with the mechanism to record and publish achievements against the targets.  The strategy will also seek to identify when the council will aim to become carbon neutral and the measures and steps the council will need to take in order to achieve that objective.   The council has set an overall aim to be carbon neutral by 2040 as your question says  - once a baseline has been established in relation to your first question for the council's own operations a more specific target can be set.

Response from Cllr Aspinell:

I look forward to all the data coming forward but as well as looking at carbon neutral for the housing that this council intends to develop itself we should also be looking at our local development plan and where it is possible adding into that that no buildings should be built unless they are carbon neutral on any of the sites this council has identified for building which is considerable.  I think the last count 7 000, that's a lot of housing and that's an awful lot of carbon emission.  The materials that are used for the building of those housing as the Labour Leader said, has a significant amount of carbon production for producing those materials so it isn't a quick and easy solution that some politicians might think it is.  It needs an awful lot of legislation before we can look at this in reality and bring forward significant carbon reduction.

Response from Cllr Barrett:

I think in terms of your point, scrutiny wise in reality this has to become a key scrutiny in a key scheme of work for the Audit & Scrutiny Committee.  If progress is to be made it needs to be monitored and that needs to make sure it isn't a green washing exercise.  It's actually a statistically significant observable relationship with the programme.  In terms of intermediate targets and when we look at other large scale organisations when they start their carbon program we have a net zero target that council said 2040.  I still think you'll be more ambitious than a 2030 target it's more than viable but to the same extent what most large organisations find is that the first 50% is actually the low-hanging fruit that could be achieved rather rapidly to achieve rapidly so actually the year that the first five year ambition is the really important one and then it gets progressively harder unfortunately but actually if we set a big ambition to hit early on, I think that's a viable and sensible plan to have.  That  level of ambition also sets a mark in the sand that we could be marked against rather than the long term 2040 target which will rely on new technologies to appear actually what we can do now probably can get us halfway let's set that ambition let's make it.

Ms Alison Ingleby submitted one question.

1.                  Kimpton Avenue is seen as a quiet road but it experiences speeding vehicles and is a cut through between Doddinghurst Road and Ongar Road. We would like to know what influence the council has with Essex County Council?

Highways Dept to address this issue before there is a fatality, more damage to parked cars and theft of vehicles.

We support a traffic calming scheme, cameras and a speed reduction to 15 or 20 miles per hour in our road and in other residential roads.

We have learnt that there is traffic scheme in Chelmsford Road, South Woodford, where speed cameras are installed, residents register their vehicles and anyone not registered and speeding is caught on camera. This may have helped track the thieves that used our road as a cut through following a burglary in the town centre and also a resident's work van stolen (despite having a tracker fitted), both events happened within the last 2 months.

In the meantime, several residents are willing to undertaking speed gun training and put monitoring in place as this may be a deterrent in the short term.

Response from Cllr Hossack:

I too live on a cut-through road that cuts through between Ongar Road and Doddinghurst Road in the same way that yours does.  It probably has five times the properties on there significantly narrower and has far more congestion in terms of parked cars so I fully appreciate the situation that you're in.  I'll answer your question in two parts, it may be something Cllr Aspinell might be more appropriate for him to come into.  I notice we've been doing cross-leader question responses tonight which is absolutely fine with me but the simple answer is we're not the highway authority of Brentwood Council and we don't have any sway.  The way the system works is Tier One government is Highway Authority and you have elected representatives to the Tier One  – Essex County Council highway authority - one of whom is Cllr Aspinell who I actually understand has been on the case with this already and he might well respond with that.  So we don't have any sway it's as simple as that and if you multiplied it out and I’ve made the point of beginning saying you're not alone in and I feel your pain.  Essex County Council have a limited budget, some great ideas that you've brought forward there in terms of what could be done but of course they all come at a price.  You mentioned speed cameras and revenue as though we could make money out of it - we don't make any money from speeding offences at all - it is a County matter and I'm sure Cllr Aspinell will assist you in there - he is your advocate to the highway authority.  In terms of the secondary point, you talked about the speed watch that we can help you with.  I understand that some of our officers and local Councillors have already been talking to residents about setting that up which is quite simple.  I understand they are speaking to some residents at Kimpton Avenue and that we can do what is within our sphere of influence so very simply - that's great news if residents want to volunteer to be speed watchers - we'll get them trained up.   Please contact daniel.canon@brentwood.gov.uk  he will respond and you can put in there that you raised is a question and I gave him gave you his email address in this meeting he's the coordinator and he will gladly help you. 

Response from Cllr Aspinell:

The Leader is right, although I wouldn’t say Brentwood Council has no influence whatsoever because they have Members from Brentwood Council on the Local Highways Panel and it's the Local Highways Panel that will agree or disagree to any highway measures that we would like to introduce into your road.  I have taken the opportunity already of requiring funding for a speed survey to be carried out in Kimpton Avenue, Warescot Road and Robin Hood Road so that we can get an idea of the total speed in that one area – this might be useful going forward if we can classify those roads as a cut through going forward.  With the cameras, I totally agree we don't get a penny for that, neither Councils do  - the Police receive the finding I think.  The police are not welcoming speed cameras in our roads anymore but that's not to say that we can't apply.  There are other types of cameras - average speed cameras - that are used elsewhere which may be the case in South Woodford and I do not know, which work on a different basis but yes, I fully support everything you would try to put in place.  As for the speed watch, Pilgrim's Hatch Community Partnership have a fully trained group of people who go out and do speed watch regularly agreed by the police.  They have a speed gun that they purchased and they would be more than willing to share with Brentwood North so that's all a step in the right direction. 

Point of order from Cllr Hirst – the Police do welcome speed cameras.