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Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. This is a place for us to update you on what we are doing at South Hams District Council and what things are going on around the District. It will tell you what's going on nationally and things you, our residents and businesses, can be doing to reduce your carbon footprint and manage your land to improve the environment and its biodiversity.
If you have anything you would like to include in this newsletter then contact our Climate Change Specialist by email here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Council Updates
New climate emergency planning consultation - Closing Date 21 April 2022
Developers planning to build new homes or any development in Plymouth, the South Hams and West Devon will have to incorporate measures that will help owners tackle climate change as soon as they move in.
Features such as solar panels, ground or air source heat pumps and electric vehicle charging facilities will be fitted as standard on all new homes and commercial buildings under proposals being put forward in the draft Plymouth and South West Devon Climate Emergency Planning Policy and Guidance.
Other measures will see more habitat and green space designed into developments, which increases biodiversity and brings health and wellbeing benefits to residents. These measures will also go some way to mitigate against rising global temperatures.
A consultation has been launched to get the views of residents, campaigners and developers across the area about the proposals, which if approved, could come into effect as early as June.
The proposals would apply to all new planning applications for all new buildings, including some extensions across the Joint Local Plan area – an area covering 2,126 square kilometres, with a population of 401,567.
Since 2014, across the area, around 10,000 new homes have been built and around 14,700 have planning consent with 1,474 currently under construction. The new measures, if they get the green light, would apply to new planning applications only.
Judy Pearce, Chair of the JLP Partnership Board and Leader of South Hams District Council said: “We believe this is the first time this has been tried across the country so we are leading the charge in changing how we want homes to be built for the future.
“We know this is a huge change for developers but at the moment developers and the planning system allow properties to be built that are obsolete before they are even completed. This can’t carry on. It is doing no one any favours.
“What we are asking is for the developers to pay the costs for energy efficient measures as part of the build rather than put the burden on the homeowner a year or two down the line.”
Most of these measures will soon be a requirement under the Government’s new building regulations, and will have to be included in new development. This means the costs will soon be non-negotiable and all three councils are keen to ensure that affordable homes in particular have these features fitted as standard.
Councillor Patrick Nicholson, Deputy Leader of Plymouth City Council said: “If we are serious about tackling climate change, we need to look at these features as standard in all our new build properties, not as nice-to-haves way off in the future.
“Planning policy - local and national – is simply not in step with the climate emergency and we want to change that.”
Plymouth, South Hams and West Devon already work closely together through the Joint Local Plan and councillors across each of the local authorities have signed up to this new policy proposal.
Caroline Mott, Lead Member for the Joint Local Plan for West Devon Borough Council, added: “You only have to see what’s happening in the energy market right now to know how important energy efficient homes are becoming.
“If anything, this will make affordable homes a much more attractive option as energy bills will be considerably lower.
“We would like to start this as soon as possible but we realise development companies who want to submit planning applications would have already had their projects costed and budgeted for. However we would strongly urge them to review their plans through this climate emergency lens.”
The consultation document can be found here www.plymouth.gov.uk/climate-planning
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Devon Climate Emergency Update
Devon Climate Emergency wants to hear from you!
From 17 March to 14 April, Devon Climate Emergency is running a public consultation on the actions they have developed following the Devon Climate Assembly, which took place last summer.
Why are they consulting?
The Devon Climate Assembly discussed three of Devon’s more controversial climate issues: on-shore wind, buildings and transport. These topics were chosen because they have a big impact on people’s everyday lives. The partnership felt, therefore, that it was important to work with the public to determine how these issues should be addressed.
Assembly members came up with a total of 14 resolutions across the three themes.
Over the past few months, the Devon Climate Emergency partnership has worked together to transform these recommendations into deliverable actions to include in the Devon Carbon Plan.
What is the consultation about?
Devon Climate Emergency is asking what you think of these actions.
The consultation will be your chance to say whether the Devon Climate Emergency Partnership has interpreted and responded to the Devon Climate Assembly reasonably and effectively.
This consultation will help to make sure that the actions are fair, democratic and help towards achieving net-zero.
For more information, visit https://www.devonclimateemergency.org.uk/public-consultation/
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Devon Net Zero Innovation Fund - 31 January to 31 March 2022
The Devon Net Zero Innovation Fund is in place to enable collaborations between Devon enterprises and University of Plymouth academic researchers. The aim is to help Devon enterprises to develop new products or services for the low carbon sector, with funding of up to £7,500 per enterprise.
More information is available here: www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/sustainability-hub-low-carbon-devon/devon-net-zero-innovation-fund
SHAKE Climate Change - Deadline 13 May 2022
The SHAKE Climate Change programme is designed to attract entrepreneurs or start-ups that have developed early-stage science or tech-based ideas that can have a significant impact on climate change.
The programme is inviting applications from early-stage ventures with exciting, original, and viable business ideas in agriculture and food production. The aim is to help new businesses to develop sustainable solutions to climate change caused by agriculture.
The programme has a total financial budget of £3.5 million. Over its lifespan, 15 successful ventures will each receive up to a total of £140,000, provided as a convertible interest-free loan. They will also receive two years’ high-quality training and mentoring from leading experts in business and science, to help further develop their ventures.
For further information click here: http://www.shakeclimate.org/
Rewilding Innovation Fund - Deadline 31 March 2022
Rewilding Britain is offering grants of up to £15,000 to help remove barriers to rewilding projects within Britain, whether they’re at the early planning stages or want to move a project one step wilder. The Rewilding Innovation Fund will support rewilding projects on land and at sea, at a scale of more than 40 hectares, that adhere to Rewilding Britain’s rewilding principles.
This is the first of three rounds of funding for 2022. In this round, the focus is on community engagement in rewilding, and priority will be given to projects that are:
- following community ownership models
- implementing community co-design
- developing the health benefits of rewilding, such as social prescribing
The fund aims to support works that could potentially unlock further funding or move your project up the rewilding scale. Examples of potential applications include: business plans and strategies, community engagement activities and co-design, feasibility studies, technology and innovation.
Funds are awarded to projects with potential for the highest impact for people and nature.
Applications will be accepted from members of the Rewilding Network. If you aren’t a Rewilding Network member but would like to be considered, please join before applying. Membership is open to community, private and public landowners and managers of rewilding areas on the land and sea.
Note that you must be rewilding at scale – that is more than 40 hectares of land (or any size of marine project). This can be an individual landholding or a cluster of landholdings. If you’re rewilding at a smaller scale than this, you are strongly encouraged to connect with others to form a local group, network or cluster to work up a project for application.
For further information click here: https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/support-rewilding/the-rewilding-network/rewilding-innovation-fund
Sources of Funding for tree planting in Devon
As of publishing this newsletter, there are over 20 different sources of funding for tree planting in Devon. The Devon Local Nature Partnership manage a list of funding sources which is available here: www.devonlnp.org.uk/our-work/trees-for-devon/sources-of-funding-for-tree-planting-in-devon
Engaging the public on the transition to a low carbon society - 24 March 2022, 2 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.
Join experts from Climate Outreach to explore the latest research and practice on public engagement on the transition to net zero and a low carbon society. Click here to find out more and register.
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Devon Climate Emergency - Responding to the Devon Climate Assembly 22 March 2022, 6 p.m to 7 p.m
Devon Climate Emergency is holding a free online webinar to answer your questions about their public consultation. Find out more about the Devon Climate Assembly, and how this consultation will help create the final Devon Carbon Plan.
Register your place here!
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Nature’s role in tackling the climate crisis (Devon LNP webinar) - 29 March 2022 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.
Join Devon Local Nature Partnership as we learn about nature's role in tackling the climate crisis.
Devon Local Nature Partnership will be joined by a range of fantastic speakers to learn more about nature's role in tackling the climate crisis and how the changing climate is impacting Devon's environments. Click here to find out more and register.
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Perhaps the most important report that will land this year, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its most comprehensive review of climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability since 2014. The report has contributions from 270 authors from 67 countries who were tasked with assessing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human communities at global and regional levels. Some key findings are:
- Climate change is affecting nature, people’s lives and infrastructure everywhere. Its dangerous and pervasive impacts are increasingly evident in every region of our world.
- These impacts are hindering efforts to meet basic human needs and they threaten sustainable development across the globe.
- Since the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report, published in 2014, a wider range of impacts can be attributed to climate change. In other words, there is new knowledge that climate change caused them or made them more likely.
- Changes in the distribution of plants and animals, which are increasingly migrating to the poles, is affecting food webs. In many cases, this reduces the ability of nature to provide the essential services that we depend on to survive – such as coastal protection, food supply or climate regulation via carbon uptake and storage.
- People living in cities nowadays face higher risks of heat stress, reduced air quality because of wildfire, lack of water, food shortages
- adaptation requires urgent, more ambitious and accelerated action and, at the same time, rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
- Today’s young people and future generations will also witness stronger negative effects of climate change on food production and availability. The warmer it gets, the more difficult it will become to grow or produce, transport, distribute, buy, and store food
Is it all too late? in short, no.
The IPPC states that one key to success is acknowledging climate, biodiversity, and human society as a coupled system, meaning that all components are interlinked. Conservation and climate change responses should be planned and implemented together, while keeping in mind that only diverse and healthy ecosystems offer the best chance of success. Protecting and restoring ecosystems on land and in the ocean is therefore a key element for success.
Relying on nature alone is not enough - a wide range of actions that reduce human-induced greenhouse gas emissions is needed alongside transformative actions in the way we live our lives.
Climate Resilient Development will only be possible with fundamental changes in five major areas:
1) in our world’s energy systems;
2) in the way we use, manage and safeguard the land and freshwater, the oceans and their respective ecosystems;
3) in the way cities and infrastructure are planned, built, organized and governed;
4) in the way our economies and industries function
5) in the way our societies function on a local, national and international level.
Reporting to the Associated Press on Monday 28th February, German vice chancellor and minister for climate and economy Robert Habeck told the AP “Hope is the right one.” and “Fear is not a good advisor and never is”. Katherine Hayhoe added "what’s needed is realism, action and hope."
The full report can be found here
In addition a helpful FAQ can be found here
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