 Give us your views
We are currently reviewing our Climate Emergency newsletter, and want to hear from you.
Can you spare a couple of minutes to tell us what you like about the newsletter and what you would like to see changed?
 Help us make walking and cycling easier
We’d like everyone who lives or works in Wokingham borough, or visits regularly, to share their thoughts on two proposals to make walking and cycling around it safer and more accessible.
From 11 July to 19 August, we’re firstly seeking people’s views on our draft Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) – a strategic document which suggests improvements around the borough to help people walk, wheel, scoot or cycle and will be used to apply for funding.
The finished version will be completed in the autumn but will always be open to updates and new ideas. It will outline the most beneficial active travel routes and propose specific measures in places where the community wants them, subject to funding and further public consultation.
Between these dates, we’re also inviting comments on our revised plans for a new £4 million cycling and walking link from Woodley to Palmer Park, at the Reading borough boundary, to be mostly funded by significant contributions from the Department for Transport’s Active Travel Fund.
This was amended in response to your concerns about a design earlier this year and no longer includes a proposed one-way system on a section of Woodlands Avenue, between Lytham Road and Howth Drive.
 Line your caddy with environmentally friendly items
To help tackle the climate emergency, we've decided not to supply any more food caddy liners, which are made of non-biodegradable single-use plastic.
Production and disposal of the caddy liners results in greenhouse gas emissions and often ends up polluting our rivers and seas.
Instead of using a single-use plastic bag, you can line your kitchen caddy with a compostable liner, newspapers or any soft plastic bag that can easily be found at home, such as carrier bags, bread bags, cereal bags or fruit and vegetable bags.
You can also instead line the bottom with newspaper or used kitchen paper, emptying it into the outdoor caddy, or not use a liner at all and wash both between uses - using grey water to save on wastage.
We understand from a survey conducted last October that when it comes to waste collections, the most important thing to our residents are the environment benefits.
We've therefore decided to stop supplying more than five million single-use plastic kitchen caddy liners a year and we’d appreciate your support as this is good for the environment.
For the same reason, we have also decided not to include food caddy liners in our annual delivery of blue bin bags to residents from 2023.
This decision will also save money as the cost of providing caddy liners was around £75,000 this year, with the estimated cost for next year just under £120,000 if they were ordered today – and the price would likely be even higher by the time they were actually ordered.
 Go plastic-free in the workplace
Plastic Free July® is a global movement to encourage people to reduce plastic waste for the whole month.
A lot of plastic is used in our workplaces - you can easily find plastic cups, cutlery, teabags, biscuit packets and more in your office pantry.
A research and consulting firm has suggested that the UK may be using as many as five billion disposable coffee cups a year.
You can play a part in reducing the amount of plastic used in your workplace. Here are some of the things that you can do whenever you go to work:
- Carry a bag for life or tote bag with you
- Keep a reusable coffee cup in your bag or on your desk
- Switch to loose-leaf tea or a tea-bag brand that doesn’t contain plastic
- Bring your lunch into work in reusable containers and use your own cutlery
- Carry a reusable water bottle
 Climate community events
This month we have run two events bringing like-minded people together to talk and learn about what they can do to help combat climate change.
Our first teachers’ summit was held at Holme Grange School on 8 July with delegates from 15 schools across the borough attending.
Delegates shared the work they are doing in their own schools, worked together to look at how climate can be brought into the wider curriculum and got information from a range of local services. The learning is set to continue after the event, with a newly created Climate Teachers Forum, facilitated by us and open to all schools in the borough.
Acorn Community Centre in Woosehill ran a Waste Action Day on 12 July, with stalls from our teams and partners including My Journey, Too Good To Go, Hawthorns School, SHARE and Optalis.
Attendees had the opportunity to try food made using leftovers, pedal their way to smoothies using our smoothie bike and vote for what items they'd like to be able to recycle at the centre through Ali's recycling, a local community recycling scheme.
 Action plan is highly commended
We are delighted to have been awarded Highly Commended at this year’s MJ Awards in the category Leadership in Responding to the Climate Emergency.
The award was judged by peers across local government, including the CEO of ADEPT, the association for council service directors, Strategic Director of Climate Response (Local Partnerships) and CEO of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.
The action plan, which earlier this year was rated 10th best nationally by Climate Emergency UK, provides a high level of detail about the council’s carbon targets and how it is planning to achieve them in collaboration with partners and the local community.
The MJ Awards have been held every year since 2004 and celebrate the best in local government services and personnel. The award ceremony is one of the major events within the public sector.
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