Agenda and minutes

Mr D Harvey reminded the partnership that he was appointed by West Oxfordshire District Council as a director of the United Sustainable Energy Agency.

Members of the public wishing to speak to the partnership for up to five minutes must register with the committee clerk named above by noon on Thursday (the day before the meeting).

There were no addresses or questions.

                                                                                                            5 minutes

Purpose: To approve the minutes of the meeting of the Oxfordshire Environment Partnership meeting held on 25 January 2013 (attached) and to receive information arising from them.

There will be an update on the progress of the TOE2 woodfuel programme from Tom Mr Tom Flanagan.

The minutes of the Oxfordshire Environment Partnership meeting held on 25 January 2013 were agreed as a correct record and signed as such by the Chairman.

The partnership noted that TOE2’s woodfuel project was progressing.

Presentation only                                                                           10 minutes

Purpose: To provide an update on the background and requirement to develop a Green Infrastructure Framework, and seek views of members.

Ms Vicky Fletcher from Oxfordshire County Council will give a presentation.

Ms Vicky Fletcher, Oxfordshire County Council Historic and Natural Environment Team Leader, gave a presentation on the development of the Green Infrastructure policy or framework.

She explained that the proposed framework was at an early stage and should be complete by March 2014 at the latest. The framework would cover natural environment planning: ensuring that developments included accessible green space; managing existing natural spaces; and planning for their long-term management. It would not replace existing district and county plans but would provide an over-arching county-side policy. Its key use would be as supplementary planning guidance and as to allow new environmental initiatives to be evaluated and targeted as part of an overall strategy.

The partnership:

1.      noted the presentation and thanked Ms Fletcher for this;

2.      requested a further report to a future meeting as the framework progressed; and

3.      suggested that Ms Fletcher discuss a proactive approach on implementing this framework with district and county council senior planning officers.

Report attached                                                                              10 minutes

Purpose: Having signed the Climate Local Commitment at the last meeting, to discuss and seek agreement about the Climate Local Pledges to be published by each authority individually.

The partnership discussed a report setting out the proposed commitments and actions to be included and reported on as part of the Climate Local process.

It was noted that these were drawn from existing commitments and actions undertaken by partner authorities. A more challenging set of commitments could be agreed in future.

The partnership agreed:

1.      to note that no additional resource implications arising from implementing this agreement;

2.      as individual authorities to agree the Climate Local commitments in the appendix to the report and report this decision to the Environment and Energy Strategy Officer by 30 April;

3.      that the commitments agreed by all partner authorities be published on the climate local website as commitments of the whole partnership, and that commitments agreed by some but not all partner authorities be published as such;

4.      to ask officers to develop proposals for further actions to add to the commitments in due course

There were no announcements.

Report attached                                                                  10 minutes

Purpose: To seek agreement for a five-month extension to the current contract agreement.

The Environment and Waste Partnership members considered a report proposing the extension of the current Oxfordshire Green Schools education service contract with the Groundwork Trust for a further five months from 31 October 2013 to 31 March 2014.

Members discussed the impact on schools of finishing the contract part way through the school year but concluded that this was not significant.

Members of the Waste Partnership agreed:

1.      to note the progress of the Oxfordshire Green Schools programme; and

2.      to ask the Groundwork Trust to agree to a five month extension to the current contract, taking the agreement through to 31 March 2014.

With the agreement of the Chairman, this was considered as a joint Environment and Waste Partnership item.

Mr S Kenton, Community Action Group Manager gave a presentation on the work of the Community Action Groups and their environmental, carbon reduction, and waste reduction work.

He outlined the formal and informal work carried out which involved up to 79,000 people in regular or one-off involvement across the county and aimed to make community groups resilient and self-sustaining. Groups worked on reducing waste, energy use, reusing materials, environmental improvements, and on training and skills. The work tied in well with the county’s waste strategy and district strategies. The county council gave funding of £90,000 a year which translated into £500,000 in other funding and volunteer time and aided delivery of other community projects. A community impact tool was in development which would help groups to collect and collate data about the actual impact of their work.

The partnership thanked Mr Kenton for his presentation and congratulated him and the CAG project on the excellent work and the positive impact this had on communities.