Panel of Experts or Climate Assembly?

Horsham's cabinet member for Environment and Rural Affairs has pinned his flag to a proposal for a Panel of Experts to be established to 'build on the work that the Council is already doing and set a framework for engaging with partners and the wider community' (see agenda Item 11 of June's cabinet meeting).  Those cabinet papers also state that 'The Environment and Rural Affairs Policy Development Advisory Group received a presentation on the proposal in this report on 16th May. The Group had some initial reservations about the approach, as it wanted to ensure that there would be adequate resident and business engagement.'  This somewhat neglects to mention that both Green (Mike) and LibDem members of that PDAG expressed a strong preference for a Climate Assembly!  Subsequently several pointed questions were asked by LibDem members at the June cabinet meeting.

Clearly this has struck a chord with the Horsham and Crawley LibDem party, to the extent that they have created an online petition, which Mike's happy to support.  I suspect that next week's council meeting could be 'interesting'...

And just for the record, I seconded the original 2019 LibDem climate emergency motion, and think that, for the community in Horsham District to get on board with action needed to both minimise climate change and improve climate change resilience, the action plan needs to come from the community, not be directed from above!

Is water neutrality good enough?

Natural England's September 2021 position statement effectively stops any development that is likely to increase water abstraction from the Adur catchment, but is this good enough?  Consider the key indicator species Anisus vorticulus, which has been affected to the point of extinction in the Arun Valley Special Area of Conservation.  (See, for example, the Arun Valley and Water Neutrality - FAQs - Developers.) 

As this is the current status quo then, logically, it follows that current levels of abstraction may still be leading to species decline, and what's needed is a reduction in current consumption levels, not maintaining the current level!  We councillors have some interesting times ahead...