Agenda and minutes

Agreed as an accurate record.

For the Committee’s review into Reducing the Council’s Carbon Footprint the following information was received to help Members with their review:-

Decentralised Energy – Heat and Power – This was an area which the Committee had expressed interest in and reference was made to the possible use of the Former EMI / Old Vinyl Factory site for a Heat and Power Network.

Officers reported that the site was a privately owned development site and the onus would be on the applicant to consider the suitability of a network. The Council could not force the developer to provide a large scale decentralised network.

Discussions would have to take place with the developers for the site. Reference was made to the GLA who were the lead authority in London on new networks and had access to 'start up funds' for such initiatives 

Reference was made to the availability of funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change for investigating the feasibility for Decentralised Energy and the Energy Manager would take this forward.

Absorption Chilling- This was a process which was used in the summer to convert hot water to cool water. Members were informed that Absorption Chilling was cost effective and more economical than electrical chillers and therefore would reduce energy costs. The Energy Manager would provide an outline of the feasibility for absorption chilling to be introduced at the Civic Centre.

Anaerobic Digestion (AD)- At the last meeting of the Committee, Members asked about the feasibility of having an AD plant on land at New Years Green Lane. Officers reported that the land at New Years Green Lane was designated contaminated land and under the control of the Environment Agency as a Special Site.

The Council would need Environment Agency consent and approval and in addition the land was within the Metropolitan Green Belt and therefore, along with the normal planning application the Council would have to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to change the use of the land.

Reference was made to food waste which was already transported into the Civic Amenity site at New Years Green Lane and if an AD plant was developed on the site there would be less traffic exiting the site which would benefit local residents.

In relation to the volumes of organic waste, Members were informed that the weekly collection service for a mix of both garden and kitchen waste would receive approximately 13,000 tonnes of material annually. This was sent to an in-vessel composting plant. An additional 4,000 tonnes of garden waste was received at the two Household Waste & Recycling Centres, which was sent to windrow and in-vessel composting systems.

There would be cost benefits to the Council as the current food waste was not recycled at the site but was a cost to the Council, as food waste was currently taken away to be recycled. An AD plant would recycle food waste and reduce this cost. Potential contracts could be made with local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

The Committee considered the comments from this Committee and the Council’s other Policy Overview Committees on Cabinet’s budget proposals for 2014/15.

The Committee updated the comments made by this Committee on the budget proposals within their remit.

RESOLVED –

1. That the full set of Policy Overview Committee comments on the budget proposals be submitted to the Cabinet meeting on 13 February 2014.

Noted.

Noted.