Agenda and minutes

The Chair, County Councillor David Staveley, welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies were received from County Councillors David Jeffels (County Councillor Andy Paraskos substituting) and County Councillor John Cattanach.

Resolved –

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 11 July 2022, having been printed and circulated, be taken as read and confirmed and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

County Councillor Steve Mason declared a pecuniary interest in agenda item 5 as a business he holds a directorship in is referenced within the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative report.

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have delivered notice (to include the text of the question/statement) to Will Baines of Legal and Democratic Services (contact details below) no later than midday on Monday 17 October 2022. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:-

·         at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);

·         when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chairman who will instruct those taking a recording to cease while you speak.

No public questions or statements were received.

Considered – A report from the Climate Change Policy Officer on the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative and the development of the consultation draft of the Climate Strategy for North Yorkshire Council.

Key points in the report included:

·       Over the past two years, the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Y&NY LEP) has been leading on the development of the York and  North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative (the ‘Routemap’), which provides a clear, co-owned plan to achieve net zero for the region by 2034 and carbon negative by 2040.

·       To ensure the effective implementation of the Routemap, high-level action plans will develop into detailed implementation plans. As part of these implementation plans, key milestones, success criteria and risks registers will be developed to enable performance to be tracked against the interventions set out in the Routemap.

·       In a linked piece of work, the new Climate Change strategy for North Yorkshire Council (NYC) is at working draft stage and outlines the ambitions, themes and principles to be included. The strategy will outline where NYC can best deploy its resources to contribute to the targets in the Routemap.

·       The new NYC Climate Change Strategy will outline the approach the new Council will take to reduce its own emissions and also to encourage and enable residents, businesses, communities and visitors to take ‘climate positive’ actions. This is in respect of not only reducing the causes of climate change but also to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change both on our vulnerable communities and on biodiversity and ecosystems upon which we depend.

·       The approach proposed differs significantly from the current NYCC Carbon Reduction Plan (which focusses on operational activity) as it will include the wider ‘sphere of influence’ and consider how every service can support the achievement of the ambitions.

·       The four key chapters proposed for the draft NYC Climate Change strategy are: Mitigation; Adaption and resilience; Sequestration and carbon capture and Supporting nature.

·       It was noted that partners had raised concerns that Biodiversity was not a standalone chapter, and the merging of chapters three and four has been suggested.

·       The targets and ambitions adopted will reference the UN COP21 targets (The Paris Agreement) to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees. In terms of local targets, it will mirror the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative ambitions and overall target to be a carbon neutral region by 2034 and carbon negative by 2040. Furthermore, NYC will strive to be net zero on operational activity by 2030.

·       The graph at Appendix A of the report on the greenhouse gas emission figures for North Yorkshire shows the addition of Carbon Dioxide in the 2020 data in alongside the Methane and Nitrous Oxide used as part of the 2019 emissions data. It should be noted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Considered – A report of the Assistant Director – Travel, Environment and Countryside on the progress of low and zero emission vehicles.

Some of the key points highlighted in the report are as summarised below:

·       The York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative has set out a number of priorities and actions for the period 2022 - 2027 which include: to decarbonise and increase the use of public transport, enable the shift to low carbon vehicles and enable cleaner logistics.

·       The Routemap has set out high-level targets for transport in York and North Yorkshire concerning the roll-out of battery electric buses, battery electric vehicles and sales of zero emissions heavy good vehicles.

·       Following the Electric Vehicle Charging Deployment Study, funded by the NYCC Beyond Carbon Pump Priming Board, it is hoped to launch a public consultation on the study in late 2022 ahead of the County Council adopting the strategy later this winter. A network planning exercise will take place across North Yorkshire, leading to mass rollout of EVCPs. However, it must be noted that the electric grid infrastructure in the large and small towns is likely to be the greatest constraint on a wide scale rollout.

·       On passenger and public transport, a successful bid to the Government Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas fund (ZEBRA) to improve commercial local bus services will see the entire Harrogate local bus operation converted to electric vehicles and depot upgrades.

·       A longer-term strategy to reduce the impact of home to school contracted transport on the environment is required, as there are supply chain issues with purchasing EV accessible minibuses, making it more difficult to phase out older vehicles.

·       A mix of different technology will be required across the NYCC transport fleet to accommodate the various needs and requirements of the services provided. An Energy Saving Trust review of the fleet is underway that is expected to report later this year.

·       Discussions are planned with district and borough colleagues and waste vehicle suppliers to identify the power requirements of various waste collection routes to inform the most suitable mix of new refuse collection vehicles, with vehicle range a key consideration. There is an electric car and an electric van on order for to allow for operational trials with services.

·       NYCC has been successful in a bid for £2m which focuses on delivering solutions using renewable energy that are aesthetically sympathetic in deeply rural areas where grid upgrades would otherwise be prohibitive and unattractive to the private sector for investment.

·       NYCC is also proposing an exploratory study into winter service decarbonisation and how to reduce the environmental and carbon impact of this service. That work is coupled with a trial this coming winter season, where NY Highways have added two gritters each with an electric body to its fleet. The vehicles have an anticipated fuel saving of up to 20 per cent compared to standard, diesel-powered gritters.

There followed a discussion with the key points as summarised below:

·       Ensuring that there is an equal distribution  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Considered – A report of the Service Waste Manager on the performance of the Allerton Waste Recovery Park for 2021-22.

Some of the key points highlighted in the report are as summarised below:

·       Allerton Waste Recovery Park has been operational since 1 March 2018 and consists of a Mechanical Treatment (MT) plant, an Anaerobic Digestor (AD) and Energy from Waste (EFW) facility to receive and treat residual waste.

·       The recycling/composting of Contract Waste was 1.04% in 2021-22 against a contractual target of 5%. For 2022-23, it is forecast to rise to circa 2.2%.

·       Mechanical issues with the MT equipment required the plant to be periodically run in ‘by-pass’ mode, which means recyclates are not extracted. Since maintenance works have been completed, MT performance has significantly improved, with Amey forecasting availability to be 73% this year, compared to 52% in 2021-22. Compositional analysis is also to take place.

·       It has been challenging to place plastics with a limited number of off-takers due to it being recovered from the residual waste stream, combined with current market volatility.

·       The amount of waste diverted from landfill improved significantly in 2021-22. A diversion rate of 89.4% was achieved in 2021-22, an increase of 8.46% against the previous contract year.

·       The availability of the EFW is an important factor affecting diversion from landfill. The EFW plant was available for more time (+6.5%) in 2021-22 compared to the previous year, which allowed more waste (+12.8%) to be processed. During the 9 months outside of the planned outages, the EFW plant achieved 93.9% availability. The reason for improved availability is due to far fewer unplanned outages arising from defects and operational failures. For example, Amey secured specialist advice from industry experts to trial and identify new refractory linings and fixings to improve longevity and negate the need for repairs prior to planned outages.

·       Allerton Waste Recovery Park welcomed 162 people for onsite tours and delivered virtual sessions to a further 269 members of the public. Amey also continued to develop their education resources and materials engaging with schools, community groups and the libraries service.

·       A number of outreach activities were undertaken over the year including the Great Big Green Week, Pumpkin-Fest and an NYCC COP26 workshop for schools.

·       Contract year 2021-22 is the best year to date for landfill diversion and EfW availability. Works undertaken in April 2022 at the MT plant have benefitted the recycling performance that will be reflected in the 2022-23 update report.

·       In 2022-23, further opportunities are being explored with the district and borough councils, Amey and Yorwaste seeking to optimise the types of waste delivered to the plant to secure continued performance improvements.

There followed a discussion with the key points as summarised below:

·       The 2021-22 recycling performance, missing the 5% contractual target by a long way, was highlighted as a concern. It was asked if waste going into the site could be streamed to improve performance levels.

·       The reliability of the electricity generated on-site and whether there is the opportunity to do  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Identifying areas for future scrutiny.

Considered -

The report of Will Baines, Principal Democratic Services and Scrutiny Officer asking the Committee to confirm, amend or add to the areas of the work listed in the Work Programme schedule.

Resolved -

i.               That the work programme be noted.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 1:10pm.