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Government Consultation on The future for small-scale low-carbon generation

This seeks to identify the challenges and opportunities from small-scale low carbon electricity generation in contributing to government’s objectives for clean, affordable, secure and flexible power. It also seeks information on the role for government and the private sector in overcoming these challenges and realising these opportunities.

This call for evidence is aimed at individuals and groups with any interest in the small scale low carbon industry. In particular the government is seeking views from affected individuals, energy suppliers, and industry, including manufacturers suppliers and installers.

Consultation closes 30th August

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-for-small-scale-low-carbon-generation-a-call-for-evidence

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Reading & Caversham flood scheme consultation

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Map showing Proposed flood alleviation scheme for Reading and Caversham (option 3)

 

The Environment Agency has just finished a consultation on a proposed flood alleviation scheme for Reading and Caversham. This finished on the 26th July but you can view the plans here:

 

The website describes what happens next:

The Environment Agency will consider all of the following information and use it together to make a decision on which, if any of the options we will take forward.

  • Landowners wishes, as shared through results of this consultation, feedback from individual meetings and feedback from the landowner drop-in held on the 26 June 2018.
  • Public views, as shown by the results of this consultation and feedback gathered at our public drop-ins.
  • Planning application requirements and recommendations.
  • Technical restrictions. When we develop the detail of the design we may discover physical restrictions that have not shown up during our initial investigations, these could include space available for construction, size of foundations required, archaeological findings, endangered species, to name a few. Any such findings could mean that we have to change the detail of the option or even consider a different, previously discounted option.
  • Cost of the proposal and funding available. The project would be partly funded by central government, but there is still a need to find more funding, for example from organisations and businesses that will benefit.
  • The time it will take to design, build and construct
  • Maintenance. We would need to agree who would be responsible for maintaining any new structures before putting a new structure in place.
  • Wildlife and landscape. If we develop an option then wildlife and landscape will be taken into consideration, and where possible we will look to improve landscape and habitat. We will always mitigate for any habitat and species that has been unavoidably impacted as a result of work we do to reduce flooding.

 

There is an opportunity here to take advantage of some of the £2.8 billion that the government has made available for flood alleviation, between now and 2021. All schemes will need to be partnership funded though so we will need to raise money to make this happen.

Hopefully, we can get the consultants to model the impacts of climate change on future River Thames floods. We do expect floods to be bigger and more frequent in the future so it is important that we prepare. It is not just people’s houses and businesses that will be affected in a big flood: notice that both Caversham and Reading bridges could be affected, which would have knock-on affects for many people trying to live and work in the town.

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Meeting with Matt Rodda

I had a good meeting with Matt Rodda (MP for East Reading) this afternoon. We talked about the plans that we have for the RCCP over the next couple of years, and what Matt can do to help us out. Of particular interest:

  • As we update the Reading Climate Change Strategy next year, we can identify regulatory barriers that are blocking our progress on energy saving and preparing for climate change. Matt will be able to help push for changes through parliament.
  • I talked about the need to develop an Adaptation Plan for Reading. This will give us a vision for how to keep people and businesses safe and able to thrive, given the challenges of climate change and the future weather extremes that will will face. I also talked about the Zero Carbon Reading plan. Together these should give us an optimistic vision for the future of our town.
  • Matt is the Shadow Minister for Transport, and we had a good discussion about how we can work together to influence more sustainable transport in Reading. This includes promoting cycling and bus use. We also talked about the importance of locating community infrastructure (e.g. swimming pools) so they are easily accessible by public transport…possibly reversing trends that prioritise access for private car parking.
  • Finally we discussed RCAN, and the need to make sure we get our messages across to communities and businesses across the whole of Reading. There are challenges here, which Matt can help with through his constituency work. Hopefully by sharing information on events we will be able to promote what we are doing to a wider audience.

Chris Beales
RCCP Chair
13/7/18

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Climate Just website

Climate Just logo

“Climate Just is an information tool designed to help with the delivery of equitable responses to climate change at the local level. Its main focus is to assist the development of socially just responses to the impacts of extreme events, such as flooding and heatwaves, as well as supporting wider climate change adaptation. It also includes issues related to fuel poverty and carbon emissions.”

 

There is a lot of useful information on this website, which will be useful for many members of RCAN.

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Keeping in touch

If you would like to be added to our limited mailing group, please send us an e-mail climate.change[@]reading.gov.uk. We will keep the e-mail to a minimum. Note that you can unsubscribe at any time by e-mailing the same address; also note that we will only store your e-mail address in the list.

  • We will send you an annual update, when we review the Reading Climate Change Strategy Action Plan.
  • And notification when we start the consultation on the next plan
  • Finally, we will let you know if there are any significant public RCAN events

All of this information will also be posted on our Twitter feed, which you may like to follow instead. And you can always find out what is going on by visiting this website.

You can also subscribe to our  RSS feed (here)