Climate change group needs to do more in Dumfries and Galloway, insists councillor
dailyrecord.co.ukA climate emergency group run by Dumfries and Galloway Council needs to up its game, a councillor has claimed. Annandale North Councillor Gail Macgregor has not been impressed by the work done by a cross-party collective of councillors on reducing the region’s carbon footprint.
Speaking at last week’s full council meeting, the leader of the opposition Conservatives group called for more strategic working, rather than this local climate change group becoming a “talking shop”.
Councillor Macgregor said: “I’m not opposed to the principle of a working group, but it’s got to have teeth. “And I think that the climate agenda needs to be absolutely intrinsically interwoven into every piece of work that we do across the council.” She continued: “Given the magnitude of policies that are going to come through UK-wide, Scotland-wide and locally, including home energy programmes, active travel, and EV charging points, this working group has got to have some focus aswell. “It can’t just be a talking shop that meets every eight weeks.
They need to establish a programme of workstreams that are important, and ensure that is being utterly interwoven into every department and service committee that we have, and with all 43 elected members. “I’d be interested to see the working group, once it’s set up, bringing back to us what is essentially a works programme and priorities. “I don’t want to be sitting here in a year’s time saying, ‘what’s the working group been doing for the last year?’, which I do at the moment.” The council declared a climate change emergency in June 2012 and drafted a 12-point plan to reduce emissions and become a carbon neutral region by 2025.
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