Council Tackles Food and Energy Security

Local environmentalists have responded positively to the City Council's

new Climate Change and Security Framework which sets out its plans for

reducing carbon emissions over the next ten years.

The document also

sees Bristol as one of the first cities in the country to officially

embrace the Peak Oil agenda.

The Framework includes 20

strategies that the Council will follow and a further 40 specific

actions that will be taken over the coming 12 months.

These

include:

    - A commitment to insulate 3000 homes in both the private

and public sectors.

    - Developing a Bristol Local Food Plan and a

related Council Food Charter

    - Increasing sustainable energy and

waste businesses in Avonmouth

    - Opening the Create Centre on

Saturdays from Easter

    - Working with Connecting Bristol to improve

the City's wi-fi infrastructure to allow more home working and less

travel to access Council services

    - Adding four extra biomass

boilers to council-owned buildings and reducing emissions from Council

buildings (including schools) by 40% by 2020

Local

environmentalist and member of Sustainable Redland Hamish Wills welcomes

the Council's strategy: "I think it's quite a step for a Council to make

such statements about food security and sustainability. It's good

too that it did so from a knowledge base based on research work."

Cotham

Councillor Neil Harrison says that "Council officers need a big pat on

the back for getting something so impressive and wide-ranging together

so quickly."

The Framework follows on from the publication in

2009 of the Bristol Partnership's report, Building a Positive Future for

Bristol After Peak Oil, which highlights the links between energy

reduction, economics and food production. "Food security and

sustainability go hand in hand" says Wills, founding member of

Sustainable Redland, whose activities have included the creation of the

Whiteladies Road farmers' market.

Mr Wills adds that it is now

the responsibility of local people to work

with the council in making sure that the strategies are implemented in

specific ways. "I think they've set themselves a framework, and if

targets and strategies don't emerge, it's up to us to expect them to

explain why not. If we fail to do so, who's apathetic?"