Monica Shelley asks if anyone’s putting it into practice
I attended the Zero Carbon by 2050 congress (see full report) and it set me thinking about the practical implications of what all the experts who spoke defined as the actions necessary to achieve the aims they spelt out. I wondered, in particular, what might happen in the area where I live and what the responsibilities of the local council might be. It seems to me that whatever regulations the government might provide, whatever specialist firms there might be to inform retrofitting and however many loans and possibly grants might be made available, in the end it was down to the local authority to make these things happen.
What is my Council doing?
Inspired by the presentations and discussion at the Congress, I wrote to the Milton Keynes Council member with the responsibility for housing and regeneration. I asked, in particular, what Council policies were in place to motivate house owners to retrofit their homes and how council-owned housing was to be updated. To what extent is council housing currently under construction designed for maximum energy efficiency? No reply as yet. I think these are the sorts of questions, and probably more, that need to be put to local councils. I am sure that they have other matters on their minds just now, but these issues are not going to disappear. Or will the Zero Carbon by 2050 ambition be revised, ignored or even forgotten?