Wiltshire Council has provided an update on its response to the climate emergency, with leader Richard Clewer stating that the local authority was moving “in the right direction”.

Wiltshire Council remains “broadly on track” to deliver on its goal to be carbon neutral as an organisation by 2030, through the direct emissions from the council’s own operations.

Cllr Clewer noted that the direction of travel from the county as a whole was “good, but not fast enough”.

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Wiltshire Council's full council meeting.Wiltshire Council's full council meeting. (Image: Wiltshire Council) Members heard the update at the full council meeting in Trowbridge County Hall, on Tuesday, October 15.

Some concern was raised about the council’s indirect emissions (scope three), such as those from outsourced contracts.

Cabinet member for waste and environment, Cllr Dominic Muns, noted that the list of climate projects being undertaken across the council covers “more than thirteen pages”.

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He said: “I’ll give you a flavour, for those of you who haven’t gone through them all of some of the highlights.

“Tackling the localised impacts of climate change on our communities such as flooding, working with schools both to install solar PV and improve insulation but also in terms of climate education, facilitating national schemes such as the Home Upgrade Grant to bring housing up to a more efficient standard for families in Wiltshire on low incomes, promoting residential solar panel and battery installation schemes, forming nature partnerships with external stakeholders, council property decarbonisation, tree planting, improvements to waste contracts, and the growth of our EV fleet.”

He added: “Our direct operational greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by 22 per cent over the last year alone.

“The latest data for county wide emissions shows that these are reducing but not at the pace that will deliver on our more ambitious target to become carbon neutral as a county by 2030.”

According to Cllr Muns, this has become “a common theme” across the UK in other local authorities.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Richard Budden applauded the fall of direct emissions from nearly 25,000 tonnes a decade ago to under 5,000 tones today, describing it as “great progress”.

However, he suggested “an elephant in the room” was hiding in an update on scope three emissions, which “throws smoke in our eyes”.

He said: “50,000 tonnes of our waste goes to be burnt at a plant operated by Lakeside Ltd in Slough, and a further 55,000 tonnes or so to be burnt in Holland in Germany via the Hills plant in Westbury.”

He claimed: “We can estimate that these 105,000 tonnes of incinerated waste result in 110,000 tonnes or so of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere.

“In summary, our direct emissions pale into insignificance by comparison with these scope three emissions.”

Liberal Democrat Cllr Martin Smith asked if the on-demand bus service in the Pewsey Vale area would be replicated elsewhere.

Cabinet member for transport and assets, Cllr Tamara Reay, responded that plans were “afoot” to extend the service to the Mere and Malmesbury areas.

Regarding scope three emissions, Cllr Muns said the council is working on extracting emissions data from its suppliers.

He argued: “We are recognising scope three, and we are building it into contracts with our suppliers.

“Furthermore, our work with contractors was recognised by the Edie Net Zero Awards recently, because of that direct work with the supplier to reduce scope three emissions.”

Cllr Muns also told Cllr Budden that incineration was “progression” because it was preferable than landfill.

He concluded: “In the past, we would have buried all of this rubbish, now we are not burying it, we are doing something better with it, it’s incinerated and it’s producing energy.”