Agenda and draft minutes

At this point, Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business on the agenda.

No interests were declared.

To approve and sign the minutes of the Environment & Sustainability Scrutiny Board meeting held on 8 March 2006.

RESOLVED:That the minutes of the meeting of the Environment & Sustainability Scrutiny Board held on 8 March 2006 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Sub-Committee’s remit can do so. The deadline for registering is Tuesday 20 June 2006, at 10.00 am.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

To consider the draft final report of the former Environment & Sustainability Scrutiny Board, presenting their research and findings regarding approaches local authorities might take to delivering more sustainable street lighting, and agree, subject to any amendments, its submission to the Scrutiny Management Committee, in line with their decision to complete outstanding scrutiny topics as a matter of urgency.

Members considered the draft final report of the former Environment & Sustainability Scrutiny Board, which presented their research and findings regarding approaches local authorities might take to delivering more sustainable street lighting, and agreed, subject to amendments, its submission to the Scrutiny Management Committee, in line with their decision to complete outstanding scrutiny topics as a matter of urgency.

A revised version of the draft final report, which set out changes that had been agreed following consultation with officers in the Directorate of City Strategy, had been circulated to Members.

RESOLVED:That it be agreed that the revised report be submitted to Scrutiny Management Committee, in line with their decision to complete outstanding scrutiny topics as a matter of urgency, subject to the correction of typographical and grammatical points and the following amendments:

                        (i) To paragraph 9, to indicate that York paid £80k more per annum than Wigan;

                        (ii) To paragraph 10, to rephrase the first sentence to read, “There is potential to get a better deal than we have at present from electricity suppliers for all our street lighting, and such a change, including partial or full renewable energy sourcing, could generate substantial savings both in cost and carbon emissions”;

(iii)       To paragraph 13, to rephrase the final sentence to read, “At Wigan where all street lighting is powered by wind power on a ‘green power’ deal the authority has wiped 5.4 million kilos of CO₂ emissions from the authority’s slate.  It should be the aim of the City of York Council to achieve a comparable result”, and to convert the measurement therein from kilos to tonnes;

(iv)        To recommendation 2, to read, “Street Lighting and Finance Officers ensure that the cashable and non-cashable energy and financial savings are reported in Gershon Efficiencies responses, ring fenced and invested in increasingly sustainable street lighting stock”;

(v)          To paragraph 16, to read, “Planned replacement of the old mercury vapour lamps would improve the authority’s approach to social inclusion and equalities and would also bring both energy savings and reduced recycling issues”;

(vi)        To paragraph 18, to make reference to a motion passed by Full Council and a report considered at an Executive Member and Advisory Panel (EMAP) meeting on light pollution;

(vii)      To paragraph 20, to delete the word, “(Philips)”;

(viii)    To paragraph 22, to rephrase the first sentence to read, “To assure future best practice at the authority the database and street lighting strategy should provide the following audit detail enabling whole life costings for each lamp by stock type, ie;” and to reword point b) to read, “financial unit cost” and point c) to begin, “environmental unit cost,…”;

(ix)        To paragraph 24, to rephrase the first sentence to read, “Around 90% of the City of York Council’s street lights use electronic control gear to switch lamps on and off.  This is much more efficient than the old Cadmium Sulphide photo cells that used to be routinely used to switch lamps on and off”;

(x)          To recommendation 5, to read,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.