Making the borough greener

We asked for your views on how we can best deliver on the five environmental and sustainability priorities and goals set out in the Council’s Green Plan:

• Becoming carbon neutral and tackling climate change
• Improving air quality
• Tackling fuel poverty
• Minimising waste
• Protecting and enhancing biodiversity

The scale and pace required to deliver the Green Plan requires significant and bold action, and for everyone to be involved to build a greener borough and a sustainable future. We, therefore, asked you for your views and ideas on how we can work together on these issues in the borough. In particular, we sought your views to help the development, design, and delivery of new action plans for addressing these priorities, especially the climate emergency, air quality and biodiversity.

A key message from the survey results was that there was a lack of awareness about the Council’s actions to tackle and address climate change and its effects. This, therefore, made it difficult for some of you to comment on how well you thought the Council was doing in this area. You felt that the most important things the Council could do to support you to reduce your carbon footprint were to provide financial incentives/subsidies/grants to reduce your carbon footprint, including making your home more efficient and to identify residents who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and ensure their homes are resilient. You felt that the best way for the Council to reduce its carbon footprint was to reduce waste and recycle more and install energy efficient and controlled street lighting. The majority of you recycle as much as possible but clear information on what can and can’t be recycled was one way you identified to encourage even more recycling.

Key actions you would like to see to improve air quality focussed on improving and installing more electric vehicle charging points whilst your biodiversity priorities included planting more wildflower areas for pollinators and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in supporting biodiversity.

In general, you supported a number of the Council’s green policies including a possible future ban on domestic wood burning, reduced cost for electric parking permits, the expansion of food waste collections, conversion of parking bays for al fresco dining and the planting of street trees in a small number of parking bays.

Overall, your top greening priorities were investment in existing parks and developing new parks and the Green Fund.

Your feedback is being used to help develop, design, and deliver new action plans, especially for climate change, air quality and biodiversity. These will be consulted on again from late October to December and will include focus groups with some of you. Here are some examples of what will be included in these draft action plans in direct response to where you have expressed support for particular initiatives or where you have indicated a need for improvement:

• Regular environmental communications with residents will be produced providing updates on what the Council is doing to be Carbon Neutral by 2030 and what support and advice is available for residents to reduce their carbon footprint.
• An additional food waste collection is being introduced later in the year.
• Recycling communications (the Council website and publications) will be reviewed to ensure they inform residents in a clear and concise way what can be recycled and how. 
• We will apply for Defra funding to improve our understanding and impact of domestic wood burning on air quality and develop a behaviour change and awareness raising campaign to reduce emissions of PM_2.5 from wood burning.
• More wildflower areas will be planted in parks and housing estates to improve biodiversity.
• Explore where additional street trees can be planted in parking bays.
• Improve education, events, and volunteering opportunities for residents to access, engage and learn about nature.
• Additional sites will be added to the Bee Superhighway.
• Green Fund proposals and external funding bids are being developed to help make schools and other Council buildings more energy efficient.
• Opportunities to improve the borough’s parks and open spaces are being progressed. Improvements are planned for Avondale Park, Kensington Memorial Park, Powis Square and Cremorne Gardens over the coming year.
• Organise community Environmental Sustainability events during COP26.
• Set up an Environmental Coalition for Kensington and Chelsea, which will include residents, leaders from the community, key institutions, and businesses.
• Continue Green Doctors scheme and arrange home-energy visits for residents in fuel poverty.

We really appreciate the insight the Citizen’s Panel provided and would like to continue this discussion with residents, businesses and the wider community  to develop and deliver actions to deliver the Green Plan and a more sustainable and greener borough.