A new Sustainable Environment Strategy for Redcar and Cleveland (2011 2016)
Our Sustainable Environment Strategy is our overarching environmental strategy for the Borough. A wide range of partner organisations representing the environment and sustainability agenda has developed this plan to continue working towards creating a sustainable environment for future generations.
Its aim is to have "A positive approach to environmental improvement; encouraging people and communities to achieve a high quality and sustainable living environment".
The strategy is based on the four themes of: - Climate Change and Air
- Natural Environment
- Built Environment
- Resource Use
The Councils sustainability policies
In October 2010 the Council adopted a suite of five new policies on wide ranging environment and sustainability themes. These new policies, signed by the Leader of the Council, Councillor George Dunning, will provide the framework for our actions across the organisation to improve our environmental performance. It provides the guiding principles and objectives for our decisions, operations and our plans and will steer the work of the organisation to ensure that sustainability is considered in all that we do.
The five policies are as follows:
- Our Environment Policy
- Our Sustainable Procurement Policy
- Our Climate Change Policy
- Our Energy Policy
- Our Carbon Management Policy
Environmental Management System (EMS)
The Council has a responsibility to measure and manage its own impact on the environment from the resources it consumes in the delivery of its services to the manner in which those services are delivered, and to demonstrate leadership in managing the environment. As a matter of good practice, the Council should possess reliable information and a clear understanding of its own consumption of resources, should be developing a strategy to reduce them, deliver initiatives to reduce environmental impact and have systems in place to manage the environment. Therefore, we are going to do this through developing an Environmental Management System (EMS).
We will raise awareness and ensure that environment, sustainability, sustainable procurement, climate change and good carbon and energy management is considered everyones business in the organisation. We now have an adopted Environment Policy in place, the first stage to embedding environmental management across the organisation, and we will continue towards our aim of gaining accreditation.
Sustainability Appraisal
It is a legal requirement that, under the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004, all spatial plans and programmes would have to undergo a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). The 2004 Regulations transcribe the requirements of European Directive 2001/42/EC the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment (the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive).
The objectives of the SEA Directive, as set out in Article 1, are to provide a high level of protection to the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes with a view to promoting sustainable development.
In August 2010, the Council undertook a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the new Local Transport Plan 2011 2021. The two processes were developed together so that findings from each stage of the SEA could be used to inform the development of the LTP. This ensured that it took the long-term environmental, social and economic implications into consideration from the outset and in retrospect developed objectives and policies that would have positive or neutral effects on the objectives of sustainable development.
The SEA on the new LTP can be accessed on the Local Transport Plan 2011-21 page.
