North West Leiestershire Labour District Councillors have urged officers to "grasp the nettle" and press on with developing new planning policies to tackle the climate emergency.

At the council's last Local Plan Committee meeting, the three Labour members welcomed a new report which identifies a range of potential carbon reduction policies suitable for North West Leicestershire.

These include requiring developers to build energy efficient new homes which significantly improve upon current building regulation requirements.

Councillor Dave Bigby cited the current Greater London Authority policy, which requires efficiencies at least 35 per cent above the current Building Regulations, with additional contributions to a carbon offset fund for use in other local carbon reduction projects.

The report draws attention to the need to adopt much higher levels of building insulation and to move to efficient electrical heating systems based around heat pump technology. It highlights the fact that new estates will soon no longer be connected to the gas network and that new gas boilers are likely to be phased out in the near future.

It also emphasises the huge need for retrofitting insulation and low carbon heating systems to the existing local housing stock; including council housing if the council is to achieve its stated aim of zero net carbon by 2030.

"It's a very thorough report, full of positive recommendations on how the Council can have a positive impact on the District's carbon footprint through our Local Plan policies," said Cllr. Bigby.

"It's encouraging that we have some powerful levers to pull. We now need to step up to the plate and start pulling those levers."

Labour are extremely disappointed by the withdrawal of the Government's Green Homes grant scheme after only six months and with only a very small proportion of its funds used.

Cllr. Michael Hay said, "This is an example of how not to achieve our net-zero carbon goals: grabbing short term headlines instead of adopting long term green policies."

The report referred to can be found