Decision details

(i)  To adopt the Green City Delivery Plan for Southampton City Council, 2020-2030, and

(ii)  To delegate authority to the Executive Director of Place to take any action necessary to finalise the Plan for implementation, including making minor or consequential amendments following consultation with the Leader and Cabinet Member for Green City, so that all implementation, delivery and management requirements are sufficient and effective.

The Green City Delivery Plan will support the delivery of the Council’s existing priority outcomes, refresh existing activities, and deliver new ones.  It will ensure that environmental impacts are given due consideration in the delivery of services and decision making and where possible ensure we maximise the opportunity to deliver benefits.  It will provide an opportunity to satisfy the commitments, expectations and ambitions identified in the Green City Charter and expressed during the Clean Air Zone Consultation exercise.  It will seek to encourage city stakeholders to adopt the same set of principles and deliver their own actions.  It will encourage all stakeholders including both business, community groups and public sector organisation to work together to deliver a shared outcome, making Southampton a cleaner, greener, healthier and more sustainable environment for all.  It will facilitate the delivery of specific actions in response to Southampton City Council’s declaration of a climate emergency (confirmed and ratified on the 20th November 2019) and the ambition for its services and activities to achieve a net zero carbon footprint by 2030.

The Green City Working Group (comprising of council officers from across its services) has assessed the suggestions provided during our Clean Air Zone consultation and Green City Charter engagement. The Group also looked at examples of best practice and innovation that might help deliver outcomes  consistent with the aspirations set out in the Green City Charter.  The package of measures identified in the Plan represents those activities considered as being feasible in terms of SCC’s ability to deliver them within a reasonable timeframe, effective in term of delivering the required outcomes and ambitious in terms of its scope and the outcomes it will achieve.

Upscaling the package of measures is likely to present difficulties with identifying sufficient resource without the confidence of any marked improvement in the outcomes.

Downscaling the package of measures is likely to reduce our ability to deliver the outcomes we aspire to achieve, hamper our ambitions and dissatisfy expectations.