Green Councillor’s new initiative to fight fuel poverty approved by Babergh Council

On 6th October 2022, the Leader of the Green Party on Babergh District Council, Leigh Jamieson, successfully submitted a motion at the Council meeting which will help to substantially improve the energy efficiency of social housing in Babergh and across Suffolk. Furthermore, this move would help cut the energy bills for tenants across the county.

The UK has the least energy-efficient housing stock in Europe. At this time of drastically rising energy bills, having homes that are damp, draughty and lacking proper insulation means that people are paying for wasted energy. However, ‘retrofitting’ council-owned properties has been an expensive and slow process which needs to be accelerated to respond to the cost-of-living crisis and fuel poverty.

The Lewes Model

In the meeting, Councillor Leigh Jamieson described the success of the ‘Lewes model’ which was pioneered by Green councillors in Sussex. The model is a partnership of seven councils who pooled their housing maintenance budgets to create a £1 billion fund that will retrofit 40,000 social housing homes. He called on Babergh to agree to research the Lewes model and to start a dialogue with other local authorities and external stakeholders, to investigate if a similar project could be initiated in Suffolk to improve the pace of retrofitting.

He commented, “A Suffolk-wide initiative would create real economies of scale and by targeting the housing directly in council control, we can help kickstart comprehensive retrofitting across all housing sectors in our local authority area. Focussing our efforts on improving energy efficiency in these homes will not only bring down fuel bills for those who need it most but substantially reduce carbon emissions.”

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Green campaigners came together at Flatford to draw attention to the plight of the River Stour on 25th September 2022, World Rivers Day.

This iconic river, made famous by the paintings of Constable and Gainsborough, together with Suffolk’s entire river network, has failed to achieve the Government and Water Framework Directive (WFD) target. All of Suffolk’s rivers are under threat from pollution, over-abstraction and climate change.

Dangerous levels

Last year sewage was dumped into the Stour on 389 occasions, for a total of over 4,000 hours. This year campaigners along the Stour have found concentrations of E.coli in some cases 20 times above the Government standard.

The Stour is not designated as bathing water, but people do swim in it, children paddle, and more people are kayaking and paddle boarding. Anglian Water says that it is committed to taking “bold action” to enhancing rivers and ensuring its sewage treatment works do not harm rivers.

Campaigners called for more action and visible proof that Anglian Water is committed to a programme of work now.

Committed action

At the World Rivers Day event, the campaigners declared themselves stewards of the Stour and will be joining with others to become citizen scientists, taking samples from the Stour, and testing them to monitor Anglian Water’s operations.

Green Campaigner, Laura Smith said, “Last year the Environment Agency reported that  Anglian Water had more serious pollution incidents than any other water company. It has been fined three times this year already by the regulator but appears to think that’s just a normal cost of doing business. It’s predicting an operating profit of over £440 million this year so it needs to put its money where its mouth is, and we are going to make sure it does.”

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Babergh Green Councillors are delighted that the proposed plans for the development of Belle Vue House and the Old Swimming Pool site have been refused by the Planning Committee.

“The proposed plans, far from improving the historic townscape as Babergh Planning officers contended, would have seen a four-storey block of flats built on raised ground dominating the skyline,” says Councillor Robert Lindsay of Babergh Green Party.  “It would have also caused even more traffic congestion to a town that is already suffering from unacceptable levels of traffic growth and pollution.”

Short sighted thinking

How this development would support the regeneration of Sudbury was unclear. “There is no provision in this development of 41 retirement flats for any affordable dwellings despite this being a site owned by the Council,” Robert adds. 

The developer, Churchill Retirement Living, will not make any contribution to the Community Infrastructure Levy despite the Council having a regeneration plan for Sudbury.

A problem that doesn’t exist

“Sudbury, with its current and proposed level of residential development has a shortage of open space and this development will take more away,” Robert says. “The building of the development will result in the cutting down of several old trees including a 300-year-old yew tree which are irreplaceable. The debate about what to do with Belle Vue House and the Old Swimming Pool site has gone on for many years and what it demonstrates is the complete lack of creative thinking by the Council about how to use its assets for the benefit of residents.

“So obsessed has the Council been with finding a solution to the perceived problem of Belle Vue that it hasn’t pursued any other options to restore the house and improve open space provision for Sudbury residents. Selling the land to a developer is not the only solution.”

The future of Belle Vue House and the old swimming pool site remain unclear.

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