Energy plan encourages local shopping

SHOPPERS are to be urged to buy locally while businesses asked to take on greater responsibility for tackling climate change in a revised draft strategy to reduce a Yorkshire city’s carbon emissions dramatically.

York Council has been working with the local strategic partnership, called Without Walls, on a climate change action plan to try to slashing emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.

However, the council has announced the planned strategy to promote green living is being overhauled after a consultation exercise held earlier this year identified that greater emphasis needed to be placed on a series of key areas.

The revised draft action plan is now due to include more details promoting local sustainable food initiatives, such as encouraging shoppers to cut down on their journeys to buy groceries as well as growing their own fruit and vegetables, along with school and adult education programmes.

The public consultation, which began in the summer, also stressed the proposed action plan needed to set out a clear strategy for tackling climate change to encourage residents and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions.

Details relating to sustainable transport from the consultation will also be fed into the development of York’s next Local Transport Plan.

The Without Walls partnership initially published a blueprint for prosperity in York two years ago.

This stressed the need to adopt a wide-ranging strategy to promote environmentally-friendly schemes to ensure an increasing standard of living and a healthy economy.

The latest draft action plan is aimed at providing a high-level co-ordinated approach to tackling climate change across the city, while also showing the scale of the challenge ahead.

Members of York Council’s executive will be asked to approve the amendments to the current draft climate change framework and action plan when they meet next Tuesday.