Subject:

Items referred from Council - Petitions

Date of Meeting:

21 January 2021

Report of:

Executive Lead Officer for Strategy, Governance & Law

Contact Officer:

Name:

Mark Wall

Tel:

01273 291006

 

E-mail:

mark.wall@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Wards Affected:

All

 

 

FOR GENERAL RELEASE

 

 

1.                    SUMMARY AND POLICY CONTEXT:

 

1.1             To receive any petitions referred from the Council meeting held on the 17 December 2020.

 

2.               RECOMMENDATIONS:

 

2.1             That the Committee responds to the  petition either by noting it or writing to the petition organiser setting out the Council’s views, or where it is considered more appropriate, calls for an officer report on the matter.

 

3.               PETITIONS:

 

Brighton & Hove City Council Act on the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Now!

Lead Petitioner – Tash Fairbanks

 

3.1               To receive the following petition referred from the meeting of the full Council and signed by 1,445 people:

 

We the undersigned petition Brighton & Hove Council to adopt an operational Climate and Biodiversity plan by April 2021. Councillors of all parties must follow these four steps to urgent climate and biodiversity action: 1) Allocate £5 million in BHCC’s 2021-22 budget for climate and biodiversity action (to be agreed on at the Budget meeting on 25th February 2021). 2) Adopt an interim climate and biodiversity emergency plan by 1st April 2021. The interim plan needs to be acted on immediately. We cannot waste more years delaying. 3) Hold citizens assemblies to make legally binding decisions about how we take action. The people of this City need to decide our future. 4) Produce a fully costed plan by 1 October 2021 that involves the whole community.

 

Justification:

Two years ago, on December 13th 2018, the Labour-led administration of Brighton and Hove City Council unanimously declared its recognition of global climate and biodiversity emergencies. During this time the climate emergency has dramatically worsened alongside catastrophic loss of species.


The council has taken a few welcome steps to address the issues, but there is still no plan for the whole city to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
This is not acceptable.

 

3.2               An extract from the proceedings of the council meeting held on the 17 December is listed as appendix 1.

 

 

 

Council

 

4.30pm17 December 2020

 

Virtual

 

MINUTES

 

Present:   Councillors Robins (Chair), Mears (Deputy Chair), Allcock, Appich, Atkinson, Bagaeen, Barnett, Bell, Brennan, Brown, Childs, Clare, Davis, Deane, Druitt, Ebel, Evans, Fishleigh, Fowler, Gibson, Grimshaw, Hamilton, Heley, Henry, Hill, Hills, Hugh-Jones, Janio, Knight, Lewry, Littman, Lloyd, Mac Cafferty, McNair, Miller, Moonan, Nemeth, Nield, O'Quinn, Osborne, Peltzer Dunn, Phillips, Pissaridou, Platts, Powell, Shanks, Simson, C Theobald, Wares, West, Wilkinson, Williams and Yates.

 

PART ONE

 

63          pETITIONS.

 

63.1      The Mayor invited the submission of petitions from councillors and members of the public.  He reminded the Council that petitions would be referred to the appropriate decision-making body without debate and the person presenting the petition would be invited to attend the meeting to which the petition was referred.

 

63.4      Ms. Henery and Ms. Fairbanks presented a petition signed by1,445 residents calling on the council to adopt an operational Climate and Biodiversity plan by April 2021.

 

63.5      The Mayor thanked Ms. Henery and Ms. Fairbanks  for presenting the petition and noted that it would be referred to the Policy & Resources Committee for consideration.