South Hams to spend £200k on climate change

Councillors to distribute local funds

Nearly half of a fund of £200,000 is to be given to councillors to help fund climate change projects in the South Hams.

Cllr John Birch’s motion that would help provide extra funding for local green projects - and the 31 councillors unanimously agreed to allocating each of them £3,000 for climate change and biodiversity projects in their area.

Cllr Birch said: “It will be up to local councillors to decide which of the local projects they would like to see their allocated monies spent on. The project will be expected to fit in with the council’s climate change and biodiversity strategy and action plan.”

Cllr Dan Thomas added: “The scheme will act as an incentive for local community groups to come up with projects and hopefully attract other funding that can then be matched with the councillors’ allocation.”

In February the council agreed to allocate £200,000 to climate change and biodiversity projects, and £93,000 of this will be given to individual councillors to spend.

Projects must fall within the council’s climate change and biodiversity strategy and action plan. It will be initially for the financial year 2021-22, and then reviewed during the budget setting process for 2022-23.

But a motion submitted by Cllr Jacqi Hodgson calling for the council to support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill was ruled by the council’s monitoring officer to be in breach of purdah regulations, which means councillors are restricted about what they can discuss in the lead up to an election. Local elections will be held on Thursday 6 May.

Cllr Hodgson said: “This is an important motion and the claim that it is unreasonable because of purdah is proven wrong as Devon County Council is running with a fuller motion at their 29 April meeting. I am asking you to reconsider as it is wrong to take it away and Devon will discuss on April 29 and if they don’t think it is political then why should we?

“This doesn’t look well on the council and in terms of how it is democracy is working and so how we can find that everything has been struck off as we come into a meeting.

“We are really letting the democratic process down by ignoring this. It is about the climate emergency and the clue is in the name.”

But council chairman Cllr Rosemary Rowe said that as Devon has not published their agenda, it cannot be known whether they will discuss it then, and what Devon County Council do is not relevant to what South Hams District Council do, adding that it can discussed at the May meeting as "things won’t have changed much."

David Fairbairn, the council’s monitoring officer, added: “I apologise for the timing as it wasn’t the best but I am confident the decision not to consider this today is the correct one. The question as to whether Devon County Council is considering a similar notice makes my decision unreasonable or incorrect is neither here nor there as they are entitled to come to a different view and doesn’t make my decision wrong.

“My mistake was to not to stick with the initial view that this would fall foul of purdah and restrictions on publicity. I sought to find a way that it could be considered and I also took it at face value, but having done further research, I am satisfied it would fall foul.”