Climate Change

In July 2019 Green Councillor Georgina Treloar proposed that Folkestone & Hythe District Council declare a climate and ecological emergency. The motion was passed unanimously by the council and set a target for the council’s own estate to be net zero by 2030.

The motion included the setting up of a Climate and Ecological Emergency working group. The working group met occasionally during the rest of 2019 but progress was slow partly due to the need to define the scope of the council’s estate.

In February 2020 Green Councillor Lesley Whybrow was appointed to cabinet with an environment portfolio. As part of that she started to chair the working group. The first step was to calculate the council’s base Greenhouse Gas Emissions. This work was delayed by the first lockdown but eventually it was possible to identify the biggest sources of the councils carbon emissions and to draw up a Carbon Action Plan to tackle this. This Plan was adopted by cabinet in February 2021 and work is now underway on some of the action points. Consultants Carbon Descent were appointed in September 2022 to review the Carbon Action Plan. Stage 2 of this work will provide costings and calculate the pay back periods for the recommended actions.

One of the biggest sources of emissions was found to be the council’s sheltered housing blocks – 44% of the energy consumption. Individual council houses were not included in the definition of the council’s estate as the council does not pay the energy bills. Nevertheless the intention is to retrofit as many council homes as possible. This will be a big challenge financially and will need external funding. It will have the additional benefit of reducing council tenants’ energy bills and make their homes healthier places to live.

All council homes will need to reach EPC C by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

The council has already been awarded £2m from Wave 1 of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. This is being used to upgrade 125 of the council’s worst performing homes. In April 2023, the council announced it had been successful in bidding for a further £2.6m from Wave 2. This will allow the council to upgrade unto 300 more homes to EPC C*.

A decarbonisation plan is being worked on for the Folca building. The intention is to use this as the basis of a bid to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund. If this is successful the approach could be rolled out to other council buildings.

In late 2021 the council took part in the Solar Together project which is a group buying scheme for the installation of solar plans and battery storage for domestic and community buildings. This was very popular and the council is participating in the next round.

A Green Business Grant Scheme has been set up and a Net Zero Carbon Toolkit is due to be adopted soon. The Toolkit will be a practical guide for retrofit and new build projects.

The council’s grounds maintenance team are working to improve biodiversity in the council’s parks and open spaces and have significantly reduced their use of pesticides. A Green & Blue Infrastructure Strategy has been developed and will be published shortly**.