Guest post by Emma Wallace, Green Party candidate for the GLA Brent and Harrow Constituency
Harrow Council’s Cuts
to Environmental Services and Lack of Action on the Climate Emergency Part 2
Greens call for
investment, strategic planning and transparency from Harrow Council
We have to get serious about the climate emergency
Our council tax in Harrow is going up by 5.8% from the 1st
April, moving our borough from the third highest council tax rate in London to second,
just behind Kingston which takes the top spot LINK
. Whilst you would hope this would mean,
if not an increase to our public services, at least protection of the ones we
already have, this is unfortunately not to be the case. The Council has been put under huge constraints
by the decimation of local authority funding from central government and having
to ringfence a large percentage of the budget to meet statutory duties such as
adult social care LINK
. This has resulted in ever dwindling
amounts of money to cover the multitude of other essential services the Council
should be providing. One council
department that is bearing the brunt of our shrinking local authority budgets is
the Environmental Services department, seeing its staffing budget cut by £250
000 from April 2021 LINK
. At a time when we are facing an
unprecedented climate emergency, coupled with an increase in population and demand
on many of our services, including our local parks and reserves due to the
pandemic, this cut seems to be incredibly short-sighted. The resultant negative consequences for our borough’s
environment, its residents and the Council’s ability to meet its own climate
and ecological emergency targets cannot be underestimated.
A Climate Emergency
The council declared a climate emergency in July 2019,
resolving to “make the London Borough of Harrow carbon neutral by 2030, taking
into account both production and consumption of emissions”. LINK
The council created a related strategy
to meet its carbon neutral goals, committing to working towards 100% renewable
energy in the borough, making homes, schools and commercial buildings more
energy efficient, to decarbonise vehicles and move to sustainable travel, to
minimise waste and support recycling, to protect and restore the biodiversity
we have and to engage communities to become eco literate LINK. More recently, the Council reiterated in its
2021/22 budget that one of its key priorities is “Improving the environment and
addressing climate change” LINK
. Indeed, the council has made a number
of public announcements, formed a ‘Climate & Sustainability Partnership’ with
other organisations including local environmental groups and produced a ‘London
Borough of Harrow Climate Change Strategy’ 2019-2024 LINK.
This most recent climate change strategy
has not made it to the Council’s ‘Climate Change - Environment and Parks’ out-of-date
webpages though LINK
.
Harrow Council’s public commitment to fighting climate change is
commendable and urgent if we are to stay within the projected 1.5 degrees of
warming in the next ten years and avoid the worst predictions of environmental
breakdown. The reality is though, that these
goals are completely untenable unless the Council fully invests in meeting these
goals, allocates ongoing budgets, devises an actionable, joined-up strategy and
recruits a strong in-house team to works towards achieving its targets. Unfortunately, as we can see from the most
recent Environmental Services staffing cuts this does not appear to be
happening. In May 2020, ‘The Student
View’ charity made a Freedom of Information request asking if the council had
discussed the costs of climate change adaption to enable it to meet its climate
and ecological emergency targets. It
emerged it had not: “the issue of budget and additional resources for
delivering the council’s pledge to be carbon neutral by 2030 hasn’t yet been
discussed in detail through the Council’s Climate Change steering group
meetings with the Cabinet members.” LINK Last
year, the council stated it was spending “£150,000 on tackling the climate
emergency, covering staff costs as well as external support and advice on how
to reduce carbon emissions” LINK
. It is not clear exactly what this
money was spent on or if a similar amount has been allocated to address the
climate emergency this financial year.
The Environmental Services Team and Transparency
Harrow Council’s Environmental Services department is
responsible for a multitude of areas, including our parks, open spaces and
nature reserves, street trees, allotments, verge maintenance, street cleaning,
fly tipping and general waste management amongst other things, and it has
already suffered from years of cut backs.
These areas all have a significant role to play in the Council meeting
its 2019-2023 climate change strategy. Trying
to establish the roles that make up the Environmental Services team though and what
ones have been cut is incredibly difficult.
Whilst there is an ‘Environmental and Parks’ area on Harrow Council’s
website, it is hard to find who is exactly responsible for the many different areas. At a Harrow VCS Forum ‘Environment &
Sustainability Subgroup’ meeting in November 2017, a request was made to Graham
Henson, now Leader of the Council, asking for a list of key environmental
services council officers to liaise with and how best to contact them for a
speedy response. Mr Henson’s answer was
that, basically, there isn’t a list available and it’s best to make contact
with the Head of Service, Dave Corby LINK. This raises the issue that as council tax paying
residents, should we not expect to easily find out what roles people hold, what
they do and how we can make contact with them in the council? Should we not also expect timely replies from
the council officers and councillors that represent us? This frequently does not appear to be the
case. It is imperative that our Council
is transparent and accountable to members of the public so they can effectively
support the community it serves.
Department Re-shuffle
Dave Corby who has been ‘Head of Community Engagement’ for
many years has now retired, taking with him a breadth of knowledge on our parks
and local environment that will be a real loss to Harrow. It is unclear if he is being directly
replaced, but the Environmental Services department has recently undergone a
reshuffle, with Rebecca Johnson now the new Head of Environment and Waste Strategy
and Desiree Mahoney acting as the Community Engagement Officer. Mark Richardson is the Green Team Manager and
Ray Fox the Parks Manager; Rebecca Farrar is the Tree Protection Officer and
Steve Whitbread is Biodiversity Officer.
There has been a recent advert for ‘Head of Transport and Environmental
Operations’ at the Council, LINK , stating
that the role is within the newly formed Environmental Services Directorate and
that the “post holder will be responsible for fleet management of over 300
vehicles, Special Needs Transport Service, Waste and Recycling collections,
Trade Waste Collections, Street Cleansing and Ancillary Services, Parks and
Open spaces and other associated support services. The post holder will be responsible the
management of a revenue budget of £25 million and a capital budget of £8
million.” LINK
This is a huge range of
responsibilities for one person, especially in light of the fact that the Environmental
Services team has recently been reduced (which roles, is still unclear). This advert does reveal the department’s budget
figure though, something that is almost impossible to establish otherwise or
the individual spending and allocations within the department. The remaining roles (and other unestablished ones)
within the Environmental Services team are integral to ensuring our local
environment is healthy, sustainable, green and biodiverse. With the latest round of staffing cuts, it
can only be seen that this will be detrimental to our local environment and make
it even harder for the council to meet its climate targets.
Greens call for Action, Investment and Transparency
Whilst we are dealing with an onslaught of problems brought on
by ten years of austerity, coupled with the economic, social and health difficulties
as a result of the pandemic, the climate emergency is not going away and must
be addressed. As the UN Environment
Programme Head warned in August 2020 “There is no vaccine for climate change.
We must embed sustainability into COVID-19 recovery” . Unfortunately, at the moment, Harrow Council
appears to lack the vision, financial investment and staffing to fully realise
its aims of reducing the borough’s carbon emissions and become carbon neutral. Harrow residents deserve a council who leads
on action to mitigate the worse effects of climate change, being accountable
and transparent every step of the way. It
is imperative that the council takes urgent action on the climate emergency to
avoid the impending ecosystem collapse we potentially face.
A council in London who are also tackling the climate and ecological
emergency head on is the West London Borough of Hounslow, who are currently
advertising a wide range two year fixed posts to deliver
a Green recovery. The team will include a Programme Director (Climate Change and
Green Recovery), and Project Manager (Climate Emergency and Environmental Strategy) to deliver
Hounslow's Climate Emergency Action Plan and Green Recovery Strategy.
There will also be three Project
Manager's (Green Recovery) to develop and implement
"strategies to improve the quality of the environment in Hounslow, with a
focus on low carbon neighbourhoods, low carbon economy or green growth and 21st
century mobility". There will be two Sustainability Officer's to "deliver
a variety of projects and initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions, and
environmental and socio-environmental impacts across Hounslow" and
two Green Recovery Officer's to
improve the environent in Hounslow. The total budget for this environmental team is up to £482
275, showing Hounslow Council is putting its money where its mouth is and
really investing in dealing with the climate emergency
In my next blog…I’ll be taking a look at how Harrow’s parks
and green spaces have been impacted by ten years of council cuts and how these
rich, biodiverse spaces are an excellent way for the council to move towards
meeting their climate change targets. I
will also be shining a light on the many amazing volunteer environmental
organisations we have in Harrow and how they are leading the way in maintaining
and improving our green spaces.
