A very busy week

The highlight of this week has been the 'Renewable Energy Conference and Market' organised by our portfolio holder for the environment, held at CBC. The chamber was packed with delegates from all over the county and beyond, there to listen to six speakers detailing subjects from geo thermal to bio mass. The objective was to explore the potential energy provision schemes which could possibly impact of the size and scope of the Navitas wind farm project to be located so close to our shoreline. That a decision has been taken to proceed with all the preambles of the Navitas project in 'another place' without a mandate from coastline populous is indeed concerning but CBC again punching above its weight by finding positives to use in our protests rather than being unreasonably negative. Indeed the information gathered will be collated and used to direct our representatives at Parliament in their opposition to the size and the location of Navitas. What was encouraging was the gradual and consistent move towards solar and PV installations both in the private and industrial markets and the energy being directed to produce heat and energy from waste products including sustainable timber sources. Even more important was the understanding of how urgently we have to tackle this problem and the bringing together of experts from across the Country with their differing technologies and finding out how we as a Borough can influence a corporate direction which will meet demand but not impinge on our unique environment. I was very pleased to see representatives from various resident associations as they could experience what we as a Council are doing behind the scenes in a positive way' to bring community concerns to the attention of macro decision makers.