Council making Henley greener for good of us all

VEHICLES that run on hydrotreated vegetable oil, heat pumps and wildflower planting are just some of the changes Henley Town Council has made to make Henley “greener”.

It is also decarbonising its buildings, increasing the biodiversity of its land and investing its reserves in environmentally conscious companies.

Town clerk Sheridan Jacklin-Edward says the aim is to tackle longstanding issues, including poor air quality caused by vehicle
emissions.

He said: “Emissions are an issue because, unlike other towns in South Oxfordshire, apart from Watlington, we don’t have a bypass or ring road, so all the traffic has to come through.

“This has been something the council has been actively looking at for many, many years.

“We can lower emissions by pushing vehicles elsewhere but we also need to say, ‘Okay, what can we do with our own vehicles?’”

In June last year the council changed the fuel its utility vehicles and agricultural machines use from diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil.

These include the council’s parks services vehicles, which are said to have reduced their CO2 emissions by up to 90 per cent as a result.

In 2022 the council installed electric vehicle charging points in its Mill Meadows car park as well as setting up and funding an electric car hire club, run by Co Wheels.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “There are two hybrid vehicles and now one electric vehicle, one in Reading Road, one behind the town hall and the other in the Greys Road car park.

“It has been really successful — the take-up has been very good.”

In trying to decarbonise its buildings, the council has installed air source heat pumps at the Leichlingen Pavilion in Mill Meadows, which houses the bowls club, public toilets and a children’s nursery upstairs.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said this had reduced the building’s energy consumption from heating by 80 per cent and has other benefits, such as reducing the cost of the nursery.

The council has also replaced the floodlights on the artificial pitch at Jubilee Park with LED lights.

This will reduce energy usage by about 22,000kWh per year and save the council and sports clubs about £3,500 a year.

The council has solar panels on three of its buildings that generate more than 23,000kWh of electricity per year, delivering a 16 per cent annual return on investment. In addition all its electricity comes from sustainable sources.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said that trying to do the same at the town hall was more difficult.

He said: “Obviously, it’s a Grade II* listed building, so it’s bit trickier, but we’re looking at everything, not only to generate renewable energy but also to reduce our costs.”

One idea is to improve the insulation of the hall.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “If it’s a nice warm space, which is cheaper to run, we can get more hires in because it’s more comfortable. That makes more money, which goes back into the local community.”

The council is also looking at installing solar panels but this may not be possible due to the building’s flat roof.

He said: “The difficulty is with it being a conservation and heritage area but we have various options that we’re looking into.”

The council is also trying to tackle the ecological emergency by increasing the biodiversity of its land.

A scheme led by assistant parks manager Kyle Dowling has meant the introduction of wildflowers at the adventure golf course in Mill Meadows.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “Before it was a putting green where it’s just grass which is just monoculture. There’s no biodiversity benefit of that. People were saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to put in an adventure golf course, so you’re going to be concreting everything and it’s going to be a loss’.

“Well, we’re just concreted over grass; that’s not much of a loss.

“But actually we’ve seen a big biodiversity net gain because we put in a riot of wildflowers.”

The council has partnered with the charity Thames21 to reapply for bathing water status for a stretch of the river near Marsh Lock.

On a wider scale, is has an environmental social governance investment strategy in which it has divested from tobacco, gambling and fossil fuels.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “We have about £3.5 million in reserves, the majority of which are with two portfolio managers, Investec and Redmayne Bentley.

“Our strategy is looking at how we are investing it ethically and at how different companies that we will be investing in are performing and investing accordingly.”

The council uses a company called Sustainalytics to rate the sustainability of the companies it invests in based on their environmental, social and corporate governance performance.

It has also taken more of a holistic approach requiring each report its committees publish to include an impact assessment outlining the effect a decision has on things like biodiversity and the climate
emergency.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “For example, we’re really looking at things like unnecessary HGV movements. But equally, we don’t want to be pushing vehicles out to then have to travel twice as far, so it is a balancing act.

“We have to make sure that there’s an evidence base for what we’re doing, that there is a strong rationale behind it and it isn’t just tokenism.”

A business case is made for each one of the council’s initiatives.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said: “We look at the financials and very much want to see a return on investment but it can be financial, it can be environmental or it can be social.

“So all these things will be saving us money as well as delivering a big benefit to the community.”

He believes the council should be guided by the idea of a circular, retributive economy, inspired by the economist Kate Raworth and her book Doughnut Economics.

“It brings together the idea of a regenerative and distributive economy, where we’re meeting the needs of the community but without overstretching our planetary limits,” explained Mr Jacklin-Edward.

He used the council-operated Hopper bus service as an example of improving travel options for people with limited mobility while supporting a sustainable mode of travel.

The council stepped in to subsidise the service after Oxfordshire County Council stopped funding the route in 2016.

The service currently runs on three days a week but the ruling Henley Residents Group wants to expand that to five days.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said the council had drawn on the expertise of members of its climate emergency working group and the environmental pressure group Greener Henley.

He said: “We are really blessed in Henley to have such a knowledgeable, professional base and expertise to be able to draw on. We do take on board all the advice that we’re given.

“Local authorities have always been interested in improving the lives of their residents, whether that is meeting their social needs or making sure that their environment is a pleasant one.

“You often hear the phrase ‘Think global, act local’. We just have to look at all the local things that we can do that have a wider impact.”

Mr Jacklin-Edward said the council had a statutory duty to protect the local environment.

He said: “It’s called the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act and it places what’s called the biodiversity duty on local authorities, which basically says that for every decision you make, you should consider the impact on biodiversity in your area.

“That has been strengthened by the Environment Act 2021, which came into effect last year.

“It goes further and says not only should we be considering the impact but we should be proactively planning for a biodiversity net gain.

“So from a biodiversity point of view, local authorities have been, or should have been, leading the way for quite a long time.”

More recently has been the introduction of Climate Emergency declarations, an action taken by government bodies to acknowledge humanity is in a climate crisis.

This was started by a local government body in Australia in 2016 and was popularised in the UK in 2018.

Mr Jacklin-Edward said Henley council was a “relatively early adopter” of the idea, having declared a climate emergency in 2019.

More recently, Greener Henley called on the council to declare a joint Nature Emergency as well.

The group says that a further declaration would channel more government funding towards nature restoration and environmental studies and that both crises go hand in hand and cannot be tackled in isolation.