Herefordshire Council has been announced as the top-performing local authority in the West Midlands when it comes to sustainability action.
Following completion of the Sustainability West Midlands benchmarking, Herefordshire Council was awarded an overall score of 91%, giving them the award for the third consecutive year. The score that was awarded showed that the council is making ‘excellent progress’ on sustainability, with regard to the West Midlands Sustainable Roadmap to 2030.
Members of Sustainability West Midlands go through the benchmarking process every year, with this involving answering 80 questions on the differing aspects of the Roadmap and its themes. One benefit of the process is that it allows authorities to self-assess their sustainability progress, establishing where they are achieving and what areas need further work. Outside organisations such as government departments, the Local Government Association and the West Midlands Combined Authority can also benefit from the benchmarking as it helps to improve their understanding of where further support would be useful.
Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Elissa Swinglehurst, said:
“Being ranked as the top performing authority in the West Midlands is a real achievement and recognition of the effort that the council is putting into sustainability. We will continue to work just as hard and to lead by example to support the whole country to get to net zero by 2030.
“We are also developing the country’s first Climate Change Adaptation Plan which will help us to better respond to the challenges of climate change.”
Herefordshire Council’s benchmarking process was completed by its Sustainability and Climate Change team, with Richard Vaughan, Sustainability and Climate Change Team Manager, commenting:
“We believed we were making good progress with our environment performance, but it is nice to have that confirmed through this process and to be ranked as top-performing for the third year in a row is a great expression of the hard work towards net zero that is being undertaken across the authority.
“There is so much more that needs to be done to reach our net zero target. Some of the projects we are currently working on include expanding the Electric Vehicle charging infrastructure across the County, offering grant schemes to help retrofit some of the County’s least energy-efficient homes, awarding local businesses grants to support them to reduce carbon and supporting the Herefordshire Climate and Nature Board whose focus is on a net zero and nature-rich county by 2030.”
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