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Liberal Democrats on Kent County CouncilThe Official Opposition on Kent County Council |
HELP SCHOOLS FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
December 15, 2006 4:19 PM
At County Council meeting on Thursday, 14 December, Martin Vye, Liberal Democrat County Councillor, challenged KCC to get serious about climate change. A Select Committee of Councillors had produced a hard hitting report, with a series of recommendations that the County Council needed to adopt.
Martin Vye put the spotlight on education. He said: "The report stresses the need to ensure our schools make children and young people fully aware of the impact on their future lives of climate change now. The Eco-School initiative is a brilliant way of doing that. But Kent has just one Eco-Schools officer - to cover between 500 and 600 schools! KCC must find ways to increase the amount of training and support schools receive."
He argued "The report presses KCC to adopt the national 'Very Good' environmental standard for all new school buildings - with a clear timetable to move to 'Excellent'. Yet I hear evidence that KCC officers are saying to school governors planning new buildings 'you can have the best environmental standards - but only if you don't have other essential, desirable features'. This is not good enough. KCC will be falling down on its duty to the future generation if it does not make an absolute priority of ensuring that each new school building complies with the highest standards of reducing carbon emissions and waste, and maximising the use of natural resources."