A COUNCILLOR says he is “disappointed” after a motion to ensure a new Lichfield leisure centre was not powered by fossil fuels was rejected.
Cllr Paul Ray, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, had called on members to back plans for an all-electric solution for the facility currently being built at Stychbrook Park.
But his motion was defeated after members raised concerns over costs associated with the change.
Before the vote – which saw 12 in favour, 25 against and three abstentions – Cllr Ray told the meeting that the cost was key to ensuring the local authority was able to act on the climate change emergency it declared:
“I’ve never denied we are talking about a serious amount of money, but we are talking about a long-term decision and a facility lasting for the next generation of this council.
“With the right decison we can make a real change and impact with a decision that would be supported by our residents, because we know environmental considerations are high on their agenda.”
But other members of the council had concerns, including deputy leader Cllr Andy Smith who said:
“This council did commit to take climate change into account in future spending decisions – and I can assure the council that we have most definitely taken that into account when looking at the heating system for the leisure centre.
“I had to come to the council to ask for an extra £1.2million and the council correctly recommended that they also asked that we go back to see what we can value engineer in order to save money on the leisure centre, which we did. Those results went back to the task group in August and one of those things was the switch from electric.
“With the gas system it’s proposed to build it in a modular way. I’m no technician but what that means is if the heating system of the day is, for example, a hydrogen system it can be converted quite easily. We can’t do that with the electric system.
“Who knows, in ten years time hydrogen or another source may be the thing we can use. The fact we haven’t put lots up front means it’s easier to replace for a more modern system in future.
“While I really have empathy with Cllr Ray’s motion, I do urge members to take into account the financial facts, saving and where we might be in future with heating technology.”
Conservative cabinet member for finance, Cllr Rob Strachan, also warned of the financial impact moving to an all-electric heating system could have.
“I do genuinely choose to believe Cllr Ray’s motion is coming from an honest desire to improve the council’s environmental impact, but I am unable to support it.
“The impact of this motion is to remove all project headroom and contingency as costed and to place additional borrowing of £338,000 funded by internal borrowing – that is not doing something now so you can borrow the money from it to do something else.
“It is quite literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’ve been lucky with a series of relatively fortunate financial settelments, but we do not expect to be so lucky again. This might be the time we rob Peter to Pay Paul, but Peter needs his money back and it isn’t there.
“The financial assessment says that the only possible funding source is the £250,000 a year corporate inflation budget. Our recent calculations about the inflationary impact on four years to come based on utilities, construction inflation, licenses, national living wage increases and National Insurance contributions increasing is £1.8million, of which that entire reserve funds just £1million.
“This motion sweeps that away, deprives us of protection against the external world but also deprives this project of its inflation protection.
“The council has been proceeding reasonably well with the assistance of the leisure task group. For a member of a task group to break ranks and change policy by a motion like this is bizarre. It runs a coach and horses through the task group structure.
“While the motion may come from the right place – at least I hope it does – this is a wrecking ball motion that adds so much additional expense to the project to make it unmanageable while stripping the council of protections against an increasingly hostile external environment.
“Railroading through council by a motion like this makes a mockery of the process.”
“We only have a climate emergency when it suits us”
But Lib Dem Cllr John Smith said the financial argument did not stack up given other commitments made by the council – including funding to attract The Botanist to the new cinema development.
“It appears we only have a climate emergency when it suits us – we’re building a 3G pitch which has nothing to recommend it for emergency on the climate, we’re putting a padel tennis court on a green area, and not too long ago we donated £1.7million to a private company, so if we hadn’t done that we’d have had plenty of money to pay for this.
“At the end of the 15 years there’s not a great deal of difference between what we pay out and what we get back because with all the savings on the cost of running it.”
Labour’s Cllr Steve Norman said the Lib Dem’s had failed to question previous decisions being made by the council where the climate change issue could have been raised:
“If you want to say this [the motion], then why build a leisure centre or padel tennis in the first place? How can that be environmentally friendly? Why is there a 3G pitch being built – and why not criticise that?
“If you’re going to be 100% pure you have to say something about all of that too. It’s easy to say it’s environmentally friendly even though there is a big cost involved, but I’m not prepared to do that.
“Money spent here cannot be spent there, so I don’t feel guilty or bad about not supporting this motion.”
Cllr Ray told Lichfield Live after the meeting that the council had missed an opportunity to make a positive choice for the future.
“Like so many Lichfield residents, I am delighted to see work starting on the replacement for the Friary Grange Leisure Centre, a cause for which I and many others campaigned.
“In the original plans, the idea was to use air source heat pumps – an all-electric solution that does not involve the use of fossil fuels on site. However, this was changed to a gas and electric heating system.
“This goes against the goals set by the council in its resolution of December 2019 declaring a climate change emergency.
“We had the opportunity to put Lichfield at the forefront of sustainability and to provide a model for other authorities to follow.
“For a relatively modest outlay, we could have done this and I am disappointed that other councillors did not share our views.”
My understanding is that it will be illegal for new builds to be gas supplied after 2025. The decision by the council to ignore this sets a very bad example for both the climate emergency and the developers building their questionable housing.
The costs of a retro fit, which will inevitability come later, will be much greater than the initial fitting. It is even possible it may prove impossible at a later date. As gas supply is reduced the cost of supply is bound to escalate.
Obviously a proper, none political, assessment has not been undertaken into the future viability of this project. It has been costed on a shoe string budget, and in the light of many other poor decisions on Lichfield’s development the council has (or has not) delivered.
In many respects I bemoan the liklihood the city will lose its autonomy in council changes, but when I read the above then maybe it cannot be any worse.
The green agenda and the absurd rush to net zero is national self-harm. We create 1% of emissions and have decimated our industrial base because it’s cheaper to import everything from China and the USA because their energy costs are so much lower. What we do makes no difference other than making us poorer and them richer. We should be expanding our oil & gas production, just like Norway. We should be fracking and building nuclear power plants, not wasting everyone’s time with virtue-signalling & grand-standing, councillor Ray…
This story omits an important point made in the debate. An all-electric system would save nearly £70,000 per year in energy costs at today’s prices. This figure comes from the report commissioned by the task group following the decision made outside the task group to move to the hybrid system from the originally specified all-electric system. The buyback period is therefore relatively short.
Though the cost at today’s prices of replacing the all-electric system after 15 years is much higher than that of the hybrid system, heat pump technology prices will fall – to say nothing of the impossibility of predicting future fossil fuel prices 15 years from now.
“This council did commit to take climate change into account in future spending decisions………”
Well, maybe it should have done. How very short-sighted of them……………..again!
So much for the council’s commitment to net zero. Didn’t last very long, did it? As for Patrick Young’s comments, with an attitude like his, our planet is well and truly doomed.
All this discussion about the leisure centre heating in relation to the environment. If the council had had the imagination to build it on land in the city centre (instead of flogging the land for more flash housing) then it could have been accessed by many more people by walking or public transport. We’ll all have to use our cars and young people won’t be able to get there independently from areas if Lichfield and the villages. And a park has been lost.