Agenda item

Martin Laker – Team Manager GIS, B&NES and Tristram Cary - Chairman of Geoxphere (the company behind XMAP and Parish Online) will address the meeting.

Tristram Cary - Chairman of Geoxphere addressed the meeting, a copy of his presentation is attached as an online appendix to these minutes, a summary is set out below.

He said that he felt that most of the Parishes were familiar with the service that Parish Online can provide, but that maybe advice or training in certain aspects was required.

Climate Plans in Parish Online

Over 70% of Districts have declared a Climate Emergency, but Parish and Town Councils are finding it hard to follow up with geography-specific climate plans due to:

•Lack of expertise

•Lack of data

•Lack of tools

•Proposal - Use Parish Online

Role of Parish Online for Climate Plans

a)  Provide data layers

•General (Mastermap, Address Base, Ancient Woodland etc)

 Impact Report)

•B&NES layers (EV charging points, Housing Condition Survey)

•Commissioned data (solar potential, Community GSHP schemes etc)

b)  Build Action Plans

•As for Neighbourhood Plans (Layers for energy, transport, biodiversity etc)

c)  Communicate Action Plan via Public Maps

d)  Plot and report progress

e)  Share layers between all interested parties (community groups, UI, national 

Climate Layers

·  Energy

·  Transport

·  Trees and Biodiversity

·  Sustainability

NB: Once defined these layers can be added to all B&NES POL accounts as shared collaborative layers.

Parish Online can provide the following information:

·  CSE Impact Report

·  EPC Score

·  EPC Potential Score Improvement and C+ Potential

·  Full EPC Reports

·  Solar Potential (Energeo service)

·  EV Charging Point Analysis (Energeo service)

·  Ground Source Heat Pump Suitability ((Energeo service)

Ideas and Next Steps

·  Chew Valley work as a team?

·  Involve a University?

o  Provide expertise

o  Provide people

·  Develop Templates to guide other councils?

·  Geoxphere will help as required

Martin Laker, Team Manager – GIS said that if anyone needs more help with their mapping, do email him ( martin_laker@bathnes.gov.uk ).He added that he would also be happy to come out and visit Parish offices.

Councillor Dave Wood, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services asked if all B&NES Councillors had or could have access to Parish Online.

Tristram Cary replied that the same degree of information was available to all Councillors via District Online which they could be given access to and to contact Martin Laker.  He added that other organisations, such as a Climate / Planning Forum, could also be given access.

John Adler, Freshford Parish Council asked if he was aware of other local forums as well as the one highlighted in the Chew Valley and asked how they could work together as a team.

Tristram Cary thanked him for that information. He explained that he mentioned the Chew Valley Area Forum because he had been invited to give them a presentation. He added that he hoped that as many Parishes as possible would take part in this work as all have a licence to do so.

John Adler said that he would liaise with Jackie Head, Chew Valley Area Forum at some point.

Sara Dixon, Locality Manager said that having presented to the Chew Valley Area Forum it was felt that inviting Tristram Cary to this meeting was the next step in the process. She added that it was hoped that a Parish wide support group could be created to enable information about the layers to be shared.

John Adler said that he felt this was a fantastic opportunity, but that in some, if not many areas IT literacy and understanding could be an issue. He added that by working together he hoped that all areas could get the most out of the service.

Tristram Cary offered to arrange a workshop if that would help to attempt to start to define what data could be collected and by who.

The Chair asked if there was an issue in terms of local grid capacity supplied by Western Power in relation to EV Charging Points.

Councillor Sarah Warren, Cabinet Member for Climate and Sustainable Travel replied that the Council was in dialogue with Western Power, but there does appear to be limitations to the capacity of the grid which does make it hard to put in place rapid charging points quickly.

She asked for confirmation that all Parishes have access to the service now.

Tristram Cary replied that they do as a group licence is in place.

The Chair invited Jackie Head and Cllr Nick Baker from the Chew Valley Area Forum Climate and Nature Emergency Working Group to address the meeting.

Jackie Head said that the Working Group had been formed around 18 months ago to bring Parishes together to attempt to reduce the carbon footprint of the Chew Valley.

She explained that 12 Parishes were part of the Working Group and although they had not been using Parish Online a great deal yet they have been doing their own mapping work with regard to potential EV Charging Points in the region.

She said that Parish Clerks were consulted via questionnaire to try to identify potential new charging points across the area. She added that in the main the response was to have them in place at community buildings that were already in use, such as Village Halls.

She stated that following the consultation a report had been submitted to B&NES Council to share their findings. She added she would welcome a cross B&NES Working Group so that information could be shared more widely.

John Adler asked if it were possible to have open access to information from all B&NES Parishes.

Tristram Cary replied that this was possible and that they would also be able to share layers if they worked within a particular Forum. He said that his hope was that in time national layers could be created as well as the local ones.

He added that he would be willing to use the maps shown by Jackie Head and embed them within Parish Online.

The Chair thanked Tristram Cary for his presentation and comments.