Bedford Borough Council expects a 40 per cent increase in carbon emissions next year due to the new leisure contract.
Last night’s Climate Change Committee (23 September) was told that council leisure sites were not included in the council’s previous Annual Greenhouse Gas Reports.
Paul Pace, chief officer for environment, said: “The leisure sites were under a contract with Fusion, so they were being counted as Scope 3 because Fusion at the time was paying for the facilities and the utility costs as well.”
But the new contract means the council’s leisure sites will now fall back onto the council as it’s “picking up” utility costs.
“That’s just a bit of a heads up to let you know this will have some sort of impact to us in future years,” Mr Pace said.
“Because [these] emissions now will be included as we are the bill player,” he said.
The committee also heard that the council has not purchased “100 per cent green electricity” this year due to the “huge increase” in tariff costs.
Mr Pace told the committee that he couldn’t recall the exact increase for the green tariff.
“From what I recall, I thought it was about £150,000 – £170,000 it was a quite a significant chunk,” he said.
The council will review the tariff for April 2025 next year.
Mr Pace said the overall report for 2023/24 was “positive” with a 14 per cent reduction on the council’s baseline.
Looking to the positive actions, the committee was told the solar panels on Kempston Swimming Pool’s roof will help offset some of its emissions.
“Officers are also actively working on options for both Lurke Street and Queen Street multi-storey car parks for installing further solar and also battery storage,” Mr Pace added.
“We’ve replaced our whole fleet of diesel compact sweepers with fully electric sweepers, as well as many of our other smaller vans.
“Anything up to the about 7.5 limit has been replaced with electric vehicles as they come through the replacement programme,” he said.
The council declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and subsequently set out its aims and objectives to deliver a Carbon Neutral Council by 2030.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
