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South Somerset District Council

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

This council declared a climate emergency on May 21, 2019.

Council only pledge for 2023

“Our ambition is to be carbon neutral across our own operations and land holdings by 2030 at the latest, and ideally by 2023, so any residual carbon emissions will need to be offset.”

Climate documents

Last update: June 21, 2022
Corporate Annual Action Plan

Other Plan · PDF · Approved · Whole Area
South Somerset Environment Strategy

Action Plan · PDF · Approved · Whole Area
Policy & Strategies | Environment

Summary Document · HTML

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Climate Plan Scorecard

This council’s climate plans as of 20th September 2021 were assessed and scored by trained Climate Emergency UK volunteers, as part of the Council Climate Plan Scorecards project.

Show the full Scorecard Read more about the scoring process

South Somerset District Council was a top performer amongst district councils, in the Mitigation and adaptation section.

SectionSouth Somerset District CouncilAverage district council
Total score57%43%
Section 1 Governance, development and funding
11/21
9.4/21
Section 2 · Top performer Mitigation and adaptation
18/18
8.1/18
Section 3 Commitment and integration
4/7
3.8/7
Section 4 Community, engagement and communications
5/9
4.7/9
Section 5 Measuring and setting emissions targets
2/5
2.6/5
Section 6 Co-benefits
4/4
1.9/4
Section 7 Diversity and inclusion
0/5
0.5/5
Section 8 Education, skills and training
2/5
1.5/5
Section 9 Ecological emergency
3/4
1.8/4

Emissions data

749.9 ktCO2

Total 2020 emissions

4.4 tCO2

per person

0.8 ktCO2

per km2

39%

Transport

30%

Domestic

17%

Industry

6%

Agriculture

4%

Commercial

3%

Public Sector

Data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy “subset dataset”, representing carbon dioxide emissions within the scope of influence of local authorities.

These councils are the most similar to South Somerset District Council in terms of emissions profile, deprivation, rural/urban population density, and geographical nearness. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Somerset County Council88%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Devon County Council87%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Dorset Council84%No2040May 16, 2019
Wychavon District Council83%Yes2050No
Mendip District Council82%Yes2030Feb. 25, 2019
North Devon Council81%Yes2030July 24, 2019
Forest of Dean District Council81%Yes2030Dec. 6, 2018
Sedgemoor District Council81%Yes2030March 20, 2019
Teignbridge District Council81%Yes2025April 18, 2019
Shropshire Council - Unitary81%No2030May 16, 2019

These councils are the most similar to South Somerset District Council in terms of their emissions profile, based on the latest data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Somerset County Council93%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Mendip District Council87%Yes2030Feb. 25, 2019
Devon County Council84%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Dorset Council84%No2040May 16, 2019
Wiltshire Council83%No2030Feb. 26, 2019
Lincolnshire County Council83%Yes2050No
Tewkesbury Borough Council83%Yes2030Oct. 1, 2019
North Kesteven District Council82%Yes2030July 11, 2019
South Staffordshire Council82%YesNo targetSept. 10, 2019
Mid Suffolk District Council82%Yes2030July 25, 2019

Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Somerset County Council98%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Mendip District Council96%Yes2030Feb. 25, 2019
Sedgemoor District Council95%Yes2030March 20, 2019
North Somerset Council93%Yes2030Feb. 19, 2019
Dorset Council93%No2040May 16, 2019
Bath and North East Somerset Council93%Yes2030March 14, 2019
Bristol City Council92%Yes2025Nov. 13, 2018
East Devon District Council91%Yes2040July 24, 2019
South Gloucestershire Council90%Yes2030July 17, 2019
Newport City Council90%Yes2030Nov. 23, 2021

These councils are the most similar to South Somerset District Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in high deprivation, medium deprivation, and low deprivation neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Shropshire Council - Unitary97%No2030May 16, 2019
Midlothian Council97%No2030Dec. 17, 2019
Powys County Council96%No2030July 30, 2020
Somerset County Council96%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Devon County Council95%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Conwy County Borough Council94%No2030May 9, 2019
Mendip District Council94%Yes2030Feb. 25, 2019
Arun District Council94%No2030Jan. 15, 2020
Rother District Council94%No2030Sept. 16, 2019
North Warwickshire Borough Council93%No2030Oct. 22, 2019

These councils are the most similar to South Somerset District Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in urban, rural, and highly rural neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
South Lakeland District Council96%Yes2030Feb. 26, 2019
Craven District Council96%No2030Aug. 6, 2019
East Ayrshire Council95%No2030No
Cornwall Council (Unitary)94%Yes2030Jan. 22, 2019
Winchester City Council94%Yes2024June 5, 2019
West Oxfordshire District Council93%Yes2030June 26, 2019
East Lothian Council93%No2045Aug. 27, 2019
Rutland County Council93%No2050No
Ribble Valley Borough Council92%No2030No
South Holland District Council92%NoNo targetNo

Features

This council’s climate plan has been tagged with the following features:

Comprehensive plan for mitigation Comprehensive plan for adaptation Strong on public health

Powers & Responsibilities

South Somerset District Council is a Non-Metropolitan District, with powers over:

Council buildings and staff

Climate actions might include:

  • making council offices more energy efficient
  • incentivising ‘Active Travel’ or public transport use among employees
  • providing carbon literacy training for employees
    Environmental health

    Climate actions might include:

    • reducing industrial emissions through air quality enforcement
    • bringing up insulation and energy efficiency standards through enforcement of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) and Decent Homes Standard 2000, for cold and damp conditions in private rental and social housing

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Planning and building control

    Climate actions might include:

    • imposing reasonable requirements that new developments comply with energy efficiency standards and get a proportion of their energy from local, renewable sources (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
    • incorporating additional energy performance standards into their Local Plan, for new works that require planning permission
    • using Area Action Plans to guide development proposals towards lower carbon emissions or more cycling and walking routes, for example
    • enforcing legislation that requires private rental properties to be of Energy Efficiency Rating E or above (Energy Efficiency Regulations, 2015)
    • funding energy efficiency improvements on existing homes, through initiatives such as Green Homes Grants

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Housing

    Climate actions might include:

    • setting energy standards above building regulations (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
    • enabling housing associations to improve the energy efficiency of their housing stock through loans
    • where councils operate their own social housing, prioritising energy efficiency – for example, by requiring Passivhaus standard for newly built schemes

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Spending, procuring, and investing

    Climate actions might include:

    • embedding carbon impact assessment as part of the council’s budgeting and financial accountability process
    • utilising Public Works Loan Board loans or the Business Rates Retention Scheme to invest in emissions-reducing capital projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded
    • specifying low carbon equipment and practices when procuring for relevant services from suppliers
    • prioritising positive environmental impacts during procurement, through the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012
    Waste collection

    Climate actions might include:

    • establishing ‘Joint Waste Solutions’ with neighbouring councils, to get more value out of waste, recycling, and street cleaning contracts
    • running marketing campaigns to encourage residential recycling, reuse, and waste minimisation

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Read more about English local authority powers in the UK100 Power Shift report.

    More about this council

    southsomerset.gov.uk
    South Somerset District Council’s official homepage.
    Tyndall Centre Carbon Budget report
    Check South Somerset District Council’s ‘carbon budget’ – their share towards meeting the UK’s Paris agreement targets.
    Friends of the Earth ‘Near You’ tool
    Discover climate groups in this area, data about South Somerset District Council’s climate performance, and actions you can take.

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    Cite this page

    mySociety, Climate Emergency UK (2023). CAPE: South Somerset District Council. Available at: http://cape.mysociety.org/councils/south-somerset-district-council/ [Accessed 22 Mar 2023].

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