Rising energy and food prices

A letter in today's Guardian from Cllr Paul Bettison, Chair of the Local Government Association's environment board, is headlined: "Councils must take the lead on tackling energy costs."

I agree. Councils can and must do more to help residents with rising energy and food prices.

In Camden we have just passed a policy to insulate all council estates between now and 2010, and to provide a package of incentives for the private sector to do the same. This is the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to reduce our carbon emissions and to help those suffering from higher energy prices. We already have a policy of decentralised energy – to used Combined Heat, Power and Cooling (tri-generation) to produce energy locally. We see our housing estates as energy hubs that can supply energy services to their own residents as well as to nearby businesses and institutions.

In recent weeks we have also passed a policy to encourage food growing across Camden, especially on our housing estates. We have more than twice as much potentially green space on our housing estates as we do in our parks and open spaces. It’s a combination of concrete, tarmac and rye grass – designed to be low maintenance. It has little environmental value. I hope that this autumn we’ll start planting orchards on the rye grass and next spring we’ll start planting food on the hard surfaces. We can’t produce all of Camden’s food but we can certainly produce some of it and help residents to reconnect with the food chain as well as reduce their food bills.

To paraphrase Paul Bettison – local authorities can do a huge amount to help residents through the current energy crisis and to set our communities on the path to a low carbon future. It just requires political will.