TOWN councillors pledged action after coming under renewed pressure from campaigners to declare a climate change emergency at their ‘crunch time’l meeting held last Thursday (Sept 26).

Activists were back in force to urge members to support the motion deferred from the last meeting so the mitigation measures required to make Haslemere carbon neutral by 2030 could be “properly costed”.

The town council has now accepted its working party’s recommendation that it should create a ring-fenced environmental grants fund.

The primary criterion for assessing applications to the fund should be CO2 savings per pound spent, in addition to existing grants criteria and the initial budget will be £10,000 per financial year.

Speaking out before the emergency motion was determined, environmental campaigner Jenny Condit told councillors a group of residents had formed Haslemere Climate Alliance “to take the town’s temperature” on the issue.

Ms Condit presented the town council with the petition – signed by 619 supporters – calling for it to ‘act urgently’ and ‘set an example’ by declaring a climate emergency.

Also urging the council to act, Shottermill parishioner Jean Leston told members her church St Stephen’s was one of 48 eco-churches in Guildfod Diocese and that the diocese itself had declared a climate change emergency in August.

Grayswood resident Adrian La Porta said: “Given recent claims climate change is occurring faster... it should become a primary consideration in every policy and action Haslemere Town Council takes.”

Backing the climate change emergency motion, members have agreed to commit the town council to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and set up a roadmap for achieving this, based on an annual carbon audit to include the council’s own carbon footprint, by the end of the 2019 financial year.

The council will seek ways to help the community reduce direct and indirect CO2 emissions and conserve and enhance biodiversity in a number of possible ways.

Mitigation measures could include using more eco-friendly transport, reducing energy use in homes, shops and businesses, and working with organisations seeking to develop low-carbon local housing, especially community-led, affordable and social housing.

The council’s resolution states: “Business as usual is not an option in the face of this climate and biodiversity emergency, and that society in its current form is unsustainable.”