Efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at South Kesteven District Council are "progressing really well", according to leading councillor Dr Peter Moseley

His comments come one year after the council agreed to declare a 'climate emergency' and aim to remove its emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050.

This policy came as Deepings Independent councillor Ashley Baxter sought a similar declaration, with the council removing its emissions by 2030.

The council voted to spend £50,000 and recruit a climate change officer to see how it could meet its ambitions.

Coun Moseley, SKDC's cabinet member of commercial and operations, says despite the pandemic, the council has progressed "really well" with its plans.

"We have engaged with all the officers and members of the council. This is very much a team effort by everybody at the council."

The council is now about to develop a draft carbon action plan, as part of a wider business plan, to see how it can remove 7,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from its emissions every year.

Unlike many other councils, Dr Moseley says SKDC's carbon responsibility will include council-owned or contracted companies, so it will include leisure services.

He continued: "We are now on the verge to start drafting a carbon action plan, which will define the decarbonisation of South Kesteven District council. Some of our objectives will be large in both scale and cost, and we do need to ensure we put a long-term financial plan together to be able to achieve this. Its really exciting as some projects are quite small too, and we can start doing those straight away.

"We are converting all of our streetlights to LED; incorporating within them the potential for us to dim the lights through an "Internet of Things" network in the future. We've already run a dimming trial in Grantham which has sensed pedestrians and brightened and dimmed the lights with the approach of people. Its an exciting technology that we can use.

"Our policy as a district is that we will not turn off our lights. Rural areas rely on streetlights for security and comfort, so having dimming technology is a real bonus.

"By changing the technology to LED and incorporating the potential to dim we can make 80 per cent of the necessary reduction."

"We are also in the process of commissioning electric vehicle charging points in our town centre car parks, as well as looking at how we can, as always, reduce our waste, and promote waste reduction across the district.

"Our vehicle fleet contributes significantly to our carbon emissions, promoting the reduce message can help minimise our journeys and the weight of waste we have to transport. Everything that our residents can do to reduce the waste they put at the kerbside helps us with our carbon reduction ambitions."

• This is the third in our series of waste/environment related articles to mark Recycle Week 2020.