Summer 2020 How to read this plan Thame Town Council and supported by many other individuals and The plan starts with a background community groups listed in the section which explains the context, Acknowledgements. and the main reasons to take action. This plan was formally approved by After this background the Major Thame Town Council on 14th July Themes of the plan are set out 2020 and will be taken forward with to explain the broad approach. This the support of a new community is followed by a schedule of specific organisation, proposed to be called Recommended Actions across Thame Green Living (TGL). five colour-coded focus areas. Finally, there is a brief Actions For the sake of brevity this plan Summary bringing the key does not duplicate the detail of the recommendations together. previous 2018 plan, which set out the basis for the consultation which Who has produced the GLP? informed this 2020 plan. The 2018 The GLP has been developed over plan remains an important reference six years by the RSA Thame Group, and is available at the Thame Green working as honorary consultants to Living Website. This plan is just the start. Without you IT will remain just A set of ideas, by working together we can make the changes we need. If you like the ideas set out in this plan and WOULD LIKE TO BE INVOLVED then DO get in touch. Visit the Thame Green Living website www.thamegreenliving.org.uk Follow /thamegreenliving /thamegreenliving Pop in to the Thame Town Council Information Centre Contents Section 1: Background Page 4 This brief section sets out the context for the Green Living Plan and the main reasons to take action Section 2: Major Themes Page 6 This section summarises the major themes, the reasons to act, and the practical choices available A New Environment In 2020 6 High Level Pollution - Our Carbon Footprint 9 What We Can Do 10 Street Level Pollution and Air Quality 11 Thame Town Centre - Travel and Traffic 12 Sustainable Energy 15 Water 15 Green Spaces 16 Towards A Circular Economy 17 Timing and Approach 18 Section 3: Recommended Actions Page 20 This section sets out the actions recommended – or options for action, grouped by the focus areas of the plan Open Space, Green Routes and Biodiversity 22 Water and Flood Protection 35 Clean Air and Pollution 39 Energy, Energy Efficiency and Electric Vehicles 46 Waste Avoidance, Waste Management and Recycling 52 Section 4: Composite Actions Summary Page 56 This single page brings together the key Recommended Actions in a simple summary Acknowledgements and End Notes Page 58 Further information Notes providing additional detail on specific topics in the GLP will be published from time to time Section 1: BACKGROUND GREEN LIVING PLAN A plan to protect and enhance our quality of life locally in the things that really matter – our air, our water, our overall well-being and the natural world that surrounds us. Why do we need a Green • Blue for water – our streams of the town’s links with its Living Plan (GLP)? and rivers – and protection surrounding communities and from flooding; countryside. The Green Living Plan (GLP) fills 1 • Grey for our air and gaps that Neighbourhood Plans The GLP and Climate atmosphere – and the effect can’t fully cover. It does this by Emergency concentrating on our broader on air quality and global In 2018 a detailed initial GLP environment and by making warming; (the 2018 Plan) was published connections. These include: • Red for alternative (non- to assist broader consultation fossil fuel) energy, including • Connections between short- and survey, see electric vehicles; term and longer-term effects www.thamegreenliving.org.uk • Linkages between paths, • Orange for waste avoidance, Since then working groups have routes and spaces waste management and recycling. examined many of the issues • Wildlife corridors that our in more detail while increased natural world needs to national and international survive and prosper “The GLP for Thame is recognition of environmental and • Using renewable energy believed to be an climate challenges has now come instead of fossil fuels for to the fore. heating and transport original approach which, These aspects are reflected in • Improving the quality of our we hope, will inspire this new 2020 Plan which is air and helping reduce global other towns and villages intended to sit alongside the warming to act similarly” future editions of the Thame To help focus, the plan has five Neighbourhood Plan, with colour-coded main areas. the GLP recommendations • Green for open spaces, Further, while concentrating incorporated where relevant. biodiversity and walking/ on Thame the plan explicitly cycling routes; recognises the vital importance Page 4: Background Thame Green Living Plan What are the main How and how soon will the recommendations be acted on? proposals? Three main factors will affect how quickly the recommendations can be implemented: A major shift in our environmental thinking Individual Community actions actions and planning What each of These depend on us can do right groups coming Tackling climate now. Examples together to work change by moving include garden collaboratively on from fossil fuel to planting for projects such as planting trees, biodiversity, changing home creating communal green sustainable green heating arrangements, and spaces or green walls, shared energy using our own cars less or car clubs and community solar sharing them more with others. energy schemes. Limiting street-level Infrastructure changes pollution that damages Greater structural changes, typically our health involving broader public consultation, local authority support and public funding. For example, anything involving roads Stopping the collapse or car parks will need clear backing from of our natural world the community and our district and county councils. All this from the destruction of will make timescales more open-ended. But we need to start habitats and species the process now. Policy initiatives2 from government and other national bodies already align well with the infrastructure actions proposed in this Green Living Plan. Transforming our approach to waste, Some things will take time, but we need to get started re-use and recycling now to achieve what is required. How much do we want The changes we need to make others. People often respond to change? now for our communal longer- to cues from others before they term well-being will involve change their behaviour: our Much depends on how people some tough choices. If we believe actions can therefore shape wider who live or work in Thame react these are the best way forward, opinions, while bringing us local to this plan and their sense of individual and collective action benefits. urgency for change. In response will be required; we can’t expect to growing concerns, many local it all to be done for us. authorities have passed Climate “We believe that the need Emergency resolutions; this plan Even if we can’t change the for a Green Living Plan provides a blueprint of how our politics of other countries – and to act on it – is local community will be able to directly, local personal and respond in a coherent, practical community efforts and success, greater than ever.” way across its key focus areas. well communicated, will inspire Thame Green Living Plan Background: Page 5 Section 2: MAJOR THEMES Major Themes The major themes of the plan are set out in this section. They explain the broad approach to the Green Living Plan. “It is clear that we are in a state of climate emergency. We need to transform our whole society over the next couple of decades. Because the science is very clear. Time is running out.” (Dr Emily Shuckborough3 – Director of Cambridge Zero, University of Cambridge - Autumn 2019) A new environment in 2020 There is widely accepted evidence Mean Temperatures diagram5. typically an average over a 30-year that human activities are prime Temperature measurements are period. The differences, plotted contributors to the escalating rise compared daily to what is ‘normal’ here, are termed ‘anomalies’. in worldwide temperatures. We for that location and time, see disintegration of ice fields, a steady rise in overall sea levels, and dramatic new weather patterns. Average global sea level changes since the mid-19th century 250 The chart on the right, for example, 4 is data from NASA showing 200 average global sea level changes since the mid-19th century, caused 150 by water from melting ice sheets (mm) and glaciers and the expansion of 100 seawater as it warms. 50 Global land and ocean temperature measurements are shown on Sea Level Changes 0 the Chart on page 7. Trends in temperature changes are complex -50 to measure, but the overall upward 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 movement can be seen in this Year Source: NASA Page 6: Major Themes Thame Green Living Plan Global land and ocean temperature not only by helping tackle climate 1.5 change locally but by leading the (c) way in inspiring other communities 1.0 too. Role models can be powerful at both town level and among 0.5 individuals. 0.0 The need to act Temperature Anomaly Temperature We need to act, but first need an -0.5 agreed plan to understand why and 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 how, so that we act in a concerted Year Source: NASA way. That will require changes in This GLP is, however, not just Even so, it’s not all bad news. thinking and behaviour. about climate change. It’s also For example, some species are about the quality of life in our making a comeback; green streets, our homes and our energy use is increasing, and Change will not happen communities.