Love West Norfolk column, May 13

I was pleased to see Love West Norfolk Day go green this year, alongside our partners we were able to highlight the many environmentally friendly initiatives the borough council has undertaken since declaring a climate emergency last year.

We continue to decarbonise borough council-owned buildings thanks to two grants, from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, worth £3.8M in total.

Many of our buildings have switched to renewable heating systems, including ground-source or air-source heat pumps, to reduce the council’s carbon footprint.

The council is also investing an additional £1.7 million in creating environmentally friendly houses as part of the Parkway development.

A great way of helping our environment is through planting trees and many have been planted throughout the borough. They are all native species and will help towards being net carbon zero by 2030.

I enjoyed spending time with Gaywood Valley Conservation Group as they planted a mixture of lime, London plant and horse-chestnut trees in The Walks, Lynn, in January.

At the beginning of March over 20 volunteers in Sedgeford planted more than 400 trees in just a few hours. It was fantastic to see the amazing community spirit and proof that many hands make light work. A mixture of hawthorn, field maple and hornbeam trees were planted.

By the end of April the programme to plant over 6,000 trees near Lynnsport had been completed. This is the first large-scale planting programme as part of the borough council’s strategy to tackle climate change, through removing carbon dioxide.

Later this year I will be joining the Mayor of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk as we plant a tree for the Jubilee, part of Her Majesty The Queen’s green canopy project. It’s wonderful that even our most famous resident would like to mark her historic year by creating a greener country and west Norfolk is certainly playing its part.

I would like to thank the many volunteers, organisations, borough council staff and Councillors who are doing their bit to show they love west Norfolk and for making our part of the county greener.

To find out more about what your borough council is doing please visit west-norfolk.gov.uk/climate change