What a Difference a Dave Makes! The Facts on the Environment

With the introduction of tough action on littering for the first time ever in the Borough, the pioneering Mayor's Climate Change Fund and a huge fall in the Council's own carbon emissions, Mayor Dave Hodgson has a formidable record on the Enviuronment. Here are the facts:

• The Council did not carry out enforcement against littering before Mayor Dave became Mayor. He has changed that emphatically, with a zero tolerance approach following a public awareness campaign and literally hundreds of fines imposed on those caught littering. Under the radically diferrent regime introduced by Mayor Dave the Council has also shown it will pursue cases right through the courts where people refuse to pay, with dozens of offenders prosecuted and forced to pay fines of hundreds of pounds.

• Dave launched the pioneering Mayor's Climate Change Fund which provides grants of between £5,000 and £20,000 to match fund projects to install carbon-cutting technology at community facilities like schools, charities and places of worship. Since its creation, the fund has invested over a quarter of a million pounds in a wide range of projects, such as the installation of solar panels and loft insulation at Pavenham Village Hall changing rooms (pictured).

• Over 1,000 solar panels have been installed, on Council buildings and, via the Climate Change Fund, community buildings

• Mayor Dave has rejected the Conservatives' Plans for a large incinerator in rural Bedfordshire. Instead, the Council now disposes of the Borough's waste via an envorinmentally superior mechanical and biological treatment process which minimises landfill, maximises resource recovery and recycling and saves millions of pounds for local taxpayers

• Rather than impose unpopular fortnightly collections on local households, Mayor Dave is working to boost recycling by making it easier for people to do so, for example by expanding the range of materials collected (including batteries) and works to improve recycling facilities at blocks of flats.

• Mayor Dave set an ambitious target in 2011 of cutting the Council's carbon emissions by 40%, and this is on target to be achieved in 2015.

• The 'Archimedes Screw' hydropower facility installed on the River Great Ouse at the site of a disused boat slide is already exceeding the income projections for local taxpayers of £32,000 a year while generating clean, renewable energy from the drop between the upper and lower river levels.

• An investment programme in energy conservation and renewable energy in the Council's own property (''RE:FIT') is cutting energy usage and bringing major financial savings for local taxpayers.