Portfolio Environment
IN BRIEF
Insulation offered to households Around 200,000 households in Scotland are set to benefit from home insulation that will save energy and cut the cost of fuel bills over the next few months. The scheme is being rolled out as part of the second year of the Scottish Government’s £15m Home Insulation Scheme. Low-income households in 19 local authority areas will be offered free loft and cavity wall insulation, while higher-income households will be offered a discounted deal. The Government says that the measures will save the average household £50 per year whilst also cutting carbon emissions.
Cycle hire scheme launched The first cycle hire scheme in Scotland, BIKE2Go, has been launched in Dumfries. Subscribers can use bikes free of charge from nine locations across town, boosting cycling numbers, reducing emissions and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Cycling Scotland’s interest- free loan scheme of £150,000 will also assist private sector businesses across Scotland with the costs of installing workplace cycling facilities.
Aberdeen leads on electric car charging Aberdeen has the most charging facilities for electric vehicles of all Scottish local authorities, a Freedom of Information request has found. Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Alison McInnes placed the requests, which found that Aberdeen has eight facilities, Dumfries and Galloway has five, Glasgow City Council has two while West Lothian, East Ayrshire and Shetland have one each. McInnes said: “The technology for electric cars is improving and the cost of electric vehicles has dropped significantly. That’s why it’s disappointing that so few of the other local authorities not only have no charging facilities in place, but also have no plans to introduce them.”
Call for more car club backing Transform Scotland Trust has estimated that car club membership in Scotland could reach 100,000 over the next 12 years if more Scottish Government support was available. TST’s report states that this would be possible if more clubs based on the Edinburgh City Car Club model were started up in other parts of the country. Edinburgh’s car club currently has 3,000 members and is the oldest of its kind in the UK.
Government calls for Crown Estate change The Scottish and UK Governments have agreed that the Crown Estate responsible for managing Scotland’s seabeds must become more transparent and accountable. Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore and Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead recently agreed that the operations of the organisation must be looked at to ensure that the Scottish public can benefit from offshore renewable energy.
50 Holyrood 20 September 2010 Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005
“We have also built safe houses for pump station operators so that they can ride out a storm safely and still be on site to operate and maintain the pump stations.” Another improvement Sinkler identifies is
a more straightforward approach to dealing with flooding and flood risk. “Prior to Katrina, there were over a dozen
different local government entities that were responsible for owning, operating and maintaining different components of the system and the system was not designed or maintained to the same standard throughout,” he explains, adding: “So what has taken place after Katrina is
that all the work we’re doing is really being designed and constructed to the same standards and then a new local government organisation was created that cuts across parish and local government boundaries to ensure that the system, once completed, is operated and maintained consistently.” Although the New Orleans flood
prevention system does rely heavily on man- made flood management, where it has been possible to integrate the system into nature this has been done. One example of this is in the maintenance of coastal marshes and wetlands between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico – something which has become even more challenging following this summer’s BP oil spill. Looking at flood management examples
in the Netherlands with the several Dutch engineers on the Corps team, it has been possible to use some of the natural marshes and wetlands inside some of the levee systems to retain water and further reduce flood risk. However, Sinkler is keen to stress that no matter how good the flood defences in New Orleans, there will always be a risk of flooding in the city. He hopes that other countries can learn lessons from the New Orleans experience and be as prepared as possible for
any flooding that they might face in future as the effects of climate change take hold. “Prior to Katrina there was a false sense
of security [as a result of the flood defence system] that had developed that there was this system in place to absolutely protect residents of New Orleans from a hurricane storm surge,” he says. “Now we are aggressively educating and
informing the population of the greater New Orleans area that there is always risk of hurricane storm surge and it’s important that they listen to and support the local government leaders when decisions are made to evacuate portions of south-east Louisiana.” Te Scottish Government is paying
increasing attention to the risks posed by flooding, with the passing of the Flood Risk Management Bill in 2008 and a proposed reservoirs bill later this year designed to strengthen existing defences and make new considerations for the risks posed by reservoirs overflowing during a flood. Sinkler also feels that homeowners and at-risk residents should be better educated about the precautions they can take, such as elevating their homes to protect from storm surge or purchasing adequate insurance to reduce the level of financial risk they are exposed to. He adds: “It is important that folks have an understanding of the actual system that’s in place so they can support the improvements of that system and understand the importance of the different components. “One of the obvious lessons during Katrina
was that there were many residents in New Orleans that did not have an appreciation for the actual risk that they faced from hurricane storm surge.”
Colonel Sinkler will be speaking at Holyrood’s Flood Risk Management conference on Tursday 5 October. To find out more, please go to www.
holyrood.com/flooding.
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