Surrey’s 5 Year Greener Futures Plan – Have Your Say

Saturday, July 26th • 10am – 3.30pm

Denbies Wine Estate, Dorking RH5 6AA

Shaping Surrey’s Greener Future Workshop

Surrey is a historic county which is home to many thriving communities and some rare and beautiful places. Whilst there is a diverse set of perspectives across the county, monthly polling of Surrey residents shows restoring nature and climate change consistently rank in the top 5 resident priorities[1].

We need your help to design the next five-year delivery plan to tackle these key issues in a fair way, whilst providing key co-benefits across healthcare, the local economy and support for our communities.

Surrey residents are united in a shared vision to tackle climate change and protect Surrey’s nature and wildlife, with only a tiny minority of 5% of residents saying this is ‘not important’. Meanwhile 68% rate it ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important [2]. But we all have different ideas on how to do this. This series of workshops is your opportunity to feed into the delivery plan to help Surrey thrive despite many uncertain challenges in the future.

This plan will impact residents’ daily lives in many ways, for example;

• Increasing the thermal efficiency of Surrey homes to reduce the risk of damp and mould, in turn lowering pressure on local health services, with 300,000 homes in Surrey having energy performance ratings of D or below. [3]
• Reducing energy bills for residents through grants and bulk purchasing schemes to provide long-term cost savings, with 2/3 of homes locally paying more than necessary on bills.
• Building resilience to threats to personal property and the local economy, such as flooding, extreme heat, wildfires and damage to commuting infrastructure including trainlines and roads. [4]
• Reversing nature loss, to tackle the fact that 11% of our native species have become extinct in the last few decades. [5]
• Reducing air pollution levels in Surrey, which has the stretch of road with the highest nitrogen dioxide air pollution levels in the country. [6].
• Creating jobs and upskilling opportunities in new and innovative sectors.
• Reducing the amount of waste created and disposed of in Surrey through community schemes and better resource efficiency.

What do we know about residents’ existing views?

We have strong insights into resident attitudes on tackling the issues ahead of us. For example:

• Over 40% of Brits would contribute 1% of their personal income to tackle climate change. [7]
• Whilst 86% of Surrey residents think renewable energy should be a government priority. [8]
• And Surrey homeowners are jumping on the renewables bandwagon with over £20,000,000 of private investment in PV through SCC’s Solar Together group purchasing scheme .
• Heat pump owners are the most satisfied with their heating system of all types of system owner (more so than gas boiler owners) – but how do we address the cost of a new heat pump when many families can’t afford this? [9]
• Perhaps most surprising, 63% of British residents support investing in more provision for traditional methods of travel, such as walking and cycling, even if it means taking road space away from cars. [10]

But we want to ensure we capture views from a wide cross-section of Surrey residents. So now is your chance to contribute your views and have your say on how we shape a fair delivery plan that balances priorities, whilst ensuring a thriving future for Surrey.

See more information when booking.