Meeting of
West Dorset Partnership Climate Change Steering Group
Stratton House, Dorchester, 12 November 2010

This meeting, the first since March, was mainly intended to monitor progress in the implementation of WD climate change strategy, adopted more than a year ago. [This strategy may be accessed at www.dorsetforyou.com/climatechange/west .]

1. Climate Change Officer, WDDC. We were introduced to Oliver Rendle, who has been in this new post for about a month. [Access: tel 01305 251010, ext 2557; o.rendle@westdorset-dc.gov.uk] His task is to oversee the implementation of the climate change strategy within WDCC and among WD Partnership members. He is currently writing a report on the progress of projects undertaken within the strategy.

2. ‘Adapting to Climate Change in West Dorset’, a presentation by Mark Fortune (Climate Change Adaption Officer at DCC). It was good to see that DCC is taking adaptation to climate change seriously. My worry about our WD strategy has been that it focuses mainly on mitigation (reducing our C footprint), with minor attention given to preparing for inevitable change. DCC appears to be dealing with both aspects. Its longer-term thinking on adaptation looks to the 2050s and assumes a moderate view of climate change: hotter, drier summers (+3 C); warmer, wetter winters (+2 C); more extreme weather events; sea-level rise, 18-24 cm. Key risk areas are considered to be in: Environmental Protection (e.g. versus flooding); Local Development Framework (e.g. infrastructure, esp. highways, with such issues as drainage and heat-proofing surfaces); Tourism; Development Control and Building Services. Measures to accommodate these risks are being integrated, as ‘future-proofing’, into DCC service level policies. A couple of details:

- With regard to threatened shorelines, two DCC officers have been discussing issues with coastal communities in West Dorset (e.g. Charmouth, Weymouth & Ringstead) towards the development of shoreline plans.

- With regard to communities and ‘community resilience’, it is anticipated that relevant information will filter down from DCC reports and activities. To be fair, it is early days yet, and the ‘transition’ concept does seem to be on the DCC radar.