TOWN councillors are being asked to prepare plans to show how the authority and the whole of Wellington could become net carbon zero over the next nine years.

The development locally of a climate change strategy will be recommended when the council meets next month.

It was promoted by environment and open spaces committee chairman Cllr Mike McGuffie, who suggested the council should aim to fit with the Government’s policy of achieving net carbon zero nationally by 2050.

However, members of the policy and resources committee who discussed Cllr McGuffie’s paper earlier this month decided the strategy should sit with a 2030 date already adopted by Somerset County Council and all four of the county’s district authorities.

Town clerk Dave Farrow said the policy and resources committee agreed a specific policy should be adopted that the council and the town in general should take rapid steps to reduce carbon emissions going forward.

The policy would mean that becoming carbon neutral by 2030 in line with local, national and international government commitments was achievable.

Mr Farrow said: “The policy will require a strategy to be developed that sets out how this could be achieved both in relation to the council’s own activities and also across the town as a whole given the council’s role in place leadership.”

Cllr McGuffie said the town council should be playing its part in rapidly reducing carbon emissions within the context of the Government having identified climate change as a key issue for the well-being of all UK citizens and that it was caused by the release of carbon dioxide during the burning of fossil fuels.

He said as well as the town council reducing the use of fossil fuels in its own activities and the services it provided, activities commissioned by the authority and those funded with grants or otherwise supported would need to be included.

“The council will also seek to support, encourage and facilitate changes in the use of energy by the wider community,” said Cllr McGuffie.

This could be by leading and supporting initiatives by local businesses, groups and individuals, and by providing appropriate facilities and services.

The town council’s next meeting is at Wellington Baptist Church Hall on Monday (September 6) at 7pm.

It has had to change venues for its meeting because the Court Fields School hall will be unavailable.