Budget Day 2013 at Glasgow City Chambers

The development of a Green Budget Amendment to the Labour Administration's Budget has involved extensive research from other local authority areas and gathering of information from a range of city council officials. 

The UK Coalition's austerity cuts are creating distress, pain and hardship for Glasgow's citizens. We prioritised the protection of current funding for local community groups who exist to help people in crisis and provide much needed practical day to day support for vulnerable people.

By putting together various budget options for 2013-15, we were able to reverse some decisions including £4m cuts to voluntary organisations and retained £2.4m for Additional Supported Learning provision. This funding supports services that are not add-ons but vital resources within local communities.

Green Councillors have identified budgetary savings and income opportunities through additional investment in energy efficiency initiatives and income generating renewable energy projects. Green plans would commit the Council to further cuts in its energy costs as well as ensuring it plays its part in meeting the challenges of climate change by taking action to reduce its carbon footprint.  We are pushing for sensible local investment to generate income and energy from wind and solar power, both to cushion the Council from further energy price rises and to benefit from government funding. We are also backing new initiatives to reduce the total energy by investing in LED lighting technologies.

LED lighting could be installed in all council buildings at cost of £7m. We also propose the installation of lower wattage and LED fittings in 6,000 street lighting columns within our city's residential streets over two years at a cost of £2.450m. LED technology offers many additional advantages over incandescent and compact fluorescent lighting devices. These include exceptionally longer life span and lower energy usage. There are reduced maintenance costs and higher safety. This provides a high return on investment.

Greens want the Council to produce more of our own electricity. We would build a second wind turbine on council land, located in Robroyston or Easterhouse costing £5m. This can provide a much needed new revenue stream, and takes us beyond provision of a windfarm located on Cathkin Braes to the next phase of wind power investment. This fosters a sense of hope for the future.

Photovoltaic panels could be installed on all secondary schools for £2.9m. This enables the Council generate revenue streams and to maximise access to the UK government's Feed in Tariffs.

Voltage optimisation is a well-established and proven technology that matches electricity supply to the needs of the council's electrical equipment. We propose a roll out of voltage optimisation in all secondary schools for £600k.

We put forward the need for a Hydrogen Fuel feasibility study. Hydrogen and fuel cells are still regarded as emerging technologies and the Council can work with Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise to consider the options, learning from major hydrogen bus project in Aberdeen and other initiatives across Europe.

In the next two years, we want to develop support for investment in Energy Efficiency of Council Estate. The business case assessing and implementing the best options for significant improvements in the energy efficiency of council buildings would be completed. This will inform the accessing of national sustainability funding opportunities, partnerships with the energy sector, retrofitting schemes, and innovative financing models such as Energy Saving Contracts.

Our plans would not just cut the bills the Council faces, they would generate new training and job opportunities and cut our carbon emissions from the council assets.