Agenda

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Meeting held on 15 May 2025.

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1

The deadline for the submission of public questions is mid-day 3 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.

This report presents the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP). This has been produced to provide a roadmap and informed action plan to enable the Council, working with partners and other organisations, to address its Climate and Ecological Emergency commitments and achieve the stated aim of carbon neutrality by 2045.

This report evaluates the current email and document storage, carbon and costs footprints of BCP Councils use of Microsoft 365.

The primary reason for bringing this report is to address the scrutiny request to “establish the current data use and retention polices of the council, and whether there is scope for reduction of the environmental and financial impact of those policies”.

The report outlines three options for consideration: reducing how much data the Council retains in its compliance libraries, transitioning to alternative cloud or on-premises solutions, and completing activity to profile users to enable potential re-mapping to lower costs licence types.

Since the late 19^th century we have been building coastal defences along the shoreline at the base of the cliff to prevent coastal erosion. However, whilst the introduction and evolution of coastal defences along the base of the cliffs have been very successful in stopping coastal erosion by marine action, they were not successful in stopping cliff instability landwards of the coastal defences.

Consequently, borough engineers between the 1950s to 1990s undertook extensive cliff stabilisation works and ongoing maintenance of a variety of engineering measures. However, from the 1990s onwards, due to a loss of knowledge/experience as engineers left the local authorities and were not replaced, combined with a reduction in funding, the approach to cliff stabilisation works has been much more one of reacting to events rather than proactively intervening with cliff stabilisation works and maintaining those systems installed in the period 1950s-1990s.

In recognition of the  challenges of cliff instability, since 2022 the South West Flood & Coastal team have been leading the development of a new BCP Cliff Management Strategy (CMS) which aims to provide a single, consistent and integrated approach to managing each section of cliff along the BCP coast, such that decisions made by various service areas in BCP Council are based on a common understanding of the risks posed by future cliff erosion and instability which arise from a range of factors including the impacts of climate change. The CMS is due to complete by March 2026 and the paper provides details on what it will produce.

After March 2026, there will need to be funding provided to enable the ongoing maintenance of the new systems and processes established by the CMS. In addition, there will be a  need to provide funding for both maintenance of the various cliff management systems across the BCP coast and, in places, the construction of new cliff stabilisation works where we continue to have cliff slips and falls – such as at West Cliff.

The Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Committee is asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Work Plan.