To inform the committee of the make up of the council fleet and highlight opportunities being considered to improve the management and environmental performance of the fleet.

The Committee were informed of the make up of the Council’s vehicle fleet and opportunities being considered to improve the management and environmental performance of the fleet.

The Assistant Director of Environment and Culture clarified that the Council’s vehicle fleet at July 2009 had been 248 and not 284 as shown in the key points summary. This had been the best available data at the time.    While the table on page 22 of the agenda - ‘total mileage and CO2 for vehicles’ indicated that school travel and refuse disposal generated the highest levels of CO2 this was due to the stop start nature of their use.  As part of the changes to waste collection, 34 new, more environmentally friendly, collection vehicles were now being operated by Focsa.  The Council was working, through the school travel contracts, to improve buss fleet efficiencies. 

Mr K Lloyd, Amey Herefordshire, informed the Committee about the number and types of vehicles in the Amey fleet and how the vehicles were managed.  He highlighted that: the vehicles cover nearly 2m miles per year; were on average only 2 years old therefore ensuring that they were technologically efficient; vehicle tracking systems had been installed in all vehicles thereby enabling data to be collected to optimise work planning and assess driver behaviour, and speed limiters had been fitted to lories.  He also highlighted that driver awareness training was given to ensure correct diving behaviour and a new small fleet of electric Smart cars was being procured for use by staff on local journeys – one of which would be on loan for the Council to trial.

During the course of debate the following principal points were noted:

• A number of vehicles, principally highway maintenance vehicles, had since transferred to Amey under the service delivery partnership MAC arrangements.
• While the Council had set Amey a CO2 reduction target under the MAC arrangement of 1.25% per annum, Amey had set itself a higher reduction target of 10% a year.
• The Director of Environment and Culture reported that he was due to present a report to Joint Management Team on fleet management which would include CO2 issues.
• In view of questions raised at previous meetings concerning the Council’s fleet, a number of members expressed their deep concern that a more rigorous vehicle management system wasn’t in place and suggested that a central database of Council vehicles should be established as soon as possible to ensure that all relevant information on this valuable resource (e.g. type, age, annual mileage, mpg, emissions rating) was properly recorded, made available and managed.
• Based on the information in the report and appendix the Committee thought the Key Issues highlighted by the Energy Savings Trust Green Fleet Review contained many good points and, subject to clarification of a number of points and the possible setting of more stringent targets, supported the options for improvement as a basis for moving forward.
• A point was made that 3 or 4 year old vehicles should not be scrapped just because they are deemed old as they had a carbon footprint from when they were manufactured.  The need to replace a vehicle because of its CO2 emissions needed to be balanced with its cost effectiveness and reliability to do the job.

RESOLVED: That

a)      The report be noted and the Committee strongly recommend that a central database of Council vehicles be established as soon as possible to ensure that information about this valuable resource is properly recorded and managed;

b)     the Committee gave its qualified support to the Key issues highlighted by the EST Green Fleet Review report October 2009 (appended to the agenda report) as the basis for improving the Council’s vehicle fleet; and

c)      The Chairman and Vice-Chairman consider whether a further full report be made possibly to an extra meeting of the committee in January 2010.