WINCHESTER City Council is all talk when it comes to lowering carbon emissions, one of their own has claimed.

Cllr Lucille Thompson accused the council for doing little to tackle emissions across the district other than “monitoring others”, a meeting heard.

Her claims followed the report from officer Eloise Appleby and Cllr Patricia Stallard, portfolio holder for environment, health and wellbeing, aimed at developing a low-carbon district.

Winchester district needs to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020 as part of the national statutory target of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

The report also stated Winchester is behind official targets and will need to use at least 15 per cent by renewable energy sources by the end of 2020.

Cllr Thompson said: “I do welcome this paper because it shows, at last, the need to reduce the carbon emissions. This is could have been written last year. The council needs to show leadership to drive that real change.

“All we seem to be doing is monitoring others,” she added. “I think we should be much more ambitious. Some months ago the Low Carbon Board met at Eastleigh. It was a real eye opener as to what a council can do. They had a dedicated officer to seek out potential sites to develop them. There is a lot that we, as a local authority, can and should be doing but we just seem to be stuck.

“We're talking a lot and I don't think we're seeing anything really happen.”

Cllr Stallard responded: “There is a great deal going on but perhaps we don't publicise it enough and maybe we should make more noise in future about what we do achieve.”

Deputy leader, Cllr Stephen Godfrey, rebuffed Cllr Thompson's criticism, instead claiming the council was doing the best under the circumstances. He added that business owners and residents needed encouragement to do their part.

“We must show leadership and I believe we are,” he said. “We have to get the message across more clearly. Businesses and residents need to reduce the amount of energy they use because it's good for business and it's good for everyone else.”

Cllr Anne Weir said it was important to persuade home owners to take up the opportunities available to them.

“The city faces some serious challenges,” we said. “We can't rely on silver bullets to drive our low carbon development. We do need rapid action on energy efficiency and we need to pursue this idea of a rural low carbon hub.”

Members voted unanimously to adopt the report.