The essence of my response is sadly contained in the key part of Giles Watts' and Mike Allen's own response above, which is that this is a 'huge lost opportunity' for vital real change, viz: • The sustainability checklist is advisory only when it should be mandatory • There are no additional standards or targets set • The scope of the checklist is unambitious and does not include transport, infrastructure or ecology issues. Thus, as they conclude, 'despite the fine words it does not feel that climate change and sustainable issues will in fact carry any more weight in planning decisions than they currently do.' Oh dear oh dear! Richard

What's more interesting is that sex came after dog, Brexit and tea!

So no surprise there then!

So bring it to the attention of the town council by telling them at their next meeting on 18 June and make sure you feed your comment into Shaftesbury's neighbourhood plan due out for consultation on 15 July.

But how soon and will it be enough?

Maybe time for the now outdated petition on this site to be changed to demand that Dorset Council now takes whatever actions are necessary towards limiting carbon emissions in Dorset to whatever level is essential by 2025 as its top priority?

Here's a taster of one: 'Can I ask if the climate action was solely due to the eco-warriors (terrorists ) lazing about on the grass outside the council offices. If so, you have been played by a bunch of terrorists. Climate changes have been happening with the plant [sic] was evolved from dawn of time.' As the new chairman of the council (Pauline Batstone) and the new leader (Spencer Flower) both tried to block the climate declaration yesterday watch out for what happens at the next council meeting on 18 July when this will be discussed again.

Hate to spoil the celebrations but if you want a cold hard reality check just read some of the 50 plus comments on this declaration on the Dorset Council website at https://news.dorsetforyou.gov.uk/2019/05/16/dorset-council-ushers-in-new-era-by-declaring-climate-emergency/ They're far more terrifying than climate breakdown!

At the drop-in day at Shaftesbury youth club Lidl held a couple of weeks ago, their head of property told me that the company had no plans to install either solar panels or electric charging points on the grounds that the planning authority (now Dorset Council) are not insisting on it. Commercial developers rarely, if ever, do anything proactive unless they have to or there's more money in it for them. Both Persimmon and Redrow gave exactly the same excuse recently for not building sustainability into their plans for development in Shaftesbury.

@Lady Ellah Try copying and pasting the URL here in reply to this...

@Lady Ellah Sorry, can't find the video. Can you supply a link?

Think global, act local...

You should - and let us know what you find. It remains a great pity there are no Green Party or Planet Shaftesbury candidates anywhere in N Dorset.

I baulked at scoring each candidate out of, say, five for awareness, knowledge, commitment, speed of reply, and enthusiasm on the climate change issue but then decided why not? So for what they're worth here's my scores - purely personal and subjective of course: Awareness Knowledge Commitment Speed Enthusiasm Total score Derek Beer (LD) 2/5 3/5 2/5 3/5 2/5 2/5 Alex Chase (Con) 2/5 2/5 1/5 3/5 1/5 2/5 Tim Cook (LD) 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 Melanie Costas (Lab) 2/5 2/5 3/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 Lester Dibben (Ind) 2/5 1/5 3/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 Andy Hollingshead (Ind) 3/5 3/5 2/5 4/5 3/5 3/5 William Kenealy (Lab) 4/5 3/5 4/5 4/5 4/5 4/5 Julian Prichard (Con) 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 Lester Taylor (UKIP) 1/5 1/5 1/5 0/5 1/5 1/5 Steve Unwin (UKIP) 0/5 1/5 0/5 0/5 0/5 0/5 Peter Yeo (ind) 2/5 2/5 3/5 2/5 2/5 2/5 All candidates may score highly on other issues but on the climate change issue, generally speaking, I found most candidates to be uninformed and tentative.

So who will?

So, Julie, depending on where you live, will you stand for election on 2 May for either the new Dorset Council or Shaftesbury Town Council. Someone who feels and believes as you obviously do needs to.