DORSET Council leader Nick Ireland says he remains confident the county can hit carbon targets five years early.

His comments come after criticism of some of the council's climate aspirations by Tory councillors, one describing them as "a middle-class obsession."

The Council's current carbon targets have been shortened by five years to 2035 for the council and 2045 for the wider county.

Conservative East Dorset councillor Ray Bryan who was the portfolio holder when Dorset Council declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 says he is now wary of the escalating costs of achieving net zero, which he believes could now be as much as £170million, with less money now coming to Dorset from the Government.

Dorset Council, which is now Lib Dem controlled, says to date that it has secured around £93 million to support carbon reduction work until 2030 – with approximately 70% of the funding coming from UK Government grants and national schemes.

But the enthusiam to tackle climate change appears to be turning in some quarters – nationally Reform UK has said it will scrap net zero, while the Conservatives have pledged to scrap the UK's landmark climate change legislation

In a interview this week Cllr Ireland says he is confident of hitting targets and is looking forward to the county making better use of renewable energy with the possibility of offshore wind power and even the return of nuclear power to the Winfrith site.

Cllr Nick Ireland at County Hall

"The Dorset Council target, which is the 2035 one, is about the stuff we can control. It's about our electric fleet. It's about using HVO (hydrogen treated vegetable oil) in our bin lorries, for example, which is a huge net reduction in carbon cost.

"It's about delivering healthy homes for Dorset in terms of retrofitting. So not only are you making the houses warmer and cheaper to heat, but you're also improving the health of the residents inside. So it's a win-win for everybody."

The council leader says that despite recently reported problems with rolling out electric vehicle charging points, and the cost of using them in council-owned car parks, more units are being planned.

"We have just announced in partnership with Connected Curb that we will be rolling out chargers on the streets.

"In a lot of our larger towns and even some of our smaller older towns, in Shaftesbury and Sherborne for example, it's really difficult to charge on the street because you don't have off-street parking and by introducing on-street charging it will help resolve that. We're looking around about 1,500 in the first tranche."

He said the council was also playing its part with electric vehicles.

"We're electrifying our small fleet in terms of our own cars. If you wander around County Hall at the back, we've got 20-odd charges there, most of them are full with Dorset Council vehicles most of the time, and by 2030 we'll hopefully have all EVs, all the cars, converted to EV. "

Cllr Ireland said previous trials with larger electric vehicles, such as refuse lorries, had not been successful because of problems with range, although improvements in technology might solve that, or the use of hydrogen treated vegetable oil: "using HVO is a big plus. It's still burning stuff, but it's burning stuff that has a very short carbon life. So it's a net gain," he said.

Electric vehicle charging points in use at County Hall.

Dorset Council say it has made progress on reducing emissions through a number of measures, including 188 council sponsored EV charging points across the county, 8,000 streetlights switched to energy efficient bulbs, and more than 13,000 solar panels across the council's buildings estate.

The council leader says the Government could help on climate change by insisting on better efficiency standards for new homes which would then cost very little to heat and light.

He is also hopeful that renewables and 'green' technology could provide a jobs boost for Dorset.

He said there is huge potential for offshore wind generation based around Portland Port with a chance, if the Government backed it, of developing small modular reactors in Winfrith.

"There are lots of companies, small and medium enterprises, who are involved in renewable energy not just in Dorset but the whole of the southwest…

"Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity. They're way cheaper than nuclear, they're way cheaper than gas. The only reason our electricity bills are so high is it's tied to the price of gas. I think for the first time ever, half of Europe's electricity in the second quarter was generated from renewables. And renewables have overtaken coal as the largest producer of electricity in the whole of the world… So solar farms have a part to play and solar on house roofs."

The council leader says the authority is keen to drive the use of green technology forward and has set up a climate change panel with 22 members of the public, meeting over the next two months to help inform what the council need to do to adapt to climate change.

"In Chickerell we have a perfect connection for offshore wind. There are companies, looking to build wind turbines off the Dorset coastline… I think people are a lot more acceptable of renewables. YouGov, who do lots of polling for the government, regularly report climate change and nature and protecting nature in the top three or top five of everybody's concerns and priorities."

He argues that because of that shift in public attitude Dorset is unlikely to see the opposition it once did to offshore wind turbines, as it did when the Navitus windfarm was proposed for the coast off Bournemouth and Poole.

"There's the prospects of really big things happening in Portland Port, which will generate jobs not just in construction but also in the renewable industry. Potentially we're going to be building wind farms in terms of putting them together, essentially there, and then dragging them out into wherever they're going to be."