THE leader of the Green’s in Gloucestershire County Council, Rachel Smith, is calling members at Shire Hall to reduce their environmental impact.

This comes the day after the first UN Environment Smog Day, which reminded the public the toll air pollution has on human health and lives.

Cllr Smith proposed a motion that would ensure the council will replace 10 percent of the vehicles within its fleet with electric or low emission cars by 2019.

“We’ve got to act and we’ve got to act now,” said Cllr Smith.

“The UK government has been pitifully slow to act on climate change, and there has been no meaningful action on air pollution which is a travesty given its impact on our society.

“This is an opportunity for the local authority to show leadership in this area. It is vital that we in opposition help raise the ambitions of this council”.

The motion, proposed by the Green’s and seconded by the Lib Dems seeks to promote the use of electric vehicles across the county, in order to begin to tackle air pollution and reduce carbon emissions.

As well as looking at the council’s own fleet of vehicles, the motion seeks to encourage the use of electric and low emission vehicles through contractors delivering council-commissioned services, such as bus services, highways maintenance vehicles and school transport.

By unanimously accepting the motion, the council now aims to engage with district councils to support the provision of publicly accessible electric vehicle charging points in new housing developments.

Cllr Iain Dobie (Lib Dem) who seconded the motion said: “This is a start in moving away from dangerous diesel to safer alternatives.

“We had hoped for a 10 percent switch in the fleet to electric vehicles by 2019, but the full council have committed to five percent by 2020. The motion as a whole is a small but significant victory”.

The Conservative party agreed this motion was a step in the right direction.

Cllr Nigel Moor, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, commented: “It’s great that the county council is backing the government’s drive for more electric vehicles.

"I would hope we could organise our first trial for some point in the new year, as vehicles from our existing fleet age out.”