The overarching theme of the strategy is: build more homes and create more jobs. This goes against the very core values of our local community, which are that residents would like it to remain green/blue, less populated, with less housing developments and resulting traffic and infrastructure. Our priority should be in ensuring that the area significantly reduces its contribution to the current climate crisis; not exacerbates it. I urge the working group to study very carefully the United Nations IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and ensure that the strategy is aligned with its policy recommendations. Sixth Assessment Report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.
As such, I strongly object all strategic priorities that have to do with increasing the density of population and businesses in this area unless the council can offer strong evidence that such developments will contribute to the improvement of climate outcomes.