SOUTH Oxfordshire will put tackling climate change high on its agenda over the next four years.

This month, the area’s district council is set to publish a huge document called its Corporate Plan, which will outline its aims between 2020 and 2024.

The council’s current Lib Dem and Green leaders won power in the 2019 local elections, and the Plan lays out their overall aims while in control.

Green cabinet member Andrea Powell told colleagues at a meeting on Thursday, October 8 the council had ‘an exciting agenda’ for the next four years.

It has chosen six areas where it wants to focus the council’s limited staff and budgets up until 2024.

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In the Corporate Plan these are called themes, and local residents were asking to rank them by order of importance in a survey carried out over the summer.

When results came back, the six themes were listed in the following order of importance: protecting the natural world, openness and accountability, tackling climate change, improving the economy and wellbeing, better homes and infrastructure, and financial recovery from Covid.

To protect the natural world, the council wants to lobby for a Local Nature Partnership for Oxfordshire, where different groups that look after wildlife would be able to formally meet and plan together.

The council’s plans for openness and accountability include continuing to broadcast its public meetings online, and being more inclusive of different groups.

But during the meeting, cabinet member Ms Powell added there had been no response to the survey on the plans from people younger than 20, and very little from BAME communities.

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She said the council would do more to communicate with different groups of people in the area.

To tackle the climate crisis, the council wants to achieve its target of net-zero carbon across all areas of the council by 2025.

South Oxfordshire's Conservative opposition said they did not disagree with the aims of the plan, but were worried about which areas were given most priority.

Conservative councillor Caroline Newton said: "We are anxious that the Lib Dem/Green administration is deprioritising the health of the local economy and communities.

"We know that these are the bedrock of our district. And as we recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic the council will need to do everything it can to support local businesses and jobs."

The Plan is due to be launched at the end of this month, and will then be considered when the council sets in budget for the next financial year.