Once again, we are being reminded of the impact that climate has on our work and our day to day lives. Storm Amy is due to hit Scotland, and we have an amber and yellow warnings for rain and wind. Even before these come into effect, we are already experiencing disruption.
I’ve been on Islay this week, with the Leader to meet with members of the community as part of our Here to Hear You, community engagement programme. We were also due to travel to Jura but had to call off due to a risk that the ferry would have to be suspended.
We were lucky to be able to get a ferry home yesterday, but later ones were cancelled and sailings will be disrupted or cancelled over the weekend.
Even getting into the office today was a challenge as the Meadows on the A816 saw the worst flooding I’ve seen in a long time.
I’m sure many of you are experiencing similar challenges so please take care, plan your journey or just don’t travel if you don’t have to. You can keep up to date with service disruptions on our website. We also have a dedicated web page to help you prepare for bad weather at home and on the road.
While it’s never great to have your travel disrupted it is a useful reminder of the challenges that the disparate areas of Argyll and Bute face. When out speaking to people in our communities it’s important to be able to show empathy and understanding of the unique challenges that they face and to take that into consideration when planning or setting policy.
And it’s not just travel that is disrupted. On Islay we spoke to people who will be dealing with flooding in their homes right now, many of them elderly and this will be replicated in other parts of our area.
As ever I’m very proud of the amazing work you all do to respond during these increasing frequent weather events. That might be part of the direct response or by keeping our day-to-day services running despite the practical challenges.
Along with other chief officers I recently received an update on our efforts to decarbonise, and the step change we’ll have to make if we are to reach our goal of becoming a net zero carbon emissions organisation by 2045. We also talked about what we’ll have to do to become more climate resilient, something that we are being reminded of this weekend. You’ll see more on this as our climate strategy is updated.
While you shelter from the rain I’d encourage you to have a look at the September issue of Cascade which includes an update on the results from last year’s employee experience survey. You can also look at MyCouncilWorks to see how your feedback is changing the way we work. To keep the momentum and feedback going, please take a few moments to complete our new survey that will help inform actions for next year.
Take care in the bad weather and enjoy the weekend.
Pippa
Pippa Milne
Chief Executive
