Response to article on domestic flights

Response to the Editor of the Ham and High Broadway newspaper

Your readers deserve an explanation of the facts following your front page last week on officers taking domestic flights (‘The council’s 107,000 mile carbon footprint’, October 22), particularly as your reporter’s introduction was more like a comment piece than a news item. It was certainly disingenuous.  

The council is determined to continue to cut its carbon footprint. We have for example reduced CO2 emissions from council buildings by 812 tonnes in a year and have pledged to cut emissions by 40 per cent in the next ten years.  

Whereas a few domestic flights were taken by officers the fact is that they were undertaking statutory duties where children had to be accompanied or when the fastest transport modes were deemed necessary. Our duty of care and confidentiality to individuals and families means that we cannot talk about individual cases.

But it remains our policy that officers should not normally take flights in mainland Britain except in such circumstances where this is just not feasible given the task they are undertaking.