Stevenage communities could soon be given the chance to pitch new green schemes to the borough council “Dragons’ Den” style.

As part of a plan to promote “grassroots” action against climate change, Stevenage Borough Council’s cabinet has agreed to create a new Climate Change Progress Group to help the town meet its carbon net zero target by 2030.

The group will be led by a new Climate Change Programme Lead at Stevenage Borough Council to keep track of the progress which the authority is making to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency in offices and homes.

Councillor Simon Speller (Lab, Shephall), the council’s executive member for environment, hopes the plan to accept pitches in the style of hit BBC TV series Dragons’ Den will give communities a “buy-in” on the look and feel of a net zero Stevenage.

At a meeting of the Stevenage Borough Council executive on Wednesday, October 12, Cllr Speller highlighted a scheme in Pin Green where residents helped paint a shop front.

He said: “It’s this level of engagement that gets people going.

“It’s not stuff on paper. It’s not fancy words like ‘retrofit’ or ‘biodiversity’.”

Cllr Speller also told executive members of the council that residents near Peartree Primary School had transformed a grass patch into a vegetable garden.

He said: “That’s a partnership in the making.

“It’s exactly the kind of Dragons’ Den pitch we hope to see.”

A report to accompany the plan – which the executive agreed to support at the meeting – detailed nine levels at which the council will try to support action against climate change.

These range from COP27 and national decisions which arise from meetings between global leaders, to the actions which individuals and families take in the town.

Council ambitions include planting more than 4,000 new trees by 2030 and the creation of six ponds in the borough.

The council will also support the decarbonisation of nearly 8,000 council homes and the development of a Hertfordshire-wide electric vehicle taxi strategy.

The grassroots project in neighbourhoods aims to begin looking at communities’ priorities in 2023, starting in Pin Green and Bedwell, St Nicholas and Woodfield, and Shephall and Bandley Hill.

Council leader Sharon Taylor (Lab, Symonds Green) said she backed action to limit climate change but warned the council must apply for grant funding to achieve some of its climate aims.

She said: “We just don’t have £240million sitting around.

“We were always going to require additional funding to do it.”