Cllr Richard Slade, mayor of St Neots, writes about the town's climate action plan. Richard Slade is the mayor of St Neots.Richard Slade is the mayor of St Neots. (Image: Richard Slade)

My second month as mayor has thankfully been a bit quieter than the last, however I still had about 14 meetings to attend. These were mostly procedural, where we bring councillors and officers together at various committee meetings to make decisions related to the operational work we do at town council.

In one of these meetings, we made the important decision to agree on the council’s climate action plan for the next few years.

The plan outlines priorities to reduce our carbon footprint by using renewable energy across our buildings, moving our fleet of vehicles and tools to electric, exploring how we can increase biodiversity across the town and more vitally working with you, the residents and businesses so we can all get a little closer to Net Zero.

We held our second grants committee of the year, where we decided on the organisations that benefit from public money.

We gave grants to a wide range of groups, ranging from gardening and tennis clubs, community and volunteer centres, the Living History Festival, which returns later this year and is organised by St Neots Museum, and other groups supporting those with mental health and financial difficulties.

I volunteered at the council’s regular Youth Cafe at Love’s Farm House for a fast-paced two hours of working with the team taking orders, serving food and drinks to the 70-plus young people who turned up after school to play games and wind down from their school day.

The mayoress and I attended the most talked about events in the civic calendar — the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire’s Garden party and Independence Day celebrations at RAF Alconbury.

My final duties of the month were to put aside the mayoral chain and volunteer at the amazing St Neots Festival in Priory Park.

I’ve been one of the organisers since we started the project back in 2021, a year before I became a councillor.

With a volunteer team of hundreds and despite the torrential rain the night before, the sun came out and more than 12,000 residents came along to enjoy the music, arts and unexpected delights we had promised from the start.

The public response since has been lovely with so many kind comments that it has made all the hard work of nine months alongside my council duties so worth it.