A partnership between North Ayrshire Council (NAC) and the community on climate change will be the key to further progress on the issue.

That was the message from David Hammond, NAC’s head of service for sustainability, transport and corporate property, at last week’s cabinet meeting.

Unveiling new plans, he said: “A major strand of our new sustainability strategy is to take a community focus to action on climate change.

“That is about making the strategy more accessible to the public and placing an increased focus on community engagement and dialogue to encourage community-based climate change action.

“We want to build on the success of our current strategy where a number of highlights include a further 14,600 tonnes decrease in emissions, taking us to almost 70 per cent reduction overall since 2005.

“We have reached a critical stage with our two solar farm projects which are both on track and are the first authority to complete such a project with construction starting early in the new year.”

More than 7,000 households have been helped through the ground-breaking Energy Smart programme and a further 1,500 households have received emergency funding support to give direct support to the rising costs of utility bills.

The council will shortly be widening the final strand of Energy Smart which is the installation of energy efficiency measures.

Mr Hammond added: “We were a top performer with our recycling rate over 55 per cent and have avoided over 100,000 tons of waste going to landfill through our energy-to-waste contract in partnership with other local authorities across the central belt, which has generated enough power for 32,000 homes.

“A partnership with South and East Ayrshire councils was approved by cabinet in April to provide £5 million of investment through external funding to see the installation of 300 new chargers as part of our public charging infrastructure.

"In terms of our own council fleet we unveiled our own de-carbonisation route map earlier this year, paving the way for further electrification.

“We are planting 108,000 new trees and are a third of the way there with 35,000 trees in the ground.”

Council leader Marie Burns said: “This is a really good report with all the discussions around Cop 28 and shows us how important this work is.

"The council can’t do this on its own and we have to work with partners.”

Tony Gurney, cabinet minister for green environment and economy, added: “Another good report and it’s really good to see the solar farm progress and that links to a previous report. But we can’t just rest on our laurels.”

Depute leader Shaun Macaulay welcomed the report but said it was “disappointing” the UK Government had revised some of the climate change targets following North Ayrshire’s efforts.