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A new Reform UK administration’s decision to scrap its net zero targets, while continuing to take cash for green projects, is being challenged today by opposition councillors.
Last month, Byline Times reported that the now Reform UK-run council in West Northamptonshire is systematically removing all references to climate change and net zero from its strategies, website and documents – while simultaneously continuing to take Government cash for climate projects.
The decision to scrap its net zero policies has sparked local protests, and considerable opposition anger after the news was announced in an article in The Telegraph – before the actual decision had been voted on by councillors.
Council leader Mark Arnull claimed net zero plans were “something we cannot afford”, saying: “There was no budget, there’s been no scope or plans”.
“It’s not a case of denying climate change, it’s a case of being realistic with the public,” he added, as reported by the BBC at the time.
It came just hours after Reform-controlled Durham County Council became the first local authority in England to scrap its net zero targets.
Since national legislation requires the council to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, opposition councillors have warned that the move to abandon its plans for how to get there risks “creating a set of incoherent polices, and creating a scenario where West Northamptonshire suffers a lack of inward investment due to this political stance” and plan to challenge it at a scrutiny committee on Tuesday.
The call-in report adds: “These are targets. They have never been absolutes, so is it that the administration believes that these targets are wrong in themselves and therefore need revising, or fundamentally object to the concept of net zero itself?”
“The council sets targets all the time…[It] sets a sense of direction and focus whether or not they are achieved. The same applies on this pathway to net zero 2050.”
The last Labour Government’s landmark Climate Act 2008 creates a legal requirement for the council to include climate impact in all its decision making.
As the scrutiny panel points out: “It does not say ‘environmental’ – it specifically says climate. Removing this from council reports could be seen as weakening of this requirement and potentially putting the council in breach of the act.”
The chances of the decision being overturned appear slim, though an opposition source believes they may have to reconsider banning the word ‘climate’ in council docs, not least due to the fact that the 2050 legal requirement to hit net zero remains in place, as do legal requirements to mitigate and adapt to climate change under the 2008 Act.
“We will be arguing that we need to measure progress as it’s the council’s duty,” say the opposition councillors.
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While most the rest of the media seems to happy to give the handful of Reform MPs undue prominence, Byline Times is committed to tracking the activities of Nigel Farage’s party when actually in power
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