BECAUSE CLIMATE MATTERS – Please sign our petition
A message sent on behalf Cllr Rosie Humphreys by Cllr Christine Ware – Because Climate Matters
I am contacting you as one of the attendees of the Climate Summit at Delapre Abbey last October, held by Northampton Town Council with the support of West Northants Council . I came away from the day feeling very inspired by all the speakers and ideas about communicating climate change, encouraging small behavioural changes and projects to make our communities more nature friendly and sustainable.
You may have already read in the local media that West Northants Council has made a decision recently which will have a very negative impact on its leadership role in tackling climate change. The Reform UK administration who are now in charge since the local elections in May have made the decision to shelve the local net zero targets. The excuse was that the targets were unaffordable, yet no figures were offered to support this in the report. The decision has now been put on hold following a notice I have submitted, signed by seven other opposition councillors requesting that the decision be reviewed by a scrutiny committee. The request has been accepted and the hearing will take place at a meeting of the Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee on 19th August at 7pm.
In 2022 WNC made one pledge to be net zero by 2030 for its own operations and another pledge with the target of 2045 for the West Northamptonshire area (not, as the Cabinet report, for businesses and residents to be net zero by 2045). By not only removing the local targets – which are targets after all and not absolutes – the WNC is failing to take leadership in climate mitigation – reducing carbon emissions – and climate adaptation. The Climate Act requires this of councils, also requires councils to collaborate with each other and with stakeholders and include climate impact in all its decision making. Instead the Reform administration has chosen to remove climate impact from all cabinet reports (ie all reports relating to important decisions made by the council) and replace with “environmental” impact.
WNC has several strategies relating to its net zero goals, including the Local Transport Plan which is a statutory document. The Plan refers to the need to address climate change by “rapid decarbonisation of all modes of transport.” The decision to scrap the local targets is completely contrary to this Plan, the emerging Local Plan, the draft Nature Recovery Strategy and many of its existing policies. It creates a dangerous vaccum which will cause further reputational damage to WNC and could jeorpadise future grant funding applications for climate mitigation measures.
A petition has been set up so that local people can have a voice if they wish to object to this decision – I will be grateful if you can please share with your parish council and residents:
The petition has been set up by Liberal Democrat councillors (I am one of them, representing Braunston and Crick) and I have asked Cllr Christine Ware to contact you via personal email as it is inappropriate to use our councillor emails for campaign purposes. I hope that you will agree with me that politics should be set aside when it comes to campaigning for climate matters.
westnorthantslibdems.typeform.com
The Scrutiny committee will be live-streamed and members of the public are entitled to register to speak at the meeting: Agenda for Place and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 19th August 2025, 7.00 pm – West Northamptonshire Council
Thank you.
Kind regards
Rosie
Rosie Humphreys
Ward councillor for Braunston and Crick
