A Reform UK-led council has rescinded its climate emergency declaration. Durham County Council, which has a Reform majority since the local elections in May, passed a motion to revoke the vow made in 2019.
An alternative pledge on social care was passed in its place. The town hall’s deputy leader Darren Grimes said: “We’ve been chasing eco-fantasies while our children suffer in a broken system cooked up by Westminster’s underfunding and box-ticking bureaucrats.
“The National Audit Office calls the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) setup ‘financially unsustainable’ – a national scandal where real-terms funding per child has been slashed by 35% over the last decade, leaving councils like ours staring down the barrel of bankruptcy.
“And with a cliff-edge in 20 months when the Government’s accounting gimmick ends, 43% of English councils could go bust.
“Enough of the net-zero lunacy; it’s time to redirect every penny to our kids, lobby for fair funding, and tell our North East neighbours to drop the vanity eco posturing and join the fight.”
Lib Dem councillor Mark Wilkes branded the move by Reform “cynical and insulting”.
He said the local authority’s action on climate change had helped save more than £13 million in the last year.
He insisted that social care issues have “nothing whatsoever to do with climate change”.
Mr Wilkes added: “It is our young people who are going to be most impacted by climate change, and indeed, the savings we have been making off the back of our action on the climate, including energy efficiency measures, is actually helping us to protect frontline social care services.”
Campaigners gathered outside Durham County Hall before the vote to oppose the proposal.
The motion was backed by 62 Reform councillors, while seven from other parties voted against it, 17 abstained and 12 were not present.
It came as another Reform UK council became the first in the country to ditch its net zero targets.
West Northamptonshire Council voted to refocus its sustainability work to “ensure its efforts deliver the greatest value to local residents and businesses”.
