Daventry declares climate emergency but district council accused of 'watering down' plans to tackle it

Daventry District Council has declared a climate emergency but faced accusations that its plans to tackle the crisis have been ‘watered down’.
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The authority follows in the footsteps of Northamptonshire County Council and Northampton Borough Council in declaring such an emergency.

A specially set up task panel had been investigating climate change actions that the council could take over the last few months, and had come up with 57 specific recommendations for the authority to take.

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But they were condensed down into 20 at the full council meeting, and the councillors who authored the report said they were ‘disappointed’ with how the new recommendations had been packaged.

Daventry District Council has declared a climate emergencyDaventry District Council has declared a climate emergency
Daventry District Council has declared a climate emergency

The majority of the 57 recommendations from the cross-party report - compiled by councillors Rupert Frost (Conservative), Jonathan Harris (Liberal Democrat) and Ken Ritchie (Labour) advised the council to specifically take actions. These included engaging consultants to work out the feasibility of putting solar panels on all council owned commercial buildings, that all new homes with off-street parking should be built with charging points installed and to create a fund for the support of parish council projects aimed at reducing emissions.

But members of the public gallery said the new proposals were ‘vague’, with many only advising the council to ‘explore’ a limited number of options. Frustrated residents also said they were leaving action to be taken by the new unitary authority council that will replace it next year.

A proposed amendment from Councillor Ritchie to include the parish council support fund, and to encourage group purchasing for solar panels through iChoosr, was also rejected.

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His Labour colleague Councillor Jason Pritchard said: "These are watered down recommendations that kick the can down the road."

But Conservative cabinet member Councillor Jo Gilford refuted those claims, saying: “DDC has good green credentials. The task panel recommended 57 actions, which have been condensed into 20. They will result in a lot of actions having to be taken and we have to look at what we can deliver with our resources."

And leader of the council Richard Auger: "I know of no climate deniers here, this is a clear and present danger. Not all of the recommendations from the climate task panel were achievable as there are only so many resources and so much time."

But Clare Slater, who recently stood as the Green Party candidate for Daventry in the general election, was ‘disappointed’ at the tone of the discussion at the full council meeting on Thursday (February 20).

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She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The new recommendations were not very specific, the language was very vague using words such as ‘exploring’. You can’t measure progress against that.

“We can’t afford to wait around a year for the unitary authority. There are reports that say we need to take meaningful action and that this is a critical year.

“It seemed like it was treated like just another agenda item. I can’t understand why it’s not top of the agenda because if we don’t act then everything else they were discussing will be irrelevant because life as we know it will not carry on.”

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