← council-level findings on this theme
21 May 2025At Derbyshire County Council's annual meeting on 21 May 2025 (the first under the new Reform administration led by Cllr A Graves), the Council resolved on the Leader's motion to abolish its dedicated climate scrutiny committee, removing the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction from the committee structure and folding its functions into the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Places; a subsequent public question described the abolished body as the committee 'responsible for monitoring the council's climate goals'. [1][2][3]
9 Jul 2025At Derbyshire County Council's 9 July 2025 Full Council (the first under the new Reform administration), a question to Cabinet Member for Net Zero and Environment Cllr Carol Wood noted that the Leader had declared meeting net-zero targets was not a priority; Wood's reply set out only adaptation/resilience measures and confirmed the council's net-zero strategy is being replaced, and in a supplementary he stated the new strategy would contain no explicit emissions-reduction measures. [4][5][6]
9 Jul 2025Asked in July 2025 whether the new administration still backed the environmental priorities after it abolished the Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction committee, Cabinet Member Cllr C Wood replied that the Council was continuing to fulfil its Environment Act statutory duties, specifically naming the preparation of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy — an affirmation of continued statutory delivery, not a delay or deprioritisation of it. [7]
9 Jul 2025At the 9 July 2025 County Council meeting, Cabinet Member for Net Zero and Environment Councillor C Wood confirmed, in response to a question on whether the council's replacement climate strategy would explicitly target greenhouse-gas reduction, that it would not: the successor strategy will contain no explicit measures to cut emissions, only continuation of biodiversity, energy-efficiency and clean-energy work with 'multiple benefits'. [8]
9 Jul 2025A councillor's question recorded in the 9 July 2025 minutes states that one of the first actions of the new (Reform) administration's leadership was to abolish the Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction committee that had been responsible for monitoring the council's climate goals; the Cabinet Member's written reply did not dispute this and instead pointed to continuing individual projects. [9]
9 Jul 2025In July 2025 the Reform-led council reported the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) as continuing and being actively delivered, not cut: it cited £52m of secured DfT BSIP funding for 'ambitious proposals for improving bus services' and described using BSIP funding to extend evening/early-morning bus services (e.g. the 6.1 and 218 routes running past 11pm) over the prior two years. [10][11]
9 Jul 2025Asked in July 2025 whether Derbyshire would pursue a bus franchising pilot, Cabinet responded that franchising powers rest with the elected Mayor of the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA), who was not pursuing franchising and instead favoured continuing the existing Enhanced Partnership arrangements that underpin BSIP delivery -- i.e. no franchising commitment existed for Derbyshire County Council to cut or scale back. [12]
9 Jul 2025No evidence was found in Derbyshire County Council's published minutes of the council rejecting, revoking or weakening a Clean Air Zone, an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) action plan, or a workplace parking levy. A written council question response (9 July 2025 Council meeting) confirms that in Derbyshire it is the district and borough councils, not the county council, that hold the statutory duty to monitor and declare AQMAs and produce Air Quality Action Plans; no Clean Air Zone or workplace parking levy scheme was found discussed in the corpus for this council. [13]
24 Jul 2025No abandonment or reduction of a tree-planting or canopy target was found for Derbyshire; the Reform-led council has instead continued and funded its tree-planting programme under the Reform administration, accepting a Defra Trees Capital Delivery Grant of over £3.3m for Heartwood Community Forest planting (Cabinet, 24 July 2025) and reaffirming delivery of the Heartwood Community Forest and Tree and Woodland Strategy, which aim to increase tree cover in Derbyshire, as of a February 2026 council meeting. [14][15][16]
11 Sep 2025On 11 September 2025 Derbyshire County Council's Cabinet approved its statutory Local Nature Recovery Strategy for publication and accepted £0.135m of DEFRA new-burdens funding to move the strategy from preparation into delivery, on the timetable of the Environment Act 2021 duty (introduced by Cabinet Member for Net Zero and Environment Cllr C Wood). [17][18]
8 Oct 2025At the 8 October 2025 Full Council, asked what measures the council was taking to reduce carbon emissions, Cllr Wood confirmed it was not pursuing carbon reduction in line with national net-zero policy, and reported that work had begun on a replacement Environmental Sustainability Strategy for the council. [19][20]
8 Oct 2025At its 8 October 2025 full council meeting (item 80/25, Notice of Motions), Derbyshire County Council carried "Motion One – Opposition to Large-Scale Solar and Battery Storage Developments", moved by Councillor Graves and duly seconded; after Councillor A Dale's amendment widening the scope from South Derbyshire to all Derbyshire district councils was accepted, the substantive motion was declared won and carried, resolving to record the council's opposition, in principle, to the development of large-scale solar farms and battery energy storage systems on greenfield sites in Derbyshire. [21][22][23]
8 Oct 2025The motion's stated rationale framed the opposition as protecting productive farmland and food security against net-zero-driven development, asserting that agricultural land should be reserved for food production. [24]
8 Oct 2025The Reform-led council confirmed in October 2025 that its Climate Change Strategy: Achieving Net Zero (2021-2025) -- its carbon reduction plan -- is being replaced with a new Environmental Sustainability Strategy (2026-2030) once the old one expires, rather than being renewed with equal or greater ambition. [25]
10 Dec 2025At the following full council meeting on 10 December 2025, the Cabinet Member for Net Zero and Environment (Councillor C Wood) clarified in a written answer that the October decision was not a blanket ban but a recording of the council's opposition, in principle, to large-scale solar farms and battery energy storage systems on greenfield sites, noting the county council is not the local planning authority. [26]
11 Feb 2026No reversal, removal, pause or hostile review of 20mph limits by Derbyshire's Reform administration is recorded. The only 20mph reference in the published minutes is a backbench member question (Councillor S Burfoot to Councillor C Hill, Reform Cabinet Member for Potholes, Highways and Transport, Council meeting 11 February 2026) that criticises the PREVIOUS administration's 20mph whole-town trials in Long Eaton and Buxton and asks the new administration to pilot 20mph zones where there is community support; the Cabinet Member's written reply addressed only a single Starkholmes Road safety scheme and recorded no decision to scrap, review or roll out any 20mph scheme. [27]
25 Feb 2026By the 25 February 2026 Place Scrutiny Committee, the council's net-zero-titled 'Climate Change Strategy: Achieving Net Zero (2021-2025)' was being superseded by a new Environmental Sustainability Strategy (2026-2030) built around eight thematic priorities (with no net-zero emissions target among them); once approved it would replace the existing Climate Change Strategy. [28][29]
12 Mar 2026On 12 March 2026 the Cabinet approved the Council's first statutory Biodiversity Report for publication by the 26 March 2026 deadline required under the Environment Act 2021 (introduced by Cllr A Graves) — the biodiversity duty met on time, not scaled back. [30]
25 Mar 2026At the 25 March 2026 Derbyshire County Council meeting, Councillor R Hatchett asked Councillor M Benfield, Chair of the Pension Fund Committee, whether the council would end investments in stranded fossil-fuel assets given the risks from global energy-price volatility; Benfield's written answer rejected blanket fossil-fuel divestment, citing the fund's fiduciary duty to members and taxpayers and the risk to investment returns. [31][32]
25 Mar 2026In a supplementary question at the same 25 March 2026 meeting, Councillor Hatchett pressed Benfield to follow other LGPS funds (citing Waltham Forest) that had committed to full fossil-fuel disinvestment; Benfield declined, saying the pension fund committee would continue to base decisions purely on financial returns rather than match other funds' divestment commitments. [33]
The council's dedicated climate officer team was also downgraded: answering an elected-member question (Cllr G Kinsella) about 'the abolition of the Climate Change team' and the resulting reduction in resources, Cabinet Member Cllr B Lewis confirmed that deletion of posts within the Climate Change Team formed part of the council's budget-saving proposals and that the team was being folded, via a recently approved restructure, into a wider Climate Change and Environment Sub-Division. [34][35][36]
On active travel, the relevant committee resolved only to NOTE continued delivery of the Council's Active Travel Programme and strategic Key Cycle Network (a continuation, not a rollback); no pause, cancellation or hostile review of an LTN, modal filter, school street or active-travel scheme is recorded in Derbyshire's published minutes. [37]
In response to a public question about cuts to the Climate Change team, Cabinet Member Councillor B Lewis told full Council that Derbyshire County Council continues to actively pursue and win external decarbonisation grant funding, rather than declining or underspending it -- the Council's decarbonisation work includes applying to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and the Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund, and the Council has been successful with both. No published minutes searched (council question sessions, cabinet decisions/minutes, and full Council minutes covering 2024-2026) show Derbyshire declining to bid for, handing back, or materially underspending Warm Homes, Home Upgrade Grant, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund or Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding; DCC also has no housing remit (housing retrofit sits with district/borough councils), so it does not itself administer social housing retrofit grants. [38]
Asked in writing whether abolition of the Council's Climate Change team (post deletions in the current budget savings) would harm delivery of net-zero targets, the Cabinet Member for Strategic Leadership, Culture, Tourism and Climate Change (Cllr Lewis) said the Council was still pursuing Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding and was exploring leasing roof space on corporate buildings for solar panel installation via a Power Purchase Agreement -- i.e. the own-estate solar/renewable programme itself was reported as continuing, not cut, even as Climate Change Team posts were deleted as a budget-saving measure. [39]
In a written Cabinet Member answer (Councillor C Wood, Cabinet Member for Net Zero and Environment), the Council confirmed its own solar installation at the former Williamthorpe Colliery site was progressing and expected to supply around 12% of Derbyshire County Council's electricity once operational -- evidence the council's own-estate renewable generation programme was proceeding rather than being cut, paused or scaled back. [40]