← council-level findings on this theme
10 Jul 2025On 18 September 2025 Kent County Council carried a motion — moved by Mr Hespe and seconded by Mr Chamberlain — to rescind the county's Climate Emergency declaration and to resolve that the council be 'open-minded but sceptical of anthropogenic climate change'; the motion was carried on a recorded vote of 50 for, 20 against and 3 abstentions. [1][2][3][4]
9 Sep 2025Under the Reform-led administration, Kent County Council's Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee resolved on 9 September 2025 to endorse acceptance of two active-travel grants presented by Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport Peter Osborne - £1.86m from Active Travel England (ATF5 Tranche 5) and £5.7m from the Consolidated Active Travel Fund (CATF Tranche 6) - to develop and construct walking and cycling schemes across the county. This is a continuation and delivery of active travel, not a reversal, removal, pause or hostile review; members' concerns were about process scrutiny of scheme selection, not a decision to weaken the schemes. [5][6][7]
9 Sep 2025Far from delaying or scaling back the statutory duty, Kent County Council's Growth, Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee approved and adopted the Kent and Medway Local Nature Recovery Strategy on 9 September 2025 as the Responsible Authority under the Environment Act 2021 (one of 48 LNRSs across England); when members queried the Council's capacity to deliver, officers clarified that the strategy was DEFRA-led and resolved to endorse it. [8][9]
9 Sep 2025At the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee on 9 September 2025, members questioned the greenhouse-gas-emissions KPI and raised concerns about the Reform administration's commitment to its decarbonisation strategy and a potential scrapping of Net Zero commitments; the Cabinet Member for Environment responded that KCC would continue to pursue best practice. [10]
25 Sep 2025In a Cabinet update on 25 September 2025, Cabinet Member for Local Government Efficiency Mr Matthew Fraser Moat reported that Full Council's rescission of the 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration on 18 September 2025 enabled the removal of net zero targets from KCC contracts to broaden supplier eligibility and reduce costs. [11]
25 Sep 2025In September 2025 Cabinet reporting, Kent's tree programme was expanding rather than contracting: winter planting preparations were underway and two new tree-planting projects were being considered for Tree Council funding, even as the same meeting recorded that Full Council had separately passed a motion to rescind the climate emergency. [12]
4 Nov 2025At its 4 November 2025 meeting the Growth, Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee, on an item presented by Cabinet Member for the Environment Mr D Wimble, endorsed adopting a new Energy Efficiency Plan to replace Kent County Council's existing Net Zero 2030 Plan, with members querying what targets would be measured following removal of the 2030 target; the decision was carried 10 for, 1 against and 4 abstained. [13][14][15]
4 Nov 2025At the same 4 November 2025 meeting members characterised the decision as an abandonment of the council's previous net zero strategies, while Mr Wimble said KCC was moving away from the constraints of the strategy rather than abandoning its climate strategy. [16][17]
4 Nov 2025On 4 November 2025 Kent County Council's Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee endorsed decision 25/00091, moved by Cabinet Member for Environment David Wimble, to adopt a new Energy Efficiency Plan for KCC's estate and operations that formally replaces the existing Net Zero 2030 Plan; the vote was 10 for, 4 abstentions and 1 against (of 15 members present), and opposition members stated the decision represented an abandonment of previous Net Zero strategies, which Wimble denied, framing it as moving away from the constraints of the strategy toward 'best policy practice.' [18][19][20][21][22]
4 Nov 2025Kent County Council did not cut, pause or scale back solar/renewable generation on its own estate in the corpus period; it continued to expand it — granting new leases in excess of 20 years to Solar for Schools for new rooftop solar panel installations at Brunswick House Primary School (Maidstone) and St Nicholas' School (Canterbury), while its two existing council-operated solar farms remained operational, generating around £1 million a year, alongside a new Energy Efficiency Plan (25/00091, adopted 4 Nov 2025, 10 for/1 against/4 abstained) that replaced the Net Zero 2030 Plan. This is a continuation/expansion, not a rollback, and does NOT count toward the figure. [23][24]
19 Nov 2025Kent County Council (Reform-led from May 2025) continued to roll out its Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) rather than cutting or scaling it back: at the 19 November 2025 Cabinet meeting the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport reported the BSIP had been delivered and was making bus travel easier, and £35.1m of BSIP funding continued to support public transport initiatives with bus priority schemes delivered or nearing completion. [25][26]
11 Dec 2025Kent County Council's Pension Fund Committee (LGPS administering authority for the Kent Pension Fund) has not weakened a net-zero investment target or rejected fossil-fuel divestment in its published minutes since the May 2025 election: at its 11 December 2025 meeting it was still revising its Investment Strategy with adviser Mercer, with a non-decision-making Investment Sub-Group set up partly to examine responsible investment, and final recommendations deferred to a Committee meeting in June 2026 (outside the corpus's published minutes). [27][28]
10 Mar 2026Delivery continued rather than being deprioritised: the Kent Biodiversity Report noted to committee on 10 March 2026 recorded the recent publication of the LNRS after two years of development and set embedding the LNRS as a future priority, and on 26 March 2026 the Cabinet Member for Environment reported that LNRS delivery work was due to commence following an upcoming meeting. [29][30]
10 Mar 2026At its Growth, Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee on 10 March 2026, Kent County Council noted (RESOLVED to note) an EV Charging Report confirming it had entered a 20-year concession contract with Urban Fox (Balfour Beatty group) to deliver up to 10,000 on-street EV charging points for residents without off-street parking; the scheme is delivered and funded by the private operator and required no council tax funding, so it is an EXPANSION of public EV charging via private investment, not a pause/cancellation/decline of grant funding. No LEVI Fund, OZEV or On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme grant decision (or any pause/cancellation/decline of such funding) appears in Kent's published minutes. [31][32]
26 Mar 2026Kent County Council's tree-planting programme (Plan Tree) continued and exceeded its planting target rather than being reduced: a March 2026 Cabinet update reported around 1,000 trees planted in the most recent season, exceeding the target, with the programme continuing to focus on disease-resistant species. [33]
7 Jul 2026Kent County Council developed and adopted a 'Solar Developments Position Statement' formally opposing large-scale solar developments and battery energy storage systems on high-grade agricultural land (Grades A1-A3); presented by Cabinet Member David Wimble as reflecting a manifesto policy commitment to protect the county's food economy, it was endorsed by the Scrutiny Committee by majority vote on 7 July 2026 (a rival recommendation to defer for a fuller policy document was put to the vote and lost). [34][35][36]
At its 26 March 2026 meeting, the Committee was told that Border to Coast Pensions Partnership (the asset pool Kent was transitioning into) had renamed its 'corporate governance' theme 'corporate accountability' to reflect a drive to hold companies MORE to account on governance and responsible investment -- a strengthening, not a weakening, of the responsible-investment stance applied to pooled Fund assets. [37]
Zero-emission bus provision was expanded rather than cut: Kent's Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport reported in January 2026 that Dover's first electric bus fleet, backed by over £48m capital and £42m revenue in Department for Transport funding, was scheduled to launch that month. [38]
Kent County Council's only Local Plan activity recorded in its published minutes is the Kent Minerals and Waste Local Plan 2024-2039, adopted by County Council in March 2025 -- a minerals and waste plan, not a housing development-management Local Plan; housing Local Plans for new development in Kent are made by its constituent district/borough councils (e.g. Ashford), not the county itself. No evidence was found in Kent CC's minutes of net-zero, low-carbon or above-Building-Regs energy-efficiency standards for new homes being dropped, diluted or declined -- Kent CC does not hold this power, so this does not count toward the figure. [39][40]