At Lancashire County Council’s Full Council on 16 October 2025, Reform councillors carried a motion to drop the council’s 2030 net zero target and to ask the Cabinet to stop voluntary carbon reporting. The debate is above.
It is worth being clear about what this does and does not do. The 2030 net zero target was a voluntary, non-statutory commitment the council set itself back in 2019. It is not a legal duty, and dropping it does not put the council in breach of any law. The motion also asked the Cabinet to end voluntary reporting on the council’s own carbon footprint, reporting the council had chosen to do over and above anything it is required to do.
Reform’s argument in the chamber was about honesty and priorities. Councillors argued the target was unaffordable and, on the current path, unachievable, and that the county should put cheap, reliable energy and value for money first rather than a symbolic date. As they put it, Lancashire “deserves policies grounded in evidence, not ideology,” and cheap energy “is what drives economic growth” in a county built on manufacturing.
Reform councillors were also clear that this “is not denying climate change.” The point, they argued, is to be straight about the numbers, to spend residents’ money on the things the council can actually deliver, and not to sign the county up to costly targets it has no realistic way of hitting.
Lancashire was one of a number of Reform-run councils to review or drop self-imposed net zero targets after the May 2025 elections. The principle behind it is a simple one: put the bills and priorities of Lancashire residents ahead of dates set for their own sake.