‘Irony’ as Northants council which pushed back net zero targets shelves meeting due to ‘Great Scorch’ extreme heat

The meeting was due to be held in the council chamber of the Corby Cube but as temperatures soared outside, so has the heat indoors.

Although in agreement with the decision to postpone the meeting until next month, Green members have pointed out the ‘great irony’ of weather extremes.

In September 2025, NNC voted to push back its carbon-neutral targets by two decades despite strong disapproval from opposition members.

The decision overturned a decision in 2021, when NNC declared a climate emergency and committed to becoming a carbon neutral authority by 2030.

Cllr Steve Geary (Green) said: “I approve of NNC postponing meetings because of the heat. It protects the health of staff. It does, though, raise two issues.

“First, we must have legislation that gives a maximum ‘safe’ heat for everyone working in hot environments.

“Second, I’m concerned at having to face more and more superheated days. We had the Great Stink in the 1800s, the Great Fog in the 1900s, and now we have the Great Scorch in the 2000s.

“Meanwhile, NNC is ‘climate appeasing’ by delaying lobbying government and kicking net zero down the line for another 24 years. Is the plan to delay the inevitable until the cost of complacency means panic at the last moment?

“It brings to mind the ‘neglect now and pay later’ approach to the appalling state of our roads, which now need a massive cash investment to catch up. We must not have the same approach to protecting our environment and our health by opting out of lobbying and investment in measures to address the climate crisis. We must act now.”

Temperatures in the vast council chamber at the heart of Corby Cube are proving tricky to keep down and even with fans deployed the thermometer hit 28°C (82.4°F).

The Corby Cube was designed to have ‘passive natural ventilation’ with the council chamber and offices arranged around the perimeter to take advantage of ‘night-time passive cooling’.

It is believed the council in the next few months will investigate ways to ‘mitigate the effects of warmer weather in the chamber’, which it notes seem to be a ‘more regular occurrence’. Any cooling system would come with added costs including design, installation, equipment and maintenance.

Cllr Ben Williams, Green member for Ise in Kettering, added: “There is great irony in a council who delayed their net zero targets to 2050, and now postponing meetings due to climate change. We must be one of the first councils in the country to delay democracy due to changing weather patterns.”

Last year Cllr Martin Griffiths, Reform leader of NNC, stated his group’s members were not climate change deniers.

He said: “Let’s make it absolutely clear, we are not climate change deniers, but we have concerns over the net zero targets. As our party and our leadership have said, they’re making everybody poorer.

“Tackling net zero is a global matter and my members are 100 per cent behind realistic targets.”

But posting yesterday on Facebook, Cllr Gordon Dunsmuir (Reform/Irchester) screenshotted and then commented on a story in the Independent news website.

On his post which featured the headline ‘40°C in June must be wake-up call on climate crisis, scientists warn’, Cllr Dunsmuir said ‘Now that’s what I call Summer 26’.

To a comment that read “climate is a tax scam”, Cllr Dunsmuir replied ‘hurrah’. To another comment stating “It’s just the seasons moving, they’ll say anything to start people panicking’, he replied ’I agree’.