North Northamptonshire Council leader raises concerns over authority's net zero commitments as they are 'making everybody poorer'

Martin Griffiths, elected as North Northamptonshire Council’s (NNC) new leader on Thursday (May 22), said that his group are not ‘climate change deniers’, but feel that tackling net zero is a ‘global matter’.

In 2021, the unitary authority declared a climate emergency and adopted a set of recommendations to reduce emissions, adapt to the impacts of climate change and raise awareness in communities to the causes and impacts of climate change.

The net zero goal for North Northamptonshire follows the national legal requirement of by 2050, or sooner.

The council has also committed to becoming a carbon-neutral authority by 2030.

The current Reform council will be the county’s decision-making body until 2029.

When asked about NNC’s carbon neutrality targets, Cllr Griffiths said: “It’s not going to happen, is it.

“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.”

Cllr Griffiths added that on other areas relating to the climate and environment, he agreed with wanting to plant more trees and clean up the county’s rivers.

The stance taken by the new leader mirrors the opinions of the Reform party at the national level.

In the group’s 2024 policy document, ‘Our Contract With You’, it states that it will ‘scrap Net Zero to cut bills and restore growth’.

It adds: “Net Zero is pushing up bills, damaging British industries like steel, and making us less secure. We can protect our environment with more tree planting, more recycling and less single use plastics.

“We must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets.”

Since Reform UK won the local elections, a host of new members have been welcomed into executive positions, whereby they oversee all of the work that goes on in their portfolio area.

Previously, the Conservative leadership on NNC held a standalone position as the executive member for ‘climate and the green environment’ for their full four-year term.

The roles have been slightly changed since Reform UK took office, and the area will now fall under the executive member for ‘assets, waste and environmental services’. This has been appointed to long-standing councillor, Ken Harrington.

According to NNC, the sustainable communities executive advisory panel was also established to support the creation of climate change policies.

There are currently no plans for these meetings to continue under the new administration, along with a series of other executive advisory panels which are cross-party forums with no decision-making powers.

In its online climate change overview page, which was last updated in February 2025, the council said: “Our world is warming. The world must make deep cuts in carbon emissions this decade to limit global warming to 1.5C and reach Net Zero emissions in time.

“That means corporations, public bodies and institutions must develop and implement comprehensive strategies to decarbonise emissions.”

Councillors will resume usual committee meetings in June, after some forums were paused during the pre-election period and during training for the new members.

The first meeting of the executive, where all of the senior portfolio-holding members will come together to make important decisions, will be held on June 17.