London Reform council ‘rips up’ climate change pledges amid ‘hottest’ UK summer on record

It said they were against ‘net zero’ and wanted to make savings for taxpayers

16:51, 13 Aug 2026Updated 16:51, 13 Aug 2026

London’s only Reform UK council has cancelled its climate emergency declaration as the capital experiences its warmest day ever, amid a summer on track to be the hottest on record.

“We don’t need a climate emergency that will force the council to try and meet arbitrary targets that cost the taxpayer money,” the leader of Havering Council said last month, but the party was unable to say exactly what those “arbitrary targets” were and how much money the council would save by scrapping its climate policy in an interview with MyLondon this week.

The council’s previous administration made its Climate Emergency Declaration in 2023 to publicly acknowledge the climate crisis and to send a message to residents that the council would be committed to reducing carbon emissions and reaching Net Zero by a certain date, and in Havering’s case, this was 2040.

Now in control of the council, Reform said the policy was only a symbolic declaration, and they didn’t want to pursue net-zero-related policies that would place “unnecessary cost or restriction” to the residents of their borough.

When asked what costs would be saved and what the “arbitrary targets” were, Cllr Martynas Cekavicius, Havering’s cabinet member for Public Realm, told MyLondon: “I haven’t got that figure at the moment, we only made the change a few weeks ago, so I can’t give you the figure at the moment”

Cllr Cekavicius was hopeful that residents would see actual savings from the reversal of the declaration, adding ‘he thought’ they would become more apparent as time went on.

The Cllr responded to criticism of scrapping the declaration in what is set to be the hottest summer on record by saying: “There are many people in the borough who have very strong opinions about this, but Reform has a strong mandate in the council chamber.

“Havering contributes 0.0016 per cent to global emissions. I don’t know what we could do as a borough to impact that. I appreciate that people have strong opinions, but I don’t know what they expect a relatively small London borough to achieve, or what they expect a single London borough to achieve when it comes to cutting global emissions.

“China, India, Russia, they are not going to think ooo well, Havering council have a climate emergency declaration, let’s cut down on our emissions, which are extreme.

“So as I said, I appreciate people have strong opinions on this, Reform Councils up and down the country have been rescinding similar motions to the council. This doesn’t detract from our ambitions to make the borough greener and user-friendly for our residents.”

When asked what priorities Reform would focus on, Cllr Cekavicius said they would be committed to planting more trees in the borough and improving green spaces, making them a “greener council”.

“We will always do whatever we can to make our organisation a greener council. We are very much committed to that, and whether the declaration is in place or not, it does not affect that.”

One example of a policy that Reform have been opposed as a part of the previous administration’s plan to achieve Net Zero was to install solar panels on the roof of the council building, he said: “I haven’t got a list of targets in front of me at the moment, an example would be that there were talks of putting solar panels on our roof, had we gone forward with this policy it would have taken 40 years to break even.

“We haven’t got a very good financial situation here at the council; we have been left in a very poor financial situation that has been left to us by the previous administration.

“We are not going to be spending money on something like this when residents do not see and will not see for a very long time any sort of improvements to the council’s finances, so here is just a very small example of what we would be willing to do in pursuit of imaginary targets.”

While the declaration itself does not commit to certain costly policies, Reform argued that scrapping would, in turn, save the council money amid the financial difficulty they claim the previous administration left them in.

Opposition member, Councillor Gillian Ford of Havering Residents Association, responded to the decision when the motion was raised on July 22. She said: “The impact of climate change hits the most vulnerable the hardest, with the lack of funds to seek mitigation measures. To abandon the Strategy is a retrograde step.

“Reviewing it, however, provides the opportunity to revise and redirect the focus. Let’s be honest, the Council will always consider value for money, its relationships with residents, strategic partners, businesses, and the voluntary sector.

“It has also been very clear not to place unnecessary costs, restrictions on residents, motorists, businesses or essential Council services. We need collective co-operation, the identification of areas of risk, the pooling of budgets, the sourcing of external funding and a strong delivery framework.

“It is for these very reasons we cannot support the Reform UK motion, which is merely posturing and cowering to Reform UK Ltd.’s demands. The residents of Havering deserve better and turn to us for strong leadership, and to lead by example.”

Havering was one of the last councils in London to adopt a Net Zero target of 2040. Under the new administration’s plans, this target has now been scrapped.

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