Lancaster leading the way in tackling climate change - and it isn't even close

Plus: The costly Devolution revolution plan as Reform indicate they want to 'go to the county' for decision

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of The Lancashire Lead

As temperatures rose rapidly this week in the county (and not just political ones!) the Climate Action UK scorecards landed for all the local authorities in the country as to how they are doing when it comes to the environment and climate.

We’ve taken a look at who is leading the way - all eyes on Lancaster, not just in the county but nationally too - and they outline what they think has led them to that position. The rankings comes as just weeks ago Lancashire County Council’s new Reform administration decided to scrap its cabinet role for climate change. I guess we’ll see what impact that has this time next year when their scorecard lands.

Latest plot twist in the ongoing Devolution dramas too for Lancashire, as Reform are now banging the drum for spending millions of pounds on holding a Referendum about the issue of having a Mayor and the direction Devo for Lancs should take. This is despite numerous consultations over the years, which if you’re being bleak - and despite much LCC spin about ‘the views of the people’ you would conclude Lancashire just doesn’t really care based on the volume (tiny) and interest of responses (small partisan elements or policy wonks).

People want local authorities which can make their daily lives better, they want to feel proud of where they live and want politicians and council staff to be doing the doing, rather than redrawing boundary lines around the sides of the River Ribble…

Climate ranking of councils puts Lancaster top of the class - and how each area of Lancashire scored

By Jamie Lopez

The River Lune. Credit: Mary and Angus Hogg

Lancaster is taking action on its climate impact almost twice as well as any other Lancashire council, according to new research.

Environmental charity Climate Action UK this week published the second edition of its Council Climate Action Scorecards, which it describes as the only holistic analysis of all UK councils’ climate action.

The analysis awarded Lancaster an overall score of 64 per cent, making it one of just 62 councils across the UK scoring 50 per cent or more.

For the research, Climate Emergency UK assessed all UK councils on the actions they’ve taken towards net zero. The 2025 Action Scorecard assessment consists of 93 questions or fewer, depending on council type, across seven different sections, created in consultation with over 90 different organisations and individuals.

The Scorecards are created by assessing councils according to a three stage marking process using primarily publicly available data from council websites, available before November 2024, as well as national data and Freedom Of Information responses from councils from Autumn 2024. Each council was marked against these criteria and given a right to reply before the scores underwent a final audit.

The scores vary across the county, the second highest being West Lancashire Borough Council on 35% and Ribble Valley Borough Council scoring the lowest on 19%. Elsewhere, Blackpool and Preston both scored 28 per cent and 26 per cent respectively. The average score across Lancashire was just 29 per cent, 9 per cent below the average UK score of 38 per cent.

Eleven out of 15 councils recorded an improvement from its 2023 score, with two remaining flat and and two - South Ribble Borough Council and Chorley Borough Council -dropping The former has defended its record in this area and pointed to achievements not recognised by the data.

Meanwhile, Lancaster’s leadership attributed its strong performance to its ‘strategic focus on place-based action, collaboration, and sustainability’. It also noted that its worst rated area - Transport - is one which it does not have direct control over, with that responsibility instead falling to Lancashire County Council.

Councillor Sam Riches, cabinet member for climate action, welcomed the results: “We are proud to have improved our score and this reflects the hard work of our officers and the shared commitment from councillors in taking real action on projects that help to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“At the same time, we know there is still much more to do and our Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) provides a detailed roadmap for decarbonisation. Our plans for the future include further retrofitting of council-owned buildings, expanding solar installations, and looking at opportunities for new green infrastructure projects that benefit both the climate and our communities and can also lead to lower costs.”

Lancashire County Council’s own score remained flat at 22 per cent and was the second worst after Ribble Valley Borough Council. Its attitude to climate matters will increasingly come under the spotlight now control has been taken by Reform UK, whose national party has made net zero scepticism a key value.

One early action here has been the dropping of the ‘environment and climate change’ portfolio within the cabinet. Leader Steven Atkinson defending this by saying: “We have both a cabinet member and lead member responsible for the portfolio of rural affairs, environment and communities.

“This shows how seriously we take these issues, which we know really matter to our residents.”

This is the second time that Climate Emergency UK has undertaken this holistic assessment of what councils can do for climate action, what they can do to lower carbon emissions, cut residents' energy bills, protect and create more space for nature and provide better public transport, among other things. The Scorecards are created by assessing councils according to a 3 stage marking process using primarily publicly available data, as well as national data and Freedom of Information responses from councils.

Whilst average scores remain low (38 per cent), 80 per cent of all UK councils saw an increase in their Scorecard results since 2023. Two councils in Lancashire saw a decrease in their overall scores compared to 2023: South Ribble Borough Council dropped by 6 percentage points, and Chorley Borough Council fell by 5 points. A further two councils, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and Lancashire County Council, saw no change in their overall scores.

Annie Pickering, Operations Director at Climate Emergency UK, said: “The majority of councils in Lancashire have improved their Scorecard results since 2023, showing that councils, along with residents, want to prioritise climate action to improve their lives and communities.

"Yet the average overall score increase since 2023 was just 6 percentage points, and in Lancashire it was lower at 4. This shows that councils across the UK are struggling to step up their climate action at the emergency pace needed because there are nationwide barriers making it harder for councils to deliver effective, high point scoring, work that would cut residents’ bills, make their homes warmer and raise funds for cash strapped local governments.

“These Scorecards provide proof of where councils need real investment from the national government so that every council can improve their score by 20 percentage points or more each time to make real progress towards cleaner, safer and more prosperous zero emission communities we need to thrive.”

Across Lancashire, no council scored above 80% in any section, but Lancaster performed strongly, scoring over 70% in three of the seven assessed sections: Buildings & Heating, Planning & Land Use and Collaboration & Engagement. These high scores reflect a well-rounded approach to climate action, making new and existing homes warmer and cheaper to heat through strong planning commitments and retrofit support to residents. As well, they are also working closely with residents, schools, businesses and other institutions to decarbonise collectively.

Blackpool Council also scored strongly in Collaboration & Engagement, with 76%, recognising their work with residents on local climate action, as well as businesses, schools, health and other institutions, whilst providing clear and transparent updates on their decarbonisation progress.

Miss Pickering continued: “The government may have a target for net zero by 2050, but these Scorecards results show that they are not doing enough to support communities and councils across the UK to decarbonise. With both devolution and Local Government

“Reorganisation set to change council structures in Lancashire, we want to see a legal duty to tackle climate change embedded in the new authorities created, as the Greater London Authority already has. Doing this would ensure councils have the funds and powers to protect residents from flooding, air pollution and rising energy prices that we know that residents care about, and allow councils to work beyond the next election cycle.”

Ribble Valley Borough Council did not respond to a request for comment on it achieving just a 22% score or on how it planned to improve things.

Councillor Kath Unsworth, Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene at South Ribble, said the scores did reflect all the work done and that improvements have been made despite the authority’s score dropping six points to 29 per cent.

She said: “The Climate Change score cards are an indicator of how councils are performing against set climate change objectives. While we respect the work of Climate Emergency UK, their data just demonstrates a snapshot of the work done. A lot of the work we do and have achieved over the last 12 months such as development and delivery of projects that benefit the borough are not captured as part of the data set.

“For example, our award-winning Active Health Team are delivering Bikeability projects for schools and adults and we are in the process of decarbonising all our leisure centres. We have signed up to a 100% renewable energy tariff on all our buildings and we are rolling out new electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Through our biodiversity objectives, wildlife across the borough is benefitting from our urban meadows and wildlife friendly grass cutting on our parks and open spaces plus over the last 6 years, we have planted or gifted to residents or landowners over 220,000 trees.

“Finally, we have had great air quality news in that our Penwortham Air Quality Management Area has been revoked due to improvements in air quality and continued monitoring results below the UK objective levels.

“We continue to be dedicated to our aim of Net Zero by 2030 and we look forward to continuing with all of our climate change initiatives.”

Any party serious about cutting wasted time or money isn't pushing for a referendum

By Luke Beardsworth

The subject of a referendum, estimated to cost £2.5m, is back in the conversation this week - directly from a party who claim they want to prevent waste.

The government wants Lancashire to have a mayor, and to scrap its council structure for something more coherent, but council leader Stephen Atkinson has consistently been against both.

Reform’s referendum ramp-up has come as this week the government gave its initial response to the ‘thoughts’ delivered in March to the government after council leaders had met to try and agree a way forward, the agreement being that they hadn’t actually agreed anything.