25 Jun 2026
With the impact of global warming all too evident in this week’s record heatwave, is St Albans going far enough to tackle the climate emergency?
Opposition councillors across the political spectrum – prompted by comments from the Greens and Independents group – have criticised the Liberal Democrat administration after a new report revealed SADC will miss its climate targets by 12 years.
The council’s 2025/26 Sustainability and Climate Crisis Strategy Annual Progress Report shows corporate emissions rose six per cent in the last reporting year, and SADC is currently cutting emissions at less than half the rate required.
Figures show that SADC will miss its 2030 targets, only reaching them in 2042. The report also reveals that council’s St Albans Greener Together programme, which connected more than 100 local organisations and delivered workshops and campaigns across the district, lost its two dedicated members of staff in June 2025 when grant funding expired. Its continuation now rests on the outcome of a £1.5 million National Lottery application that has not yet been decided.
Although the council has completed decarbonisation plans for two of its buildings, its leisure centres – which account for a significant share of corporate energy use – are in the final phase of a programme that has not yet begun procurement.
Meanwhile in contrast, other district councils including South Cambridgeshire, Lancaster and West Oxfordshire have published costed carbon reduction plans, committed their core budget to climate delivery and introduced measures to quantify the carbon impact of individual actions.
Green and Independent group leader Cllr Simon Grover said they are now calling on the council to publish a costed and dated plan for cutting emissions across its estate and operations before the end of 2026, to commit core budget to climate work rather than relying on time-limited grants, and to set out clearly what each action will mean for residents’ bills, health and local environment.
“Six years after declaring a climate emergency, this administration still cannot tell residents what fixing this will cost, when it will happen or who is accountable for delivering it.
“Greener Together was one of the few things in this report that showed real community traction. Allowing it to collapse when the grant ran out, and then betting its future on a Lottery bid, is not a climate strategy. It is a measure of a lack of seriousness in this Lib Dem administration.
“Other councils our size are doing this properly and they are not waiting for perfect conditions, The gap between St Albans and the leading councils is not about money or geography. It is about whether climate action is genuinely a priority or just a line in a strategy document. Local Government Reorganisation will change a great deal, but it is not a reason to pause. The Green Party will keep pushing for the pace of action this district needs and that residents were promised.”
His comments were echoed by other opposition councillors.
Cllr Matt Cowley, leader of the SADC Conservatives group, said: “Our Conservative team has been warning for some time that the council’s approach to its ‘climate emergency’ isn’t rooted in reality. Since they declared the emergency in 2019, the council’s net emissions have gone up by 13.5 per cent, despite a vast amount of taxpayer money being thrown at it.
“We are now in a farcical situation where the council’s annual emissions targets are so clearly unachievable that they are barely worth the paper they are written on, but the council’s leadership are unwilling to accept that they have failed that they won’t change the targets. Emissions last year were 80.8 per cent higher than target!
“This is one of the central policies of the Liberal Democrat administration under successive leaderships. They have utterly, utterly failed to deliver it. Every time they are questioned on this failure, they duck and hide behind the simple reality that delivering it is not remotely under their control. Yet on the targets go, because they are so worried that changing course and being pragmatic with what they can achieve will cost them votes that they would rather live with this fiction that the targets mean something than accept that this isn’t something a district council can deliver.
“I think residents deserve pragmatic leadership focussed on tidying up our district, cutting your bills and making parking cheaper; not a leadership tied to fictional targets that they have absolutely no ability to deliver.”
Mike Hobday, Labour Group leader, added: “For several years, council officers have warned the council’s audit committee that there is ‘a risk of failure to deliver the actions set out in the council’s sustainability and climate crisis strategy due to a lack of financial and staff resource and failure to make it a cross-council priority’.
“I highlighted this shortly after being elected. At the October 2024 council meeting, I asked the council leader whether it was time to stop pretending that the climate emergency was the administration’s highest priority.
“But little has changed. Unfortunately, the latest report suggests those concerns have not been addressed. The council’s own figures indicate it is not on track to meet its targets, while dedicated climate capacity has been reduced and officer reports continue to identify the same underlying problems.
“The issue is not whether the council talks about climate change; it is whether its actions match its rhetoric.”
“The Liberal Democrat administration has repeatedly been warned that climate delivery lacks sufficient staffing, funding and corporate priority, yet there has been little evidence of a change in approach. Last month’s decision to decommission the council’s sustainability and climate advisory forum further reinforces the impression that climate action is not being treated as a central priority.
“Residents deserve an honest, deliverable plan that is properly resourced and accompanied by clear political accountability for achieving it. Unfortunately, there seems little likelihood that this will happen.”
Council leader Cllr Paul de Kort, who also leads the Lib Dems group, defended their actions: “We Liberal Democrats are fully committed to being a climate change leader for the many thousands of businesses and individuals who contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. We clearly demonstrate this via the council’s investment in significantly upgrading the thermal efficiency of over one thousand of the most polluting homes in both our social housing stock and private homes. We also have an ongoing programme of solar panel installation across our council buildings.
“Furthermore, at the planning and policy committee on June 6, which the Green Party did not attend, those present heard about the great progress being made in the provision of EV charging stations across the district. This will greatly increase access to charging local facilities and so encourage much greater adoption of emission free vehicles.
“The Green Party had the opportunity ahead the last two council budgets to suggest alternative funding priorities. But, for the second year running, they offered nothing different from the Liberal Democrat proposals. Within the very tight financial environment under which all local councils operate, they could have chosen to prioritise other emission cutting investment, but then they would have had to slash the CCTV protection that is currently offered to our high street businesses and residents. Or curtail our increasingly successful investment in fly-tipping deterrence. Or even consider cutting the hours of the many, varied, leisure activities that this Liberal Democrat council has fought so hard to preserve. But they didn’t, because deep down they know how unpopular that would be with residents.
“It seems to need repeating that, at the previous committee meeting on January 19 which, again the Green Party did not attend, there was a detailed discussion and explanation of the specific reasons why the emissions accounted for by the district council rose
“Amongst there was the rise in homelessness (triggered by the Government’s botched introduction of the Renters Rights Bill) which led to much greater placements in temporary accommodation. The heating and electricity consumption of these is attributed to the district council’s total, whilst the many, many more housed in our social homes do not. It is disappointing that the Green Party, having had this pointed out to them after their previous press release on this matter, have chosen to make political capital out of people’s distressing change of circumstances.
“Just last month, the electorate in central St Albans made a clear choice in favour of Liberal Democrats who offer practical, viable solutions to the varied major challenges we all face. Across the district they rejected populism of all strands whether that be the hatemongering of Reform or the vacuous offering of the Greens.
“Whilst the Green Party claim to be an effective opposition, in reality, they don’t turn up to meetings, they don’t read the papers, and they don’t do the work.
“Meanwhile, it’s the hard-working Lib Dem team that continues to lead on tackling the climate and nature crisis across our St Albans district.”
