'Gaps in Medway Council’s Climate Change Plan' - Say the Liberal Democrats

A recent assessment undertaken by Climate Emergency UK of every council's climate change plan has shown serious gaps in Medway Council's own plans. Using public documents, they assessed each council against 28 questions, based on criteria set out by experts in the relevant fields. These scores were then compared to other local authorities and a percentage rank given. In our case Medway Council received an overall ranking of 71% (with 50% being the average score).

Medway Liberal Democrats are pleased to see that Medway Council did perform better than average when compared to other councils. However when you delve deeper into the results, it highlighted some very worrying gaps in Medway's plans.

Firstly, the assessment showed that Medway Council have allocated zero funds for actually implementing their plans, and it has not even set out what it believes those costs are. This shows the true lack of commitment from our Tory administration, who continue to fail to see the urgency of the climate emergency. They also refuse to acknowledge that it will be cheaper to mitigate climate change now than to pay for the consequences later, especially as climate change risks putting half of Medway under water.

The assessment also showed that Medway Council have no plans on how to mitigate the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable in Medway. It is well known that the climate emergency will hit the most vulnerable harder than any other members of our society, be it those living in poverty or the elderly. And these groups are also less likely to be able to afford to reduce their carbon footprint by themselves. Medway Liberal Democrats are deeply shocked that the Tory Administration has no plans to help support these groups, and seems indicative of their general lack of compassion.

Stuart Bourne, Medway Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, 'I can not fault the hard work done by the Medway Council officers, who worked tirelessly on our climate change plan. Yet this assessment shows that without the financial backing this plan needs to work, it is just a piece of paper. I'm tired of this administration using the climate emergency as a PR stunt and not putting their money where their mouth is. I and the rest of Medway want more action and not just words.'

Medway Liberal Democrats call on Medway Council to comment on this report, and explain how it will fill in the gaps that it has highlighted. We can not afford to be happy with just better than average when it comes to climate change, the next generations deserve so much more.

Link to report: https://councilclimatescorecards.uk/councils/medway-council/

ENDS