{"id":611792,"date":"2026-05-30T09:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611792\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:13:12","slug":"what-happened-at-first-meeting-of-reform-controlled-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611792\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened at first meeting of Reform-controlled council?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It put forward a motion for a review of “all current council spending linked to net-zero and climate-related initiatives” to ensure they provide “clear value for money”.<\/p>\n

Net-zero refers to a state in which the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced out by those also removed.<\/p>\n

The UK is legally committed to reaching net-zero by 2050 under a law passed by Tory Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019.<\/p>\n

It means the UK must cut carbon emissions until it removes as much as it produces, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.<\/p>\n

Nationally, Reform has said it wants to scrap net-zero altogether, and that has been echoed at county councils it runs, including Essex<\/a> and Lincolnshire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conservative Kay Mason Billig \u2013 who was the council leader before the elections \u2013 said the Reform move appeared to be because of “an edict from their master Nigel Farage”.<\/p>\n

She said the council’s environmental policy, external<\/a> did not use the phrase ‘net-zero’ and was already focused on efficiency.<\/p>\n

“So if that’s replacing a diesel vehicle with an electric one because it’s cheaper to hire and because it’s cheaper to run, then that’s what we do,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Greens’ Jan Davis said reducing energy use helped cut bills, while also warning that Norfolk was at particular risk from flooding and coastal erosion.<\/p>\n

In response, Jason Butler, the new cabinet member for efficiency, insisted: “I will not be following ideology.”<\/p>\n

He added the review was “about balancing priorities, whether that’s climate change or whether that’s spending on essential services”.<\/p>\n

Reform’s proposal was ultimately voted through with the support of GYF.<\/p>\n

The two parties also voted together to cut three political assistant jobs at the council, to save about \u00a3164,000 a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It put forward a motion for a review of “all current council spending linked to net-zero and climate-related…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-611792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}