Wiltshire Council votes against supporting Climate Emergency Bill as protests rage outside

DEMONSTRATORS gathered outside the Civic Centre in Trowbridge last Tuesday in protest at Wiltshire Council’s ‘lack of action’ to meet their own target of carbon neutrality by 2030. 

Councillors from Melksham including mayor, cllr Jon Hubbard joined protestors from Wiltshire Climate Alliance (WCA) and Extinction Rebellion and other local campaigners to push Wiltshire Council to go further than their current ‘green and blue infrastructure strategy’ recommends, at the first full council meeting since the pandemic.  

They were also protesting against a waste incinerator which Wiltshire Council gave planning permission for in Westbury in June, which has been described as a ‘carbon-belching monster’ by South West Wiltshire MP Andrew Murrison. Protesters are lobbying the Secretary of State, Michael Gove MP, to call in the application, which could reverse the decision.  

Town councillor for Melksham East, Louisa Lewis said, “Climate change is one of the most important issues to be dealt with. We need strong action at a local level in councils across the country to drive the change we all wish to see. I am glad to come out and show my support for Westbury Town Council in their fight to stop an incinerator being built in their town.” 

Richard Ecclestone, spokes-person for the WCA said, “The council have just voted through the Westbury incinerator alongside producing their draft climate strategy and its draft green and blue infrastructure strategy – these are really critical moments because as we know, Wiltshire Council declared a climate emergency and have ambitions of the county being carbon neutral by 2030. Unfortunately, the strategy proposed won’t get us to that point.  

“Councillors need to give an appropriate timeline and dates for when targets will be met. There seems to be no commitment from the council to achieve what they have identified as the solutions.  

“We want to make some noise about that and alert councillors if they’re not aware that their ambition isn’t strong enough, the urgency isn’t there and we’re not getting the leadership we need to drive this through. We want to encourage them to step up and do what needs to get done.  

“We’ve put a petition together; what we’re asking for is that every decision Wiltshire Council makes, every policy that has been put forward, has got to have carbon reduction at the core of their decision making. There is an emergency, and their actions need to match that. If they do not act now to stop these emissions, there is no way that the 2030 target will be met. Making decisions that make the problem worse is bonkers.”  

As Wiltshire councillors gathered outside for the meeting, they were met with XR protestors brandishing the names of the committee members who voted through the Westbury incinerator application on a sign round their necks and holding signs with the words “I voted to destroy the Earth.”  

As councillors went to sit down for the meeting, XR and members of the accompanied Samba band fell to the floor pretending to be dead, to demonstrate the effects of the decisions made by the council have on the people of Wiltshire.  

Cllr Nick Botterill, Wiltshire Council cabinet member with responsibility for climate change told the demonstrators, “Thank you very much for coming and showing your enthusiasm for the issue. I just want to impart a message – we as a council are very, very, very serious about this issue; we’ve just completed the climate change and green and blue infrastructure strategy consultation which closed on the 17th of this month, and we got a good response. I’m sure everyone here has put their responses in to tell us what they think – now we have got work to do. That’s what I and the rest of the administration are going to get on and do, so thank you very much for your contribution to the discussion.”  

Melksham News spoke to some of the protestors on the day, with a local resident saying, “My generation started this ordeal and now it’s up to us to do something about it. Wiltshire Council haven’t gone far enough by their own account of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030, so if we don’t do something drastic now, our children and grandchildren will be the ones left scrambling about to find an answer.”  

Councillors were considering a motion proposed by cllr Brian Mathew, asking Wiltshire Council to declare its support for the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, and to write to all Wiltshire MPs to support it. The bill is calling for an emergency strategy to be put in place to actively conserve and restore nature with legally binding targets.  

Cllr Matthew Dean, who represents the Westbury West ward on Wiltshire Council said, “I cannot support this motion. I’d like to say something about Extinction Rebellion. It is my view that it is totally irresponsible for grown adults to block this country’s infrastructure, our roads and our bridges. People have died as a result. Blocking emergency vehicles and damaging the economy is no way to tackle climate change.”  

This sparked outrage from some members of the public who shouted out the difference between Insulate Britain (the group blocking roads) and Extinction Rebellion. The chair of the meeting, cllr Stuart Wheeler, responded loudly, “I am uninterested in your views, please leave.” The meeting was then suspended as members of XR were asked to leave.   

Melksham mayor Jon Hubbard told the meeting, “Whilst I’m 100% in support of what the members of the public are advocating to us today, some of the tactics are perhaps unhelpful, but what we are trying to do in this country and those who support the environmental movement is effect change. 100 years ago, the suffragette movement was effecting change, asking for equal rights for women, but the things that they did, to get their message out, to get themselves heard, to get people to take them seriously, they ruffled feathers. They accepted they would be deemed as being crazy, mad, insane, yet today we celebrate people like Emily Pankhurst because of the change they effected. Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement, she sat on that bus seat and we now celebrate that, at the time it was condemned; let’s listen to the actual message, please support this today; it is important.” 

However, Wiltshire councillors voted against supporting the Private Members’ Bill, with cllr Nick Botterill suggesting that Wiltshire Council has enough work to be getting on with in terms of tackling the climate issue. Fifty councillors voted against supporting the Bill, 30 voted for support and there were two abstentions.  

Commenting on the result, Dan Gmaj from the Westbury protest group WGAG/No Westbury Incinerator, questioned why the majority of Wiltshire councillors were unable to support the climate change Bill going through Parliament, alongside their own efforts of counteracting climate change. He said, “It would seem that our Wiltshire Council are in majority support of ‘all that they are already doing’ for the climate and ecology and that support for this Bill was therefore simply a distraction from that ”wonderful work.”