A top Tory councillor accused the Liberal Democrat administration on Bath and North East Somerset Council of “woke extremism” in their handling of the climate emergency, but voted in support of it.
Conservative group leader Vic Pritchard | Photo © B&NES Conservatives
The leader of the Conservative group, Vic Pritchard, made the comments at a session of full council on 16th March, where councillors were discussing a report on the council’s progress on the environment and action plan on the ecological emergency.
Sarah Warren, council cabinet member for climate and sustainable transport, introduced the plan, and said: “In the next year, the council will create nature rich areas across 34 hectares of green space in the Somer Valley, as well as continuing to restore woodlands and wildflower meadows across the Bathscape.
“We are redirecting the work of the whole council with the climate and ecological emergencies at the core, and tonight I am also reporting to you on some really impressive achievements over the last year.”
She said that the council’s new planning policy was the first to require net-zero construction, and that the council had increased their number of electric vehicles, installed solar panels on some council buildings, and funded sustainable travel.
But Mr Pritchard accused the Liberal Democrat council of taking credit for the work of council staff and the previous Conservative administration.
He said: “It was us the Conservatives who made climate action a priority, and we declared a climate emergency in 2019. And we did it in a way that didn’t involve eco extremism.”
Although there is often cross-party support on the council around environmental issues, the introduction of liveable neighbourhoods in Bath has been controversial.
Liveable neighbourhoods involve the council installing planters in residential roads to reduce traffic, but some people living in areas where they have been introduced have argued that they were against local people’s wishes.
Mr Pritchard said: “People don’t want to live in your dystopian carless world where everyone will stay in their designated 15-minute zones. People want to do their bit for the environment their own way and to live their lives in freedom and comfort. Nobody has ever asked for an eco-dictatorship.
“Time and again you expect us to sit here and accept that our freedoms, our history, and our heritage are all to be sacrificed on the altar of woke extremism.
“So while we, the Conservatives, remain supportive of any commitment to combating the climate emergency, we strongly oppose the dubious matter and insincere feelings in which it has been undertaken and relayed to us.”
Eleanor Jackson, the Labour councillor for Westfield, said about the need to protect species in the ecological action plan: “[I] have a feeling that some people here are getting as prickly as the hedgehogs.”
But at the vote on the climate progress and the ecological emergency plan, Mr Pritchard and the Conservatives were among the councillors who voted in favour in a near-unanimous vote.
Only Green councillor Joanna Wright, who had raised concerns about a new supermarket which had requested planning permission, abstained on the vote.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
