Wiltshire Council vote 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. 

Groups from Westbury (including representatives from the town council), Extinction Rebellion (XR), Wiltshire Climate Alliance (WCA) and other local campaigners took to the streets 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. 

Richard Ecclestone, spokesperson for the WCA spoke about why they were demonstrating, “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, thanked demonstrators for exercising their democratic freedom to protest, “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.” 

White Horse News spoke to some of the protestors on the day, with a Westbury 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.  

Wiltshire councillor Gordon King, who represents the Westbury East ward, spoke in support of the proposed bill, which is aimed at tackling the climate crisis and environmental disaster. He said, “If we carry on thinking that we’re dealing with climate change and that everything else will follow in good order, then we are deluding ourselves. I have a measure of sympathy with your view that it’s not for us to tell anybody what to do – it offends my sense of liberalism. So, I would hope that everyone in this room would write to their MPs in their own way and tell them the importance of that ecology and what we should do to preserve it… Making a start is more important than sitting back and saying, ‘I think we’ve covered that anyway’. Because we jolly well haven’t.” 

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.”