Reform UK-led Suffolk County Council has announced plans to scrap the local authority’s climate emergency declaration and overhaul its environmental spending.

The pledge has been made after the party replaced the council’s previous Conservative administration following May’s election.

It says the measures are aimed at ‘putting common sense and value for money first’.

Reform UK wants to ensure the declaration, which was made in 2019 and renewed three years ago, is ‘formally reversed’ at the next full council meeting on 16 July.

In addition, all the council’s net-zero schemes face ‘immediate review’, says its Reform UK leadership.

It claims to have already identified £175,000 in annual savings by switching its electricity supply from a renewables tariff ‘to a cheaper one’.

Suffolk CC leader, Cllr Michael Hadwen, said the council’s current tariff ‘is a perfect example of virtue signalling at taxpayers’ expense’.

He added: ‘Suffolk has fantastic landscapes, strong farming roots and outstanding local food. That’s our real environment and I want to make sure we look after it properly and improve it where we can.

‘We are simply taking a common-sense approach - backing practical measures that work, while cutting waste, unnecessary costs and superficial gesture schemes.’

The council’s administration says green schemes will ‘be expected to demonstrate clear benefits, practical outcomes, or real savings in order to continue’.

‘Any that don’t could be stopped, with money reinvested elsewhere’, it adds.

Suffolk CC’s Green Party councillors have criticised Reform UK’s pledges and point out the council is tied to its current electricity tariff until the end of April 2027.

They add that the local authority’s reviews show it has saved more than £4m a year through net zero action.

‘If they wanted a genuine review of costs, not a performative, climate denying ideological ‘review’, they would just need to look at the review of the net zero policy that already happens every year and that proves it is more than paying for itself in savings,’ said Green Group leader Cllr Andrew Stringer.

‘The council was making progress towards carbon neutrality and saving money doing it. This is a massive step backwards’, he added.