New Leader of the Lib Dem Council Group

A TEST Valley borough councillor has resigned from the role of council's climate emergency member champion due to a "lack of progress".

Cllr Neil Gwynne, who was also appointed the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the borough council on November 1, stepped down from the member champion role saying, "progress has been so slow".

Cllr Gwynne was appointed the first member champion of the council in January 2021, after the role was established.

He said: "Obviously, I need to spend more time as leader of the Lib Dems, but the primary reason for my resignation is the lack of progress in terms of climate emergency.

"I was pleased to be given the role on the council of being the primary contact on climate change. But I was disappointed with the progress.

"One of the things that we particularly emphasised again and again, is that the council needs to influence what everybody does on climate, rather than just looking at their own carbon footprint. We spent a lot of time talking about that, but it's not what's happening at the moment.

"Progress is slower than it should be. The council does have funds to do more like supporting the insulation of homes and pre-protection orders on mature trees. For example, they've planted saplings but you need to protect mature trees."

Cllr Gwynne said, as a member of the council, he would still be keeping an eye on the climate-related policies and try to push what the council can do.

The Romsey Cupernham ward councillor said he put a number of motions forward to the council, but they were all thrown out.

"We asked that a million pounds of reserves be kept for climate actions, but that was turned down. We asked for the council to support the climate and ecological emergency bill, that was turned down."

Credit: Romsey Advertiser

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