Sefton Council are deeply unserious when it comes to taking action to reduce carbon emissions.

The council declared a Climate Emergency in July 2019 in which they stated that “business as usual is no longer an option”. Now, I must declare an interest. I’ve been working with Southport Community Energy to develop a 1 Megawatt onshore wind turbine in Southport, which would have replaced one that hasn’t worked for years.

This was a great climate project. The turbine would have generated renewable energy, 25% of which would have been used by a council-owned leisure centre. The turbine would have been owned by the community and any financial surplus generated from selling electricity would have gone into a community benefit fund.

Over the course of 20 years, it would have reduced carbon emission by 5,200 tonnes.

The community benefit fund would have accumulated £1.1m which could have been allocated by the community to projects that were priorities to them.

We spent two years developing the project, in what we reasonably thought was a partnership with Sefton Council. Then suddenly they signed an exclusivity agreement with another developer for the land where the turbine was supposed to go. They didn’t want to enable the development of community owned renewable energy. Instead they chose a “leisure and hospitality project”.

With the climate emergency, all political parties at all levels of government are guilty of saying one thing and doing another. We’re running out of time. We need deeds not words.