Local elections 2025: Buckinghamshire's only Green Party councillor calls for more ambitious climate targets

The Local Democracy Reporting Service is interviewing representatives of all the main political parties standing candidates in the elections.

Councillor Greg Smith said: “Buckinghamshire Council needs an opposition with a clear green agenda. We don’t have a great record in Buckinghamshire of environmental improvements.”

The 62-year-old retiree was pressed on his comments, given that the council already has a climate strategy, and aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, as well as having outlined 60 different actions to address climate change and poor air quality.

But the former consultant, who represents Bernwood, claimed the authority was saying the ‘right words, but not really delivering’, despite the council’s plans to reduce its annual carbon emissions by at least 75 per cent by 2030

He said: “This council has outsourced all the bin collections in the South, everything to do with schools, so none of that actually counts towards the council’s net zero target.”

Councillor Smith noted the authority’s improvements in cutting carbon emissions, but he said including reductions from things such as closing buildings was a ‘bit of a cheat’ and called for the council to put more solar panels on buildings, even though there may be higher costs involved.

Asked what issues Green candidates would like to push for at the council, he replied: “It is a difficult one because we are never going to be in charge of the council and never going to be the primary opposition.”

The councillor denied this was defeatist though, claiming his party was being ‘cautious’ in its ambitions, and pointing out that it was standing a candidate in nearly all of Buckinghamshire’s 49 wards.

Councillor Smith also said the Greens would continue to scrutinise the council’s activities, including for example by advocating for new homes to be built with renewable energy.

The Green said although this was an area the council could improve in, he was pleased with the council’s record of planting trees.

Although he stressed this must be ‘linked up’ with the council’s new nature recovery strategy to protect important habitats from rare chalk streams to ancient woodland.

In terms of the council’s finances, Councillor Smith said councillors should be ‘proud’ the authority has balanced its budget for another year, but that it was ‘unfortunate’ this was achieved by ‘cutting costs in every way’.

He then mentioned the recent Ofsted inspection of the council’s children’s services, the report for which will not be published until after the elections.

“The word on the street is that we are coming out quite badly from that inspection,” Councillor Smith added.

Asked who he had heard this from, he said his claims were based on information from people in politics rather than council officers.

On finances, Councillor Smith also said devolving services like grass cutting, gully clearing and taking care of pavements to parish councils could be one way the council could save money.

In terms of council tax, the Green said residents understood the need for the latest 4.99 increase to rates from April, but what they wanted was ‘better value services’.

He said: “To pay increased rates, but to find that the respite centre for people with special needs has been closed, to find that the roads are still in a poor condition…”

The council has only proposed closing some respite centres for adults with disabilities and special needs and has not made a final decision on the plans, which if it proceeds with, would also include improving other respite centres that would remain open.

Despite some of his criticisms, including about the county’s roads being ‘neglected’, Councillor Smith praised the council’s ‘positive’ plans to apply for a lane rental scheme to clamp down on utility firms leaving roadworks up even when no work is taking place.

On housing, Councillor Smith said ‘people need somewhere to live’ as he discussed the Labour government’s increased targets for new-builds in Bucks.

But he added: “There are a number of really serious issues that Bucks are just not engaging with. When we build new developments, we need to be much more savvy that there is a proper nature recovery strategy built in.

“We also need to be much more careful about what type of houses we build and getting the right houses in the right place.

“We should be leaning on developers to say, ‘no we are not going to have a bunch of four-bed executive houses’.”

Councillor Smith also stressed that a councillor’s role was not only about ‘bashing out policy’ in council meetings but was also about helping individual residents.

He said: “People come to me with issues and problems. Sometimes that is about special educational needs, sometimes it is about ‘my bin has been squashed, what are you going to do about it?’ and everything in between.”