Portsmouth City Council's plan to combat climate change is marked down by Climate Emergency UK assessors

An assessment carried out by Climate Emergency UK gave the city council a score of 38 per cent - compared to the English average for single-tier authorities of 50 per cent - largely due to a lack of decarbonisation strategies.

Annie Pickering, the organisation's campaigns and policy officer, said government funding for councils was needed but said other councils had shown 'well-thought-out' plans were possible regardless.

'A good action plan has the basics covered,' she said. 'This means the actions are specific and measurable and assigned to teams or departments. It should also be clear how the plan will be monitored as it is implemented.'

Portsmouth City Council' s score was particularly lowered by the lack of specific plans for how carbon emissions will be reduced in different sectors and for not including staff training programmes or school education schemes.

The council published its plan in 2020, setting a target for becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and outlining policy priorities to hit that goal.

But the 38 per cent mark given for it falls significantly below the likes of Machester and Edinburgh city councils which were both given scores above 80 per cent.

Charlotte Gerada, the Labour group opposition spokesman for climate change said the score was ‘disappointing’ but not surprising.

‘The results chime with the assessment Labour councillors have made about the Liberal Democrat administration’s response to the climate emergency,’ she said. ‘There is a lack of integration of the climate and ecological emergency into the council's policies and procedures, which is why over the past year, Labour has brought motions around reviewing the council’s approach to biodiversity and ensuring the council conducts a full carbon audit.’

She said climate considerations should be given the same weight as financial and equalities issues in council decisions.

But councillor Dave Ashmore, cabinet member for environment said the council had made improvements since the plan was first published.

'We welcome the publication of the scorecards, as we will be using this information to further improve the contents and ambition of our new climate change strategy,’ he said. This is being published soon and will be updated annually.

'The assessment was based on an existing action plan which was developed in 2020, so a lot of progression has been made since then. We have created a city clean air zone and have installed the most solar panels of any UK local authority onto our housing. Portsmouth International Port, owned by the council, has committed to reach net-zero by 2030 and wants to be the UK's first zero emission port by 2050.’

He said the council had reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1,300 tonnes in the last year and was also installing enough solar panels at the port to power 650 homes.

This was acknowledged by Ms Pickering who said they would carry out annual assessments to track improvement.

‘This year’s scorecards are just the start of the process,' she said. 'It has been an important exercise to understand what makes a good council climate action plan and we hope that it will help councils learn from each other and up their game.

‘A good plan will help a local authority deliver effective actions, while having it easily available on the council website will enable local residents to know what their council has committed to and so hold the council to account.’