A council’s faltering plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 has been labelled “pie in the sky.”

Maidstone council is yet to put recycling facilities in its own offices, it has emerged, four years after the authority declared a climate emergency.

A progress update on the borough’s Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan, which was adopted in October 2020, showed it had only completed two of the 36 action points it had set itself.

Work on 11 has not started and 18 others are still in the planning stage.

In 2022 the environmental pressure group Climate Emergency UK gave Maidstone the highest rating of any authority in the county for its climate change action plan.

The council found its own carbon footprint had shrunk by 19% in 2020/2021, attributed mostly to council offices being closed due to Covid.

However, the following year it rose by 55%, blamed partly on “better recording.”

Figures for 22/23 have yet to be calculated.

Cabinet member Cllr John Perry (Con) told members of the corporate services policy advisory committee it would cost £17.6m to implement the decarbonization plan, but that the council was aiming to submit a bid for a grant from the government for most of the money.

Cllr Simon Webb (Con) criticised the plan for not having targets and dates set for them to be achieved.

He said: “The wording and the statements in the plan are laudable, but it’s like reading War and Peace. It goes on and on and on.”

He said the council would still have to invest – £2.6m was the figure – to support the grant it hoped to get from government and he “couldn’t imagine” the council would have the spare cash available to do that. The council’s chief finance officer, Mark Green, assured him there was provision within the borough’s capital budget.

Cllr Richard Conyard (Lib Dem) was surprised to learn that despite council staff having been given the opportunity of flexible working, there had been a reduction in staff coming into the office of only six or seven percent.

He said: ”That’s an incredibly low number. Could staff be reminded of the opportunity, given that it would also help reduce our carbon footprint?”

Cllr Fay Gooch (Ind) said: “It does concern me that 2030 is just around the corner and yet we’ve still got nine actions to even be started. We aren't going to get to 2030 with very much.”

She said: “I fear we are going to walk away from 2030 with only about 1% of our actions completed.

“We’ve got words, words, words, but I want to see stuff actually being achieved. I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed!”

Cllr Paul Harper (Fant and Oakwood Independents) was shocked to learn that the council hadn't even put recycling facilities into its own offices.

He said: “Not to have recycling facilities in our own offices four years after we declared a climate emergency beggars belief.”

Similarly he was concerned the council hadn’t begun to develop an integrated transport strategy.

He said: “Reaching these targets by 2030 is just pie in the sky.”