A DECISION by Redditch Council to declare a climate emergency has been blasted as worthless.

At a meeting last week councillors backed plans to form a climate change panel, which will oversee and critique the council's policies and work to address climate change.

It will be chaired by councillor Brandon Clayton and will be cross-party.

However, not everyone is a fan of the move.

Following the meeting, Bromsgrove and Redditch Green Party released a stinging statement accusing the council of not taking the climate crisis seriously.

It said: "The Climate Emergency Declaration that was passed at the town council meeting, is in its present form worth nothing.

"It has tasked the new climate change advisory group with addressing the crucial details such as targets to meet net zero carbon emissions. Until those details are known, we have no idea how seriously the council are taking the climate crisis.

"We urge all Redditch people who are concerned about the climate crisis to continue to put pressure on their elected council representatives to treat this as the emergency it is, and to be ambitious in their actions.”

Redditch MP Rachel Maclean called the move "real leadership" but added "we must keep on pushing to ensure that policies and actions are followed through".

Council leader Matt Dormer said: "Throughout this entire process the council and its representatives have been engaging with the public and our partners on this important topic.

“We will continue to listen in a range of ways, including our hashtag campaign, which is a relatively low carbon way of sharing ideas in the open as a community of concerned citizens.

"As councillors we are also part of the public. We are residents and we work here. We have our families here, and we spend a lot of time talking with people about their concerns for the future because it is our future too. We all share this problem, so it's right to share the solutions too."

Cllr Mike Rouse, who is responsible for the Redditch Matters publication, added: "A listening exercise has already led to a recent decision that our council magazine will now be provided online with, in the Summer, a very limited print run to provide copies for collection at various locations.

“No longer will we be printing thousands of copies of the magazine."

"Decisions like this are a win for taxpayers and the environment alike, and this one came as a result of Councillor engagement and didn't need to wait for the new climate change panel."