BASINGSTOKE climate campaigners were left extremely disappointed after the borough council’s leader and his cabinet colleague snubbed a meeting focused on the environment.

On Monday, September 26, Greener Basingstoke hosted a Climate and Ecological Town Hall Meeting which was set to provide an update on the borough council’s vision for carbon zero Basingstoke and plans to achieve it.

But just hours before, council leader Simon Bound emailed the group to say he and Cllr Hayley Eachus, cabinet member for environment and climate action, would no longer be attending as it had “become politicised by one political party”.

In the email, Cllr Bound said: “It has come to attention over the weekend that tonight’s event has become politicised by one political party, it would also appear that this political party are claiming that they are chairing the meeting, a claim that Greener Basingstoke are supporting on their Facebook page. Once this came to my attention, a closer inspection of Greener Basingstoke’s social media presence shows a political alliance with political party over a period of time.”

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Cllr Bound said the council was keen to work with all community groups but “we are clear about the need for them being politically unbiased, neutral and or showing balanced”.

The event was due to be hosted by Stacy Hart, who is a member of the Women’s Equality Party, but Greener Basingstoke was clear that this would not have been in her political capacity.

In line with their constitution, no leading members of political parties will be in senior positions within the group.

They also said postings on social media by Greener Basingstoke and the Women’s Equality Party was an “unfortunate juxtaposition”, and later said that it shares from a variety of political and non-political groups. 

The councillors decision not to attend was met with dismay, with Labour borough councillor Michael Howard-Sorrell saying: “The idea of politicising such a universal idea is ridiculous, it’s something we all need to work together on and by the report so far it looks like the council is taking small steps in the right direction, there is a lot more that can be done by the council and across the borough with our partnerships.”

Those who attended instead spoke of what they would like the council to do to tackle climate change and air quality, including onshore wind being allowed in the local plan, retrofitting homes, sustainable transport and renewable energy, to name just some of the ideas. 

Following the meeting Greener Basingstoke members have had their say. 

Jean Wilde said: "We held the event without the councillors anyway and it was encouraging to see so many people on the Zoom call. We felt sorry for the attendees who gave up their time to hear what Cllr Bound was going to do about the climate emergency and this would have been a golden opportunity for him to engage with the community with a view to working together over the climate crisis.”

The Greener Basingstoke Secretary, Kerry Hickman said: “It was disappointing that Councillor Bound and Councillor Eachus could not attend the event. Greener Basingstoke is a volunteer run community network, of which the management team all have full-time commitments. Organising events like the Town Hall one take up many hours of planning. At our Green Stall Saturday 24th September, we had lots of engagement from local residents and our highlight was being able share the invite to the Town Hall and provide the platform for people to raise their questions about the climate emergency.  We hope the council will reconvene very soon and we get the chance to raise the 40 questions we have gathered across the community about the climate change strategy.”

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The Gazette contacted the council regarding the meeting and received a response from Cllr Bound.

He said: “As a council we are committed to tackling the climate and ecological emergencies and we are keen to work closely with all community groups as we play our part in addressing these incredibly important issues.

“This is why we originally agreed to attend the town hall session as we understood it to be an apolitical community event by local group Greener Basingstoke to talk around how we could all work together to take action against the twin emergencies.

“However, in the days immediately prior to the event, it became clear that it was set to be more political in nature than had been communicated to us. This included social media activity, which was shared by Greener Basingstoke, from a local political party stating its leader would be chairing the meeting.

“The decision to ask a political party to lead this session changed its nature into a politically charged event and it was for this reason that we felt it was not appropriate to attend on this occasion representing the council. We are keen to work with all groups to address this significant issue, but we are clear that groups should not be politically led and show balance so we can effectively work together.

“We are keen to keep engaging with communities as we fight climate change and protect our natural environment together and we have taken part in a number of events with Greener Basingstoke and other groups since our emergency declarations.”

Greener Basingstoke has since said that an alternative chair was offered before the meeting, but Cllr Bound turned down the offer.