Council shines in eco rankings

The data also showed that the council’s performance on climate action has improved by eight per cent since 2023, according to their measures.

Climate Emergency UK (CEUK) collates information on all councils in the UK and ranks them on seven measures. These categories offer a broad judgement of efforts such as improving the local environment, boosting nature, making homes more energy-efficient and reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

The research demonstrated that NKDC has improved across five of the measures, and stayed the same in the rest, in which categories it already performs strongly.

The categories which saw improvement were buildings and heating, transport, governance and finance, biodiversity and waste reduction and food. The planning and land use category had no change in score, with North Kesteven ranking 5th highest in the UK, while the collaboration and engagement category also remained stable, North Kesteven ranking 10th highest nationally. Overall, North Kesteven was the highest-ranked district council in the East Midlands.

Council Leader Councillor Richard Wright said: “We’re proud that this assessment shows we’re making progress when it comes to the environment, and that our progress is being recognised.

“In the last few months alone we’ve taken action that will save many hundreds of tons of emissions every year, eliminating almost all diesel from our waste fleet, and securing funds to replace out-dated heating at leisure venues in North Hykeham.

“It’s the tangible impact behind the stats that really matter though, and what these figures don’t describe are the warmer homes that our residents enjoy, the money being saved on a day-to-day basis through reduced costs or using solar panels, the trees planted and nature improved, and the waste recycled into useful resources or turned into electricity. It’s these impacts that are really gratifying.

“The figures also don’t show the tireless efforts of both council employees and councillors in making environmental enhancement a focus in everything the council does.

“Although we’re still working with CEUK to improve the accuracy of their methods, we’re happy that their assessment shows just how impactful our work has been, and how we continue to be one of the leaders in advancing this work to make a better environment for all.”

Following past criticism from councils that CEUK’s methodology didn’t accurately reflect work undertaken or results achieved, North Kesteven District Council volunteered to join an advisory board aiming to improve the process for all.

Information used by CEUK to make their assessment includes information published by councils, Freedom of Information requests and national data. Their independent assessment, carried out by trained volunteers, looked at information published up to October 2024. The scorecards compare performance by all single tier, district, and county councils, and combined authorities, ranking each category separately.