Prior to May 2025, Lincolnshire County Council had been making good progress on meeting its climate change and net zero goals. It had reduced its carbon emissions as a council by 74.6% since the national 1990 baseline, a reduction from 55,000 tonnes per year to around 14,000 tonnes in 2024. They were ahead of their target to be Net Zero by 2050 and ahead of government targets.
Lincolnshire was a leader in the UK’s green energy transition with many large-scale solar farms designated as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), including the West Burton, Gate Burton, and Cottam Solar projects, and the recently approved Tillbridge Solar project. Taken together these projects will generate nearly 2.1GW of clean electricity, powering thousands of homes and supporting thousands of jobs.
The power of Lincolnshire wind
Wind power is also a major source of clean energy in Lincolnshire, with onshore wind farms at Keadby Wind Farm, just west of Scunthorpe, and numerous smaller onshore turbines across Central Lincolnshire.
Development of new onshore wind projects effectively came to an end in February 2021 when the Lincolnshire County Council Conservative administration passed a motion stating that it would object to all large onshore wind farm applications in order to recognise “the importance of our landscape and big open skies”.
Offshore, Lincolnshire is a major player, with wind farms at Triton Knoll Offshore Wind Farm, located about 20 miles off the Lincolnshire coast, and the Lincs Offshore Wind Farm off the Skegness coast, together with the adjacent Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farms. Together these generate around 1.3GW of clean electricity.
Reform UK Ltd take the wind out of Lincolnshire
The elections in May 2025 changed neither the science nor the increasing impact climate change is having on the people of Lincolnshire. According to NASA, 97% of climate scientists “agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change”. Leading scientific organisations around the world and the United Nations agree, and this is not based on opinion but actual evidence.
Reform UK Ltd took control of Lincolnshire County Council in May 2025 when they won a majority with 44 out of 70 seats. Councillor Sean Matthews, who was subsequently elected council leader, publicly dismissed the concept of “climate emergency”. This was despite the fact that five of the local councils in Lincolnshire had existing climate change emergency declarations dating from 2019: City of Lincoln Council, North Kesteven District Council, South Kesteven District Council, West Lindsey District Council and Boston Borough Council.
However, the leader of the new Reform UK Ltd led Lincolnshire County Council knows better. Matthews believes: “the influence of man on the climate is so minimal, and the rush to net zero is costing us so much money – it will make absolutely no difference,” and he has argued that rather than aiming for net zero by 2050, the council should “do it over 100 years”. Kicking the can down the road has to be an understatement!
Undoing a Green Masterplan
The previous Conservative administration had developed a comprehensive Green Masterplan running to 2050, with an initial delivery phase covering 2020 to 2025. The key elements of the plan covered carbon management, energy efficiency initiatives, low-carbon heat transition for council buildings, renewables generation, and climate adaption and resilience. Since the initial phase had completed when Reform UK Ltd took control of the council there was no need for the council to cancel the plan; they simply allowed it to lapse by failing to allocate resources, political capital, or an administrative mandate to launch the next multi-year phase of the plan.
Similarly, since there had been no formal declaration of a climate change emergency by the previous administrations, there was nothing to rescind, as there had been in other councils such as Staffordshire.
The new Reform UK administration has effectively established an anti-net-zero ideological foundation, which serves as the political mandate for all subsequent policy and funding decisions. This can be seen in the council’s rejection of major energy and waste infrastructure projects.
One of Reform UK Ltd’s first executive actions was to cancel the council’s participation in the Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) Community Partnership. The partnership was looking for a potential geological disposal facility, deep underground beyond the Lincolnshire coastline. The cancellation resulted in the termination of significant external investment in the community; NWS confirmed that it had granted over £2mn to support local community projects in the area.
Nationally, Reform UK Ltd leadership has said they will use “every lever” available to block new renewable energy projects and has pledged to “scrap net-zero”. Implementation of this policy can be seen in actions taken in Lincolnshire. In June 2025 the council voted to lodge a formal objection to the Springwell Solar Farm in North Kesteven, even though permission for this NSIP will ultimately be determined by the Secretary of State, not the council.
Lincolnshire LORE
In July 2025, council leader Matthews was joined by Reform UK Ltd deputy leader Richard Tice and Reform UK Ltd MP Andrea Jenkyns to launch the ‘Lincolnshire Opposes Renewable Eyesores‘ (LORE) campaign. Tice is MP for Boston & Skegness in Lincolnshire, and Jenkyns is the Greater Lincolnshire mayor. The campaign is targeting large solar farms and National Grid’s proposed pylons from Grimsby to Walpole. At the launch, Tice said, “Our message to developers is ‘invest in these schemes at your financial peril.'” ‘ We will use lawfare and legal campaigns to push the envelope as far as we can and dissuade investors.”
Council leader Matthews said of the various proposals, “I will stand in front of bulldozers with residents to slow them down long enough for the next Reform government to stop them.”
Who do you believe?
The damage in Lincolnshire caused by climate change continues. The science has never been clearer, and yet Lincolnshire County Council has gone from being a leader in combating climate change to an out-and-out denier. They have made it clear in words and actions that they will do all they can to prevent the necessary actions and investments to limit the growing dangers of uncontrolled climate change and will stand in the way of any measures to adapt or prepare for what is to come. In doing so, they have the full-throated support of Reform UK Ltd’s leadership. At the next election, voters in Lincolnshire should ask themselves, do you believe 97% of the world’s leading climate scientists and international scientific bodies, or do you believe Cllr Matthews?
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