Waltham Forest Council’s climate action plan ‘lacked clarity on some targets’, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
Waltham Forest Council’s four-year climate action plan “lacked clarity on some targets” despite its achievements, a new report says.
The strategy, which was published in November 2022 under the previous Labour administration, set out 29 actions that focused on improving energy efficiency in homes, reducing people’s reliance on cars, and boosting recycling.
It has “largely concluded” and was primarily a success, the council says, producing a range of improvements including new bike hangars, loans for homeowners to boost their eco-friendliness, and the installation of more than 2,000 water butts to combat flooding.
But a report published this week says that “several” actions lacked “measureable targets or agreed baselines,” making it “difficult” to assess progress despite a “clear” direction overall.
There was also “ambiguity” around what net-zero actually meant, the report adds, and “not always a shared understanding of whether the net-zero ambition was limited to council operations or the borough as a whole”.
While the plan was written to allow for some flexibility, this ultimately proved “detrimental”.
The report adds that the town hall failed in its ambitions to “break free from our dependence on the private car” and double car-sharing in the borough, after the number of shared cars plummeted in 2025 due to “market conditions outside of the council’s control”.
Its plan to improve the quality of new homes also fell through due to increased construction costs, resulting from inflation and issues in the global supply line.
Waltham Forest also trialled a “wide range of projects” in a bid to provide “tailored support” for the top 20 businesses in the borough, but it “proved difficult” to come up with “impactful and appealing initiatives” amid an increasingly trying time for local businesses.
The scheme involved two new home improvement schemes: the launch of council-owned Kanopiworks, which specialises in retrofitting properties, and the Energy Upgrade Loan, an interest-free payment for residents and landlords helping them save around £450 a year. The council says it was “consistently oversubscribed” and the first of its kind.
The fortnightly food waste collection scheme, rolled out across the borough in 2025, has seen the recycling rate increase from 34% to 38%.
“Much has changed” since the plan was first produced, the council says, and officials now have a “better understanding” of how climate change affects different demographics.
“Climate change is no longer a future risk,” the report adds.
“Residents and communities are already experiencing its effects through more frequent extreme weather events, including local flooding, record temperatures exceeding 40°C in the UK in 2022, and prolonged periods of hot, dry weather.
“Consequently, the focus of climate action has broadened from reducing carbon emissions alone to also strengthening adaptation and resilience, protecting residents, businesses, buildings and infrastructure from the impacts of a changing climate.”
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