Environment is 'incredibly important' says Staffordshire's Reform council leader

The leader of Staffordshire County Council tells us he and his party supports looking after the environment and protecting our green spaces.

It comes after criticism from some campaigners over the removal of the cabinet position for climate - instead creating a new one called 'connectivity'.

Leader Ian Cooper, from Reform UK, told our Chief Reporter Adam Smith:

"The environment is incredibly important to us.

"We changed the cabinet name title. We've called it connectivity because we think that describes better what we want to do across the county.

"Connectivity means linking up all these different things, business, industry, the roads, water, the broadband, the environment - that's within that. Nothing's changed."

Ian continued: "We're a great supporter in county farms. We're a great supporter in parks. We think we can do it better and deliver better environmental services that just merely doing management consultancies and producing many glossy brochures, declaring climate emergencies and spending lots of council money.

"People don't want all that, they just want some action.

"We're not going to make the environment an activist thing. We're going to make it deliverable and make sure we do have cleaner streets and cleaner areas. We all want to live in a cleaner, greener society. I don't know anyone who doesn't."

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