Green Party councillors have condemned the levelling-up plan for Warwickshire for failing to have any "meaningful" sustainability objectives.

The levelling-up plan has been put forward by Warwickshire County Council, in response to a Government white paper, in a bid to boost opportunities in the county and to restore a sense of pride in the area.

Speaking at Tuesday's overview and scrutiny committee meeting of Warwick District Council, Cllr John Dearing said that while sustainable futures was one of four framing elements for levelling-up, there was no mention of it in any of the eight stated objectives in the Warwickshire levelling-up plan.

Cllr Dearing also said that relevant metrics that would help define the potential for districts and boroughs to achieve a sustainable future - such as the energy efficiency of existing housing stocks, air quality, or parish level carbon emissions - were also missing.

He said: "Clearly, the county is not really intending to make sustainability a key part of the county's levelling up objectives even though it's claimed to be. 

"This is particularly galling as sustainable futures as a priority had the strongest agreement in residents' surveys.  

"There are already significant differences in the levels of commitment and investment in climate change and environmental actions across the county.  

"The county's responsibility is to ensure that those differences are levelled-up so that the effects of climate and environmental deterioration do not fall disproportionately on the less well off."

The scrutiny committee recommended that WDC's cabinet formally noted, and made appropriate representations about, the lack of reference to sustainable futures in the WCC levelling up objectives. 

At last night's cabinet meeting councillors reiterated that local councils need to be involved in building the plan.

And the leader of the council Cllr Andrew Day said he backed calls for the county council to put more emphasis on sustainability.

He said: "I would support wholeheartedly the recommendation that has been put forward about the importance of putting sustainability in our response to these documents to the county council and in going forward.

"And I think it is a salient reminder of how easy it is for a key objective to suddenly slide and fade and not get the attention that it is due.

"It is a fundamental building block of this programme."

Councillors voted unanimously in favour of passing the feedback onto the county council, and Cllr Day added that he would raise the matter of sustainability with WCC leader Cllr Izzi Seccombe himself.