Action on Climate Change is not new for Wealden; we have been taking action to address, mitigate, and adapt to Climate Change for a number of years.
Delivering our 2025-2030 Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan
In July 2025, Wealden District Council adopted a new Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan which sets a clear framework for tackling climate challenges in Wealden in the short to medium term between 2025 and 2030.
The 2025 Climate Change Strategy and the specific ways it will be delivered are set out in the Action Plan which can be found here: Wealden’s Climate Change Strategy – 2025 to 2030 and Climate Action Plan 2025-2030.
The most recent report on the progress of this strategy was published in December 2025 can be found here: Annual Report Climate Emergency Action Plan – December 2025
This new 2025 strategy sets the Wealden District Council aim to reach Net Zero district-wide by 2044 and focuses on the eight key themes of:
- Empowering and Supporting Communities for Climate Action
- Buildings and Energy Use
- Energy Generation
- Travel and Transport
- Maximising Resources Use and Reducing Waste
- Nature, Biodiversity, Soil, Food and Health
- Green Low Carbon Economy
- Governance, Finance and Leadership
Declaring a Climate Emergency
This new strategy and action plan builds on the previous work to reduce emissions which took place after the Council declared a Climate Emergency and developed a Climate Emergency Plan in 2019. This was in response to the growing global and national awareness of the need for institutions like local councils to act.
In this declaration Wealden District Council made a commitment to pursue efforts to reduce emissions for the council, and for the district to be net zero by 2050 (or before).
Following the declaration, a Climate Emergency Plan was prepared, setting out 43 actions Wealden District Council could take to meet its targets. Cabinet adopted the Climate Emergency Plan and prioritised 23 actions in December 2019.
Read our Climate Emergency Plan (item 10).
To view the background reports, the declaration and the adopted Climate Emergency Plan, visit:
The updated Strategy and Action Plan have already led to key developments in the work to protect the natural environment for residents and wildlife across the district in the latter half of 2025 and into 2026. Some of the key actions can be found below.
Key Developments in 2025-2026
The updated Strategy and Action Plan have already led to key developments in the work to protect the natural environment for residents and wildlife across the district in the latter half of 2025 and into 2026. Some of the key actions can be found below.
2026
The conversion of a former railway station platform along the Cuckoo Trail, a vital walking and cycle path running from Polegate to Heathfield, has been officially opened. The Horam Hub now contains; a refreshment kiosk, toilet facilities, water refill and repair services for cyclists and aims to enhance the experience or residents and visitor using the trail as an active travel route throughout the district which lowers vehicle emissions through reduced car usage.
This is a key milestone in the delivery of the Cuckoo Trail Masterplan which has involved speaking to residents about their priorities when using the trail and has been designed to enhance the route as a safe communal nature space and resource. For more information about the opening please view the council press release here: The new Horam Station Hub opens for residents to enjoy – Wealden District Council
A series of public events to connect visitors of the Ashdown Forest to the centenary celebrations of the publishing of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A Milne. Family friendly events are due to take place in Hailsham Town Centre, Sheffield Park, Uckfield and Herstmonceux Castle between July and August 2026 and aim to recognise the cultural and environmental significance of the Forest to this famous story and the vital importance of this habitat for the future.
For more information and updates please see the Council press release here: The Big One Hundred: The next chapter for Ashdown Forest – Wealden District Council
This May, the Wealden District Council Crematorium team celebrated the planting of a mixture of apple, plum and pear trees sourced locally from Sussex Fruit Trees in Vines Cross at their tranquil site in Horam. Funded in connection with DEFRA Nature for Climate: Coronation Living Heritage fund, the planting of the trees aims to enhance the biodiversity and resilience of the site as well as bring residents together at this community site.
To find out more about the Community Orchard project run by the Climate Change team at Wealden District Council, please visit our Round One page here: Wealden Community Orchard Fund: Round One | Let’s Talk Wealden. Round Two of the fund closes on 30thJuly 2026 – to view the application guidance visit here Wealden Community Orchard Fund: Round Two | Let’s Talk Wealden.
The Climate Change team collaborated with Sussex EVs a local EV group and the Energy Saving Trust to deliver a series of workshops and discussion panels for residents to explore Electric Vehicle ownership and engage with the ongoing work around community energy generation at local scales in April and May.
Wealden District Council collaborated with Hailsham Pavilion, a local independent cinema, to promote screenings of Power Station a film focused on community-based solar and energy generation. This screening project involved inviting local community energy organisations, OVESCO and Energise Sussex Coast to a Q+A panel following the screening which was chaired by a Wealden officer working on improving the energy efficiency of social housing. This forms part of the Climate Change team’s ongoing work to strengthen local partnerships and encourage active participation in local climate action.
In April, Wealden District Council, in partnership with Community Action and the Wealden Food Partnership, launched the ‘Wealden Climate and Nature Network’. This event brought together over 85 delegates representing a range of diverse and passionate local organisations, town and parish councils, and national government bodies, all committed to environmental action and tackling climate change through collaboration at a local level.
This successful event marks the start of on-going work to strengthen partnerships between local groups taking climate action across Wealden. A follow-on event is planned for this summer. For more information about the Network please visit – https://communityactioneastsussex.org.uk/wealden/
The staircase access to Birling Gap beach which was closed in January/February following storms which caused cliff falls and affected the safety of the steps has reopened a week early. As the responsible body for the staircase, Wealden District Council undertook investigation and repairs to ensure public safety and that access to the popular coastal site was restored ahead of the early May bank holiday.
This was a major collaboration with The National Trust, Coastguard and RNLI to ensure that the steps continue to be assessed, monitored and operational for visitors as well as emergency services and environmental groups working to keep the beach clean and limit pollution at the popular site. For more information on Birling Gap please view the Council press release: Birling Gap to re-open this summer after storm damages – Wealden District Council
As part of a joint initiative between Wealden District Council, Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council, residents started receiving advice and food waste caddies in March ahead of the introduction of weekly household food waste collections.
The scheme is being rolled out in staggered phases across the district from March. This is being introduced under Simpler Recycling Regulations which require all councils to collect food waste and will provide an excellent opportunity to reduce the amount of waste that is sent for incineration. For more information about the food waste collections roll out, please visit the Council website: Food Waste – Wealden District Council
The Climate Change team are delighted to announce the winners of the Nature Photo Competition as: Arthur Bannister (Young Persons Nature and Wildlife Category- Age 4-11), Eva Godden (Young Persons Nature and Wildlife: Age 12-17) and Chris Mole in the Adult Changing Seasons Category.
This contest attracted a high number of excellent photos of nature, wildlife and seasonal change from both adults and young people across Wealden and East Sussex and was promoted by local community organisations, schools and voluntary groups.
These three winners were chosen from over 60 entries by a judging panel made up of officers from policy, communications, climate change and Councillor Paul Coleshill, Cabinet Member and portfolio holder for Climate Change at Wealden District Council. The winning images as well as the competition runners up and highly commended photos can be viewed on out Let’s Talk Wealden pages here: Nature Photo Competition | Let’s Talk Wealden.
Wealden District Council undertook 10 public consultation sessions inviting residents across the district to comment on a new ‘Focused’ Local Plan. This builds on the previous work undertaken by the council to create a Local Plan in 2024 and aimed to create a Focused Draft which guides where housing development will be undertaken and be used going forward to make decisions on planning applications until 2042.
To find out more about the Draft ‘Focused’ Wealden Local Plan please visit the planning section of the Council website: New Local Plan – Wealden District Council
2025
WDC in partnership with Freedom Leisure and ESCC has successfully applied for £224,445 funding to install solar panels on Uckfield Leisure Centre. This funding comes from Sport England Swimming Pool Support Fund which aims to help facilities reduce energy costs and remain accessible and affordable to local residents. This follows the successful installation of panels on the Hailsham Leisure Centre earlier in 2025 and helped to generate over 20% of the centre’s energy to lower heating costs for the pool. For more information about these installations please read our Council press release from December 2025.
Round Two of the highly successful Community Orchards funding programme opened. Grants of up to £3,500 are being offered to communities across the Wealden District to create, restore, and enhance community orchards which provide spaces for people to connect with nature, learn new skills, grow food, and strengthen community ties. For more information please read our press release: Grants available for communities to grow orchards – Wealden District Council or for information about the grants or the local Network, please email sustainability@wealden.gov.uk
Wilder Wealden a nature restoration partnership with Sussex Wildlife Trust was approved by Full Cabinet. This will be a flagship project for the council with over £1million committed to supporting Sussex Wildlife Trust and other partner organisations to support nature recovery in the district. For more information please visit: https://www.wealden.gov.uk/news/partnership-with-sussex-wildlife-trust-aims-to-enhance-wealden-district/
Wealden District Council are supporting two community transport schemes, Cuckmere Buses and Wealdlink, to transition their buses from diesel to electric. A total of £465,000 will be to these schemes to help decarbonise inclusive mobility across Wealden. The funding for this scheme comes from the council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which is a charge collected by local authorities from developers to improve local infrastructure in the community. Please find more information here: Community transport service to go electric – Wealden District Council
Wealden District Council will be working with The Ashdown Forest Foundation (TAFF), an organisation set up to protect and preserve the forest as a place to enjoy and explore for future generations, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Winnie-the-Pooh. These celebrations aim to recognise the Ashdown Forest as a cultural landmark but also work to conserve the natural biodiversity of the woodland and heathland into the future. For more information please view our Council press release: Winnie-the-Pooh’s 100th birthday to be celebrated by a long-lasting legacy programme for the Ashdown Forest – Wealden District Council
Plans to develop a purpose-built waste facility at Knights Farm West which aims to integrate solar panel, air source heat pump and battery storage technology in the design has been approved. Alongside the new waste depot, a ground-mounted solar farm has also been planned to help power the depot and support the energy demands of other on-site businesses and operations. This proposal is still in the design stage and will be reviewed by WDC at Cabinet as the plans seeks funding and planning approval. For more information please read our Press Release from July 2025.
Wealden District Council declared a Biodiversity Crisis in recognition of the severe decline in the variety and abundance of animal and plant species in recent years. Following this declaration the Councillors have committed to proactively working to restore biodiversity by collaborating with parishes, communities, local organisations, landowners, and stakeholders to inspire collective action and shared responsibility for nature recovery. For more information on this Biodiversity Crisis declaration please read the report from this Full Cabinet session: Members Motion Declaration of a Biodiversity Crisis – May 2025
Wealden District Council were recognised for making a 20% improvement since 2023 in Climate Change Emergency UK’s scorecards, ranking fourth among district and borough councils. The council also outperformed the national average in five out of seven categories. Climate Emergency UK is an independent organisation that assesses councils across the UK on the steps they are taking to tackle climate change. Please find more information here.
The Rights of River Charter was adopted by Wealden District councillors and recognises our commitment to exploring the ways in which rivers can be given greater protection in legal discussions regarding the natural landscape in the longer term. To find out more, please visit the Council website: Wealden councillors support Rights to Rivers to help river protection – Wealden District Council
Key areas of focus at Wealden District Council
- Our Housing team have been working to decarbonise our housing stock as part of the Housing Decarbonisation Plan. This work has been supported the central government Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SCDF) which granted WDC £1.5m in November 2022 as part of Wave 2.2 scheme and over £1m in January 2024 as part of Warm Homes Wave 3 funding. To read more about Wave 3 Funding please read our press release from March 2025 – Funding awarded to improve energy efficiency in Wealden homes – Wealden District Council.
- This funding has been matched by WDC and been used to deliver energy efficiency improvements including triple glazing replacement, installation of air source heat pumps and solar photovoltaic systems to social housing properties across Wealden. 2024-2025 saw the completion of work on over 160 properties.
- Often this work has been undertaken at the same time as key maintenance work to properties to minimise disruption to tenants, improve energy performance certificate (EPC) ratings and to save money on resident bills alongside reducing district emissions. Key areas of work have focused on blocks of flats including Lapwing Court in Hailsham and Lennox Court in Heathfield.
- For more information, please read the Housing Decarbonisation Update Report from December 2025.
- The council has also been working with Freedom Leisure and East Sussex County Council to secure and deliver funding from Sport England Swimming Pool Support Fund to add solar photovoltaic panels to leisure centres. Solar panels were successfully installed on the Hailsham Leisure centre roof in early 2025 and have already reduced the energy demands and requirements for the centre. Funding has also been secured to install panels on the Uckfield Leisure Centre roof for 2026, for more information please read the Council press release from December 2025.
- The council has also been successful in securing home upgrade grant funding to support owner occupiers and landlords to insulate and install low carbon heating systems- Home Energy Grants, loans, and discounts.
- In addition to this, work in recent years has also focused on our offices in Hailsham which were renovated to high sustainability standards, achieving a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating. This included a comprehensive energy efficient retrofit. The offices now benefit from air source heat pumps, solar photovoltaic (PV) energy generation, passive ventilation, solar shading, cycle storage, and dedicated car-share bays.
- Joint Waste and Recycling Partnership working in partnership with Biffa, East Sussex County Council, Rother District Council and Hastings Borough Council to reduce the carbon impact of waste collection and street cleansing services.
- Since August 2023, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO) has replaced diesel in all of Wealden District Council’s waste collection and street cleansing vehicles, operated by the council’s contractor Biffa. The alternative sustainable replacement fuel HVO is cleaner and reduces carbon by up to 90% compared to regular diesel, saving up to 1,800 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- From 2026 Wealden District Council are introducing Food Waste Collections as part of the new government regulations on recycling. For more information about the roll out of these collections please visit the Waste and Recycling pages here Food Waste – Wealden District Council
- Solar Together Sussex – a photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage group buying project to support local homeowners to buy and install renewable energy technologies. Over 1100 registrations were received and 200 local homeowners have accepted the offer.
- East Sussex Energy partnership working to improve the energy efficiency of local homes and tackle fuel poverty.
- Wealden is in the process of changing its fleet vehicles across departments to electric vehicles. All 6 community officer vehicles are now fully electric and 1 out of 3 of the housing vans are electric. More vehicles are to switch in the coming years.
- Emissions from the waste collection fleet have decreased by approximately 98% following the transition from mineral diesel to Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO), compared with figures from 2022/23, the final full year of mineral diesel use
- Wealden District Council is continuing its development of publicly accessible electric vehicle (EV) points. We have installed 30 EV chargers in 11 public car parks across the District. Wealden now has the highest number of publicly available chargers in East Sussex. To find out more information about these chargers please visit our EV page on Let’s Talk Wealden Public electric vehicle charging in Wealden | Let’s Talk Wealden.
- In 2019, Horsted Green Park, Wealden’s latest open access countryside area, officially opened. The council continues to look for opportunities to create new green spaces for residents to enjoy the outdoors.
- Since 2023, we have been supporting the development of green spaces and tree planting through our Community Orchards funding scheme. In the first round of this scheme, Wealden secured £27,756 from the Nature for Climate Fund: Coronation Living Heritage which helped to develop 13 Community Orchards across the district. To find out more about this project please visit our Wealden Community Orchards Grant Programme page
- To support local walking and cycling activities the council successfully secured funding to make significant improvements to the Cuckoo Trail. In January 2025 planning permission was granted to build a new kiosk on the platform of the former Horam Railway Station. For more information about this development please see our Council press release: Horam hub gets go ahead.. This kiosk is being built as part of the Cuckoo Trail strategy which can be viewed on our website here Cuckoo Trail Strategy – Wealden District Council.
- Following on from the success of the project, round two of the Community Orchards scheme was launched in November 2025, with grants of up to £3,500 available for communities to start or develop an orchard. Find out more information here Grants available for communities to grow orchards – Wealden District Council .
- In late 2023 a motion was passed to investigate river damage and preservation in Wealden’s rivers and waterways.
- In July 2025, Wealden District Councillors adopted the Rights of River Charter and are currently exploring the ways in which rivers can be given greater protection in legal discussions regarding the natural landscape in the longer term. To find out more, please visit the Council website: Wealden councillors support Rights to Rivers to help river protection – Wealden District Council
- The council works in partnership with Southern Water and is an active member of their stakeholder group.
- The council has consulted on its taxi conditions to try and encourage the use of electric vehicles. A new Environment Framework is also being developed to promote sustainable options to event organisers and to reduce carbon emissions of events being held in the district.
- In September 2025, Wealden adopted a Sustainable Procurement and Social Value policy which aims to consider the impact of procurement decisions on the environment and support suppliers that deliver social value within the local community. For more information about this policy please read the Cabinet report here: Report Sustainable Procurement and Socia Value Cabinet 03 Sep 25.pdf
- The council has started working with a consultant, New Local, who specialise in community power. The work will help us build our community network and become a community powered council.
Annual Emissions Report
Since the 2019 Climate Emergency Plan, Wealden District Council has published an Annual Emissions Report each year. These reports present the annual emissions data for both the council’s own operations and those arising in the district as well as providing an update on the priorities set out in the Climate Emergency Action Plan.
The most recent report was published in December 2025 and can be found here: Annual Report Climate Emergency Action Plan – December 2025 . This report provides a summary of the progress made over the last 6 years in implementing the 2019 Climate Emergency Action Plan.
Since the adoption of the updated strategy in July 2025, future Annual Emissions Reports will focus on the aims and objectives as set out in the 2025 Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan which sets the vision for Wealden as a low carbon, climate-resilient and inclusive district between 2025 and 2030.
The role residents can play
Local authorities are responsible for approximately 2-5% of their local area’s emissions (in Wealden it is roughly 2%).
However, a large proportion of the emissions cuts needed will rely on people, organisations and businesses taking up low-carbon solutions – decisions that are made at a local and individual level.
Through its place-shaping and leadership role within the community, the council can influence a range of emissions and help to deliver wider local action to reduce emissions.
The council aims to influence carbon reduction through waste prevention, energy efficiency, investment in renewable energy, sustainable transport, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, housing standards, housing retrofitting and more.
Track our journey
Follow the council’s journey to becoming net zero by following us on Facebook and find project updates and inspirational ideas on our dedicated interactive Climate Change pages at Let’s Talk Wealden.