Hutton Rudby and Osmotherley division councillor David Hugill secured the prominent North Yorkshire Council role after overcoming challenges from Liberal Democrat member for Amotherby and Ampleforth and anti-fracking campaigner Steve Mason and former Conservative, Bilton and Nidd Gorge councillor Paul Haslam.
The Tory group which supported Coun Haslam to become the authority’s first climate change champion last May, ahead of him leaving the political group and contesting the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election as an Independent, said it now believed Coun Hugill would be better for the role.
Coun Haslam said he was “saddened” he was being removed from the role for “party political reasons”.
In recent years, and particularly since declaring a climate emergency in 2022, the authority’s climate change actions have been the focus of intense scrutiny and debate, particularly as it seeks to limit unnecessary spending to close a £48m annual black hole.
The appointment marks a remarkable reversal of fortune for Coun Hugill, who missed out on selection by local Tories to represent the area he had served for years in 2022, only for the Conservative councillor who succeeded him to resign last year amid claims of bullying in the political group.
The authority’s deputy leader, Councillor Gareth Dadd, said as a farmer Coun Hugill had “lived with climate change on a daily basis”, had served as a Natural England climate change champion, taken part in one of the country’s first environmental stewardship schemes and had published a paper on the carbon footprint of agriculture.
However, Coun Hugill said he was determined not to let politics impact on the role, stating he was “very keen to work with all parties”, adding he would act as the link between the council, farmers and climate change action groups.
Coun Hugill said: “The politics lie with the council’s executive and I will be somebody to hold the executive member for climate change to account. The ony way to do that is be cross-party.”
He said he hoped to encourage residents to repair more goods, saying “we are a bit of a throw-away society” and foster the creation of a group of farmers and landowners across the county to attract private funding for initiatives such as biodiversity net gain.
Coun Hugill said: “It’s amazing what we can do with grass if it’s managed what we can do with grass if it’s managed correctly. We can put loads of Co2, through photosynthesis, straight into the ground, and let it stay there as carbon.
“If we can manage a good part of our grasslands in North Yorkshire on that method we are going to make a major difference in our fight against global warming.”
Fracking is set to be among the issues he will be challenged over in the coming months, following Europa Oil and Gas lodging a proposal with the authority to extract gas near Scarborough using proppant squeeze, which campaigners have labelled as low level hydraulic fracturing.
He said as a member of the authority’s planning committee which would consider the proposal he needed to keep an open mind over gas extraction processes.
