Reform leader 'getting to grips' with council finances

"Exhilarating, tiring, enjoyable, sometimes frustrating - but productive overall."

That is how the Reform UK leader of Calderdale Council, Dan Sutherland, has described his first few months in the role.

In May's elections, Reform UK won 34 of the 54 seats available at Calderdale Council.

Sutherland had been a Labour councillor representing Illingworth and Mixenden since 2010 but defected to Reform in 2025, saying he believed Labour was "no longer in tune with his values".

Sutherland said his party was "getting to grips" with the challenges facing the authority and was working to "control" council spending.

In March this year, Reform leader Nigel Farage pledged that if his party took control of further councils in May's local elections, it would ensure council tax rises in those areas would be lower than in those run by any of the other parties.

In line with this, one of Sutherland's commitments to voters in Calderdale is not to raise council tax by the full amount when he sets the authority's budget for 2027/28.

"In Calderdale in previous years it's always been 4.99%, the projection was ongoing to be 4.99%," he said.

"I can absolutely commit in next year's budget we will not be putting up council tax by 4.99%."

Local authorities are able to raise council tax by up to that amount with 1.99% ring-fenced for adult social care.

Many Labour-led authorities have argued that following budget cuts from the national government since 2010, they have had to increase council tax by the full amount in order to balance the budget.

But Sutherland described that as a "convenient excuse", arguing there had been some "wasteful" or "discretionary" spending.

He highlighted schemes such as a cycle lane on Ovenden Way in Halifax which he said had been costed at £15m, with £3m already spent on a "few bits of paper for its design".

He said scrapping the project had been one example of how his administration was re-purposing money to spend on issues voters cared about.

Leader of the Labour group, Adam Wilkinson, said that his party had secured "hundreds of millions of pounds" in external investment to regenerate towns, while prioritising support for vulnerable residents and tackling inequality.

"If Reform thinks spending on social care and supporting vulnerable children is 'waste', Labour will never apologise for making those services a priority," said Wilkinson.

"More than 70p in every pound of the council's budget goes on caring for the vulnerable. That isn't waste. It is a decent council doing its job.

"Reform is now prioritising unaffordable spending which will cost the taxpayer more and neglect the most vulnerable."

Other Reform-led councils, such as Wakefield Council, have already "undeclared" the climate emergency councillors unanimously backed in 2019.

It is also something the party is seeking to do in Calderdale at Wednesday's full council meeting.

Sutherland, when a Labour councillor, proposed the declaration of a climate emergency in Calderdale back in 2019.

At the time he called for immediate action, saying: "It is important, it is an emergency."

However, his stance had since changed, he said, describing how there had been "a lot of words, a lot of virtues but very little action".

"Time and time again our local environment has been the area that's been let down," he said.

"For example battery energy storage sites have been pushed through by this council under the former policy without any consideration to the local impact on air quality, on the water, on fire risk and we need to focus again on our local environment because that I think is what matters most to the people of Calderdale."

Wilkinson said climate action had brought "millions of investment" into the area, cut energy costs and made homes warmer.

He said abandoning the declaration was "dangerous political posturing".

"Calderdale knows how it feels to live climate change. Our communities have suffered devastating floods, and this summer has brought record-breaking heat," he said.

"Removing the words 'climate emergency' in the interests of Reform donors and because Nigel Farage doesn't believe in it won't change that reality."

Meanwhile, the Green Party leader, Martin Hey, highlighted the work carried out under the Climate Action Partnership, which contributed to warm, low-carbon social housing, a thriving green economy sector and successful low-carbon businesses.

He said: "I accept that much more still needs to be done and it's very disappointing to see the new Reform administration backing away from its responsibilities at this time, albeit it is symptomatic of the lack of ambition we're seeing from the cabinet across the board."

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