Local council motions

Council motions are a crucial step in winning divestment campaigns at the local level. Any parish, city, district, town, borough and county council can vote to show their support for divesting from fossil fuels.

We’ve compiled this list of successful council motions below so you can see if your local authority has already voted in favour of divestment.

If you know of a motion that isn’t listed below, please get in touch with the details so we can add it to the list.

How to read the table

The above table shows all the successful local council motions that we are aware of which make reference to divestment from fossil fuels. Please note that each motion is different: we have categorised them in different ways to highlight this.

Here’s a quick guide to understanding the information in the table:

Nation — motions are grouped by nation (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).

Council — the name of the council that has passed the motion. As many of the motions relate to divesting the council pension fund, we have also included the name of the corresponding pension fund in the following column. Click here for an overview of the relationship between individual councils and LGPS pension funds.

Date passed — in most cases, the date of the council meeting in which the motion was agreed. Occasionally where it has not been possible to find council minutes, this relates to the date the information has been shared by a second party (e.g. local media or the local campaign group).

Type of motion — there are two main types of divestment motions: (1) a non-binding, indicative vote in favour of divesting the corresponding LGPS (local pension) fund from fossil fuels, and (2) a commitment to divest the council’s direct assets and never invest in fossil fuels again. Type 1 (the more common) is used to indicate the council’s support for divesting pensions, but does not commit the fund itself to acting on the motion, and usually “resolves” the council to an action such as writing to the pension fund. Alternatively, the second type of action is a commitment to divesting the assets of the council itself that is making the commitment, and therefore is binding. A number of motions in the list contain both elements. Make sure to expand the table in this column to see if both are listed.

Administering authority? — this column is only relevant to Type 1 motions. Each LGPS fund has an “administering authority”, which is the council that is legally responsible for management of the fund. We have included this column in the table as council motions that support fossil fuel divestment and which come from the administering authority of the fund are likely to put additional pressure on the fund to discuss divestment. A handful of LGPS funds do not explicitly name one council as administering authority, so these have been marked as “Unclear”. Click here for more detail on the role of the administering authority.

Announcement — this column contains the link to the council meeting minutes where the decision was passed, or in some cases a news article that comments on the decision.

Comments — look here for any notable things about the motion, for instance, if it also contains a commitment to end investment in weapons or a commitment to reinvest in renewables.

* — councils with an asterisk (*) relate to motions that are re-affirming a previous motion in support of fossil fuel divestment for that council.

Click “Download CSV” or “View larger version” at the bottom right of the table to get a better look at the information.