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Former Newark and Sherwood District Council portfolio holder for climate and the environment “deeply concerned” at deferment of Motion for the Ocean




The driving force behind plans to protect our oceans and waterways closer to home has expressed her dismay after upcoming ‘motions’ were put on hold.

Last week, Newark and Sherwood District Council’s Motion for the Ocean commitments, activities to date, and future plans were discussed at the Cabinet meeting, with the members electing to defer recommendation of a transfer of £10,000 from the Cleaner, Safer, Greener reserve to Environmental Services for day-to-day activities around the commitment to grow ocean literacy.

The members also deferred the recommendation of an additional £45,000 to pay for a touring theatre company to visit all 45 primary schools to ensure all primary school-aged children have a first-hand experience of the ocean as it was felt by members that the money could be better spent elsewhere, especially in light of recent flooding.

Circo Rum Ba Ba theatre company, theatre show inside a giant sperm whale in Newark Market Place.
Circo Rum Ba Ba theatre company, theatre show inside a giant sperm whale in Newark Market Place.

The Motion for the Ocean was put forward by Emma Oldham in October 2023, with an Officer Group created in January 2024.

Emma stood down from her position as portfolio holder for climate and the environment in December 2024, and she has now said that she was “deeply concerned” that the plans seem to have stalled.

She argued that the plans for the touring theatre group was a sensible way of ensuring all primary school children across the district are educated, and that the performances can be recorded to be shared with nurseries and secondary schools indefinitely and were good value for money.

The deferring of the decisions at the Cabinet meeting, Emma said, leaves the motion with no allocated funding or resources to deliver key projects and jeopardises several initiatives, stakeholder engagement, and public awareness campaigns including storm drain art to educate the public about what should not go down drains, as it will ultimately make its way into the oceans.

She said that flood management and river health are “intrinsically linked”, and neglecting one impacts the other, and plans such as the Three Rivers Project (part of Motion for the Ocean), which focuses on restoring healthy rivers and reconnecting them with their floodplains through natural flood management, are vital for reducing flood risk:

“Recent flooding underscores the urgent need for these efforts — not just for resilience but also to minimise pollution in floodwaters,” she said, “Flooding is undoubtedly a top priority for our residents—and that’s precisely why we must not fail in delivering this motion.

“In the inevitable case of future floods, we must also ensure that floodwaters carry as little pollution as possible to safeguard residents’ health. Flooding and river health are not separate or competing priorities—they are two sides of the same coin. Addressing one means addressing both.”



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