Reform council that promised cuts delivers payday for party backer

If Kent County Council is Nigel Farage’s “shop window”, it’s becoming clearer every day what Reform UK are selling: a familiar mixture of incompetence and cronyism.

Instead of reducing local government spending, as Farage promised, councils run by Reform have ramped up spending. And a Good Law Project investigation can reveal that spending includes a big pay day for a party backer, despite serious concerns about his company.

At the end of last year, Kent council gave Reclamet Holdings a contract worth at least £30,000 for collecting and processing abandoned vehicles, even though the Environment Agency logged 10 “serious pollution incidents” involving the firm in 2024.

Reclamet is a firm owned by Stuart Mann, a local businessman who has promoted content from Farage and Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf on social media, is a member of the Facebook group for Reform UK Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh and has posted online about “more immigrants arriving”, adding “so much for stopping the boats”.

This isn’t the first time Mann’s company has been linked with environmental problems. In 2022, Reclamet’s waste management facility near Manston airport racked up 12 breaches of its permit to operate in 2022. And the firm’s sister company, Reclamet Limited, was wound up in July, over unpaid tax.

Minutes from a meeting of Manston Parish Council also suggest that a public inquiry is due to launch into the firm’s license to operate – enough for the parish council to decline the company’s offer to sponsor a children’s playground.

Kent council rejected any suggestion “that due diligence was lacking”.

“The contract with Reclamet has been procured in line with the council’s procurement processes,” the council said, “and the provider has met all requirements outlined in the requirements and contract.”

Stuart Mann did not respond to our questions about whether Reclamet was a suitable partner to clean up the county’s abandoned cars and trucks.

Reform’s problems with managing public money go further than Kent. Analysis by the public sector procurement specialists Tussell has shown that despite the party’s pledges to cut council spending, councils controlled by Reform spent twice as much between May and November last year as those councils had in the equivalent period in 2024.

The party initially claimed this was a sign of efficiency, because they were signing contracts that covered a longer period of time. But Good Law Project has examined contracts signed by Nottinghamshire County Council, one of Reform’s biggest spenders in 2025, and has found that the period covered by contracts has actually reduced.

In the seven months after May 2024, while it was controlled by the Tories, Nottinghamshire council awarded contracts that covered an estimated total of 19762 months. Between 1 May and 30 November 2025, while the council was run by Reform, the party handed out contracts covering just 3387 months.

Some of this disparity may be explained by the large number of contracts for care signed by the Conservative administration. But it calls into question Reform’s claim that the rise in spending is a sign of efficiency.

The Open Britain CEO, Mark Kieran, recalled how Reform “swept to power in Kent promising to root out the cosy deals and cronyism they claim infest local government”.

“Six months in,” Kieran said, “they’ve handed a contract to a firm with 10 serious pollution incidents, whose licence is under public inquiry, and whose owner openly supports the local party. If this is Reform’s ‘new politics’, it looks remarkably like the old politics – just with different friends benefiting. So much for Farage’s claims that Reform will use their democratic mandate to champion the interests of ordinary people.”

Nottinghamshire County Council did not respond to our questions about their spending.