Islington People’s Assembly
This summer, Shade the UK partnered with the Islington Climate Centre to host a People’s Assembly, dedicated to addressing the challenges surrounding heat and shade in the borough. Here, the People’s Assembly conducted a facilitated conversation, bringing together a wide range of local stakeholders together, including local community groups, businesses, faith organisations, and numerous others with critical insight and environmental expertise.
The purpose of bringing together this group of experts was to encourage the exchange of knowledge. Hearing from various community groups, including those who live, work, and study in Islington, including schools, sports clubs, businesses, and faith groups, we sought to understand how we can make communities both more aware of the risks of heat and what to do in the event of extreme heat. Furthermore, our aims also included collectively determining simple and actionable solutions that would allow us to limit the effects of heatwaves and extreme heat within the local community.
Our collaboration with Islington Climate Centre was founded on a belief shared between our two organisations: collaboration is key to adapting and building resilience to climate change.
The structure of our meeting was split into two key sections. First, we wanted to platform those with key expertise, giving them the opportunity to vocalise their experiences and their knowledge for the benefit of the group. Second, we broke out into small groups to deliberate on several key areas, before presenting back to the wider group.
The assembly included a panel of three speakers who shared their expertise in addressing heat challenges:
Shade the UK’s founder and director, Andy Love, who shared new and innovative approaches that various stakeholders, whether at the organisational or individual level, can implement now to keep cool.
Joseph Jones, a tenant support worker for the London Tenants Federation, who presented his insights on how extreme heat can impact tenants and how communities can support each other during periods of extreme heat.
Representative from Islington Council’s Head of Greenspace and Leisure, Andrew Bedford, who provided a comprehensive overview of Islington local government’s initiatives aimed at mitigating the impact of heatwaves and strengthening community resilience.
Following the panel presentations, the individual groups were encouraged to shape their discussions around a series of specific areas related to overheating and solutions to it within the local area. Such topics of discussion included:
Recognising that hot weather is a relatively new phenomenon for Islington, we looked into how we can help ourselves be more heat aware. What are the quick wins to stay cool and safe?
Participants were asked to recognise any potential ‘cool places’ or ‘cool spaces’ to go to when it gets hot. These might include churches, libraries, shops, shady parks and streets. What can we do to create more of these places and spaces and to let people know where they are?
In light of the Covid-19 pandemic we wanted to explore who the most vulnerable in our society are and what we can do to ensure such groups are safeguarded during periods of extreme heat.
What can we learn from people’s stories from the 2022 heatwave? What can we learn from cities which have hotter weather and more intense heatwaves than London?
Group outputs from the People's Assembly
Group outputs from the People's Assembly
At the very end of the session, we requested that everyone in attendance pledge to alter at least one part of their behaviour that can practically combat overheating within the borough of Islington. These pledges were posted back to them after a fortnight, providing a reminder of what they committed to during the session.
We are extremely grateful to the Islington Climate Centre for partnering with us on this impactful local project. We hope that our work with them can continue well into the future as we seek to keep engaging the local community to adapt their own area to the growing risk of extreme heat.
Alongside our panel presentations and group discussions, the Islington Climate Centre also played host to our photography exhibition, 40° Stories, a free event that sought to highlight the lived experiences of Islington residents throughout the record-breaking heatwave of 2022. The exhibition was an official event as part of London Climate Action Week (LCAW) event, one of the world’s leading climate change events, where climate leaders and environmental decision makers come together for to uncover practical solutions for climate change.
40°C Stories Exhibition at the Islington Climate Centre
Our 40° Stories campaign takes real experiences from the 2022 heatwave where temperatures soared to a historic 40.3ºC within London, which presented a series of huge challenges across the city, particularly for those most vulnerable. Shade the UK wanted to put together this exhibition to zero-in on a representative group of residents in Islington to share their experiences and struggles throughout the heatwave.
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