ClairCity newsletter ClairCity newsletter May 2020 | Page 6

Bristol’s citizens influence local decision making
Back in January, the Bristol team presented
the findings from their local ClairCity action
plan to Bristol’s Climate Change Advisory
Committee. Read on to hear what happened
The findings for Bristol
On Thursday 9th January, Professor Enda Hayes
(Project Director) and Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers
(Communications Manager) presented the findings from
the ClairCity policy package to a room full of local
leaders in urban sustainability. These leaders
represented the following organisations: Bristol Green
Capital Partnership, Bristol University, UWE-Bristol, The
Centre for Sustainable Energy, Arup and Bristol City
Council.
After a short introduction to the project, Professor
Hayes detailed the findings from ClairCity. “Citizens’
measures could substantially improve the health of the
city and its people,” he said. “For example, it is
estimated that the number of premature deaths would
be reduced by about 50% in the [citizen-led] scenario
compared to business as usual.
In addition, the citizen-led scenario would lead to
substantially lower carbon emissions than business
as usual, in particular after 2035. It would also,
contrary to current plans, lead to near-zero carbon
emissions in 2050.
Professor Hayes also explained that many people would
change their behaviours if they could, however barriers
to sustainable transport modes persisted, such as
infrequent and expensive public transport and poor
cycling and walking infrastructure. These barriers were
ultimately reflected in the policies citizens put forward,
and the top five are listed below.
The brief presented to the Climate Change Committee
Influencing influencers
The findings were warmly received by the Committee,
who have been influencing the city’s Zero Carbon and
Clean Air Action Plans for a number of years. The
Committee advised the team share these findings with
local councillors and local Members of Parliment (MPs)
to influence their work in the lead up to the local
elections due to take place in the summer of 2020. In
total, 70 Councillors and MPs were contacted, with
several directly thanking the team for their efforts.
Six weeks after the email was sent, the UK went into
lockdown and election preparations ground to a halt.
Shorlty after, the decision was taken to postpone
elections to 2021.
The city team were quick to change their approach to
dissemination following this announcement and work
began in earnest to develop online resources that could
be shared insteand. Read more about these on page 3.
Through crisis comes opportunity
Bristol’s Top 5 citizen-led clean air policies
In preparation for the ease of lockdown restrictions,
Bristol City Council took the bold decision to fast-track
plans to transform local travel. The plans include
pedestrianising some of the city centre and upgrading
sustainable transport infrastructure. The impact of these
changes will be felt for years to come and go a long way
to securing a clean air future for Bristol. Often gone
unsaid but no less important, behind these decisions
were the influence of multiple organisations and citizens.
6