BANZAI

Bruntsfield Area Net Zero Action Initiative

Category: Organisation

  • People’s Assembly 1: Our Neighbourhood in 2040

    People’s Assembly 1: Our Neighbourhood in 2040

    On a dreich day we assembled at the Bruntsfield Pianodrome, first to enjoy the mesmerizing voices from the Northern Light Singers, then to embark next door at the St Oswald’s community centre for our first People’s Assembly. Around 40 members of the public flocked in to make their voices heard around what makes our neighbourhood – Bruntsfield, Tollcross, Merchiston, Marchmont and Sciennes – great. What could be done to make it even better? 

    The event was structured and facilitated by Kate Nevens and broadly tackled three key questions: 

    1. What we like about the place we live and work,  
    2. What we’d like to see for our neighbourhood in the future
    3. Ideas for improvements to achieve that vision

    Councillor Joan Griffiths joined our People’s Assembly and stressed that the residents know their area best, which is why it is crucial that their views feed into the Edinburgh City Plan 2040. What is life like in your area? Who lives here? What are ideas for improvement and planning? One aspect she stressed is to try and engage with children and youth groups. They are the ones who will be around in 2040 and live through the changes we create! 

    We will congregate again at the end of February for the second of our People’s Assemblies where we particularly encourage under-represented groups to attend. To book a place, click here.

    Join us to bring it all together at the end of March to consolidate and develop our local place plan feeding into the Edinburgh City Plan 2040. Book here to save your space!

  • Community climate action and alphabet soup

    There has been a considerable drive towards community-led climate action over the last couple of years. This has resulted in a good number of local groups being formed but also led to confusion and overlaps at the higher level where local and national governments want to support community initiatives. Within Edinburgh, we have been puzzling over the relationship between two organisations established by the council and by national government to help with community climate action.

    The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) helped fund the creation of an organisation run by EVOC (Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council) with a name that has varied a little over the last year, but which has now settled (I think) as Edinburgh Communities Climate Forum (ECCF). CEC’s interest was primarily to provide an interface and support to the community action aspects of its 2030 Climate Strategy.

    In parallel, the Scottish Government has commissioned the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SSCAN) to set up a nationwide pool of community Climate Action Networks, intended as the first step towards Climate Action Hubs that will underpin a strategic, regional approach to climate action across Scotland. And so Edinburgh Climate Action Network (ECAN) has been born.

    Initially, the existence of ECCF and ECAN in Edinburgh caused a fair amount of confusion: were they overlapping (and thus potentially competing) or complementary? Agreement has finally been reached and the coordinators of the two organisations are now working together. The following summary was recently put out by ECAN:

    The Forum and Network share the goal of supporting community-led climate action, however the Forum’s remit is more specific than the Network’s. The Forum is primarily council-facing, and aims to support community groups to achieve the goals outlined in existing public policy strategies [e.g. the CEC 2030 Climate Strategy]. The Forum will hold events and offer resources, but will not have a membership. 

    The Network aims to support community groups in whichever strategy and direction is the priority for Edinburgh communities — any community group can be part of the Network and influence the specific goals of the Network. Community groups can then also define how the Network will relate to the Forum, depending on how much the Network feels the Forum’s strategy aligns with communities’ priorities. To summarise, [ECAN] is a broad commons, into which [ECCF] will feed, and through which [ECCF] will be able to widen its reach.

    OK?! We hope that we’re now entering a period of much more effective support for local groups such as BANZAI, and opportunities to influence both local and national government.