Climate Change Mitigation Meeting with Newham Deputy Mayor and Newham Council Education Cabinet member

Cllr James Asser (Left) and Cllr Joshua Garfield (Right), Newham Council

We originally arranged to meet with Deputy Mayor and Cabinet member for the Environment and Sustainable Transport, Councillor James Asser in 2020 and then Covid struck just before the agreed upon day! After being pulled in different directions and working on various projects, we were finally able to arrange and have a meeting! It only took three years! We were also able to organise to meet with Education Cabinet member, Councillor Joshua Garfield alongside James Asser.

Thanks to group member, Jyotsna, we had the use of a bookable workspace in her apartment block. There were about ten of us in attendance but sadly we forgot to take photos. We were so caught up in discussion with the Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Education.

Having sent them the agenda ahead of time, we were able to hit the ground running, sharing our ideas for climate-friendly food choices in the council buildings and schools, greening initiatives for Newham, with particular emphasis laid on food forests, local market redevelopment and circular economy suggestions, eco waste and re-use practices, sustainable transport and how we might work together in the future.

A few of our members eat a fully plant-based diet, with one such member, Jonathan, giving an enthusiastic talk on reducing meat and dairy consumption. Another member, Olawale is a keen cyclist and group lead of local group, Newham Cyclists, making him ideally placed to talk about active travel initiatives.

We had a really positive discussion together and learnt a lot from James and Joshua about their roles, the work they are doing in the council on the climate emergency, some of the challenges they face and what can be possible moving forward.

One such challenge was how to avoid developers potentially contesting any climate change mitigatory planning measures that the council were trying to introduce if they weren’t already present in the existing council planning document, the Local Plan.

To this end, Deputy Mayor James Asser was at pains to express that workable, potential policy initiatives which we wanted to see introduced would need to be included in feedback for the council’s new Draft Local Plan policy document.

Deputy Mayor Asser invited us to give feedback. He was keen for us to understand that we could positively impact on the planning process if we worked with the council on this essential Local Plan review process.

We otherwise left things open for future discussion to see how we as a group could further work with the council on other initiatives and tackle shared goals on combatting the climate crisis.

Thank you to the members who were able to take time away from their busy work schedules to attend, providing lots of valuable insights and contributions!