Meeting with Newham Council Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, Terrance Paul

In November of 2019 we met Councillor Terrance Paul, the Cabinet member for finance and corporate services at a Newham Council planning meeting on citizen’s participatory democracy. Councillor Paul suggested we arrange a separate group meeting with him.

We then saw him again (prior to our group meeting with him) at a budget forum where Councillor Paul went through the draft budget for the next three years council spending plans. We were invited to contribute our thoughts and ideas. As ClimateYouChange, we made suggestions for financial savings which could be employed to combat climate change.

For the meeting we looked to arrange a date which worked for everyone. Eventually, we decided on today’s date and a suitable venue.

It was a really positive experience meeting with the councillor. He had set aside an hour of his time to meet with us but ended up staying for a full three hours. We covered a lot of ground!

Councillor Paul was very helpful and engaged, talking to us about everything from tree planting and retrofitting council properties, to decreasing personal car driving. He suggested the best people to contact in the council to work to effect change through our proposals and group project ideas.

We suggested a number of potential initiatives for measures which we believe the council can introduce to help residents live more sustainably and ways these might be funded (or at least part-funded). We also discussed ways in which we could see ourselves playing our part and how we might go about this as a group.

Councillor Terrance Paul provided valuable insight into the workings of the council, what is possible right now, why, and what could change moving forward. We couldn’t have asked for a more valuable and constructive meeting. Thank you to all our members who attended!