Meeting with Stephen Timms MP to discuss ‘One Big Idea’

This time last year, ClimateYouChange members met with Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham.

He suggested that our group decide on “one big idea” to propose to him as a project that we could explore together.

We were subsequently pulled in different directions with various projects, alongside the disruption of COVID.

One of our members, Jonathan (a committed vegan), suggested fruit tree planting as the ‘one big idea’, given the need for more plant-based food and less animal products.

The other ClimateYouChange members were happy with exploring this suggestion.

Group founder, Celia spent time doing the relevant research.

Having previously contacted various NGOs supporting tree planting and/or working on other sustainability initiatives (leading to finding out about the 2019 volunteer tree planting opportunity at the Eastbrookend Country Park) Celia reached out again to these organisations and others as part of the research process.

We were then thrown a curveball when a policy adviser at one of the bigger NGOs suggested a different method of food growing.

We ended up with two proposals for Stephen Timms:

• Community orchard tree planting with companion plants

• Indoor vertical hydroponics pilot*

*An indoor, food-growing method using LED grow lights over tiered trays of crops suspended above nutrient-enhanced water (for take-up by their roots) instead of soil.

We came to the online meeting with Stephen Timms armed with as much information as we could.

It was a very positive, productive experience. Stephen Timms reflected carefully on our suggestions, considering where he could assist and help us to realise one of the project proposals.

We alighted on the idea of a community orchard along the eastern end of a long cycle and walking lane in the south of the borough known as the Greenway.

The Greenway is a cycle lane which runs all the way from Stratford in the West of the borough of Newham to East Ham in the east. It has a tarmacked cycle and walking lane lined with a grass verge on either side which can be fairly wide in places.

There is already a community orchard in Plaistow, to the west of the area we decided on with Stephen Timms. So, we aren’t looking to reinvent the wheel here but rather to see more of our green spaces capitalised on through carbon drawdown from tree planting, food miles saved by using fruit trees and plants which help provide for the wider ecology.

Stephen Timms said that he would contact Thames Water as the owners of the Greenway, on our behalf. The Greenway sits on top of the Northern Outfall Sewer.

We decided to further explore the idea of indoor vertical hydroponics with a pilot suggestion for Newham City Farm, a small council owned farm in the Beckton area of Newham.

Stephen Timms said that he could help seek the relevant permission if this ends up being the project which goes ahead.

It certainly gives us another option to explore if we aren’t given the go-ahead by Thames Water. That said, the idea for indoor vertical hydroponics is something we have been exploring fairly recently, having received this as a suggestion later in the day.

To this end, we will need more time to finish the research stage of the proposal, to check for project viability, workability and to be sure whether this idea works with our group goals.

At ClimateYouChange we are conscious of the need to interrogate all potential ideas, to ensure that we don’t unwittingly engage in anything which causes more harm than good and at the very least find climate change solutions which can have the greatest impact through the power of education.