The first HCA “Climate Conversation” took place at St Margaret’s Parish Centre on the evening of Thursday 20th February. The topic for discussion at our inaugural event was Air Quality and Community Action.
Our two speakers were Dr Jim McQuaid, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Composition at the University of Leeds, and Andrew White, Senior Project Manager in the Climate, Energy & Green Spaces team at Leeds City Council.
Jim’s talk covered everything from sources of indoor and outdoor pollutants, the Sensing Leeds Network, his work on Air Quality stripes , to a Leeds lettuce growing experiment in 1911!
Andrew’s talk discussed the work that Leeds City Council is undertaking to tackle air pollution. Looking at the Leeds Air Quality Strategy that was adopted by the council in 2021. The talk touched on a number of topics including transport and active travel, indoor pollutants, public health and air quality monitoring.
The talks were followed by a question and answer session and following a short break for refreshments, two group discussions looking at which air quality issues were causing the greatest concern for the local community, and what community action could be taken to help.
The issues raised included:
- Traffic pollution
- Air quality in Horsforth, especially near schools
- Wood Burning Stoves
- Public Transport and Active Travel
Some of the suggestions to help deal with the issues were:
- Promoting Walk to School Weeks
- Finding out more about monitoring air quality in Horsforth. What data already exists. What could be done to collect more data.
- An educational campaign around pollution from wood burning stoves and open fires.
- Continue to push for a better, more connected and more reliable public transport system
The event felt like a real success, it was well attended and there was plenty of discussion and conversation over the evening. We came away with lots of ideas and suggestions for further work and action.
We also had a positive write up and review of the night in this article in the West Leeds Dispatch.
If you are interested in getting involved in working to develop any of these topics (it doesn’t matter if you weren’t there on the night) please contact hub@horsforthclimateaction.org
Following on from this successful event, we hope to organise further “Climate Conversations” on environmental themes in the future. If you have any suggestions for topics for discussion please email them to: hub@horsforthclimateaction.org