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Urban Heat in Tooting

Today we facilitated our first workshop on a new project in Tooting which aims to explore how communities can best deal with the impact of heatwaves. Called “Urban Heat” the project is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and run by the Policy Studies Institute at the University of Westminster (See http://www.psi.org.uk/site/project_detail/urban_heat for more details).
 
In an age when average global temperature is on the rise, the workshops will look at the effect of heatwaves on communities, particularly with regard to more vulnerable members of our society. Tooting is one of three locations chosen to participate alongside Hounslow (with South West London Environment Network) & Hackney (with Age UK). 

Workshop held at CFC in Tooting today

In parallel, the project will also be working with the local councils, emergency services, and other public bodies to see how actions for and by the community could feed into their emergency plans.

Today was a successful first foray into this area, on an appropriately warm day, if not anywhere near the heatwave threshold for London of two consecutive days at 32°C or above.  We look forward to the second workshop on July 1st and aim to disseminate some of the findings and developments via this blog.

If anyone reading this is interested in taking part please do contact Charles to find out more via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
DT