Last week, on appropriately the hottest day of the year, we held the second of our Urban Heat workshops, led by the Policy Studies Institute at the University of Westminster
(See http://www.psi.org.uk/site/project_detail/urban_heat for more details).

This project work is taking place in Tooting, Hounslow and Hackney and will also engage 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.

A range of different community groups have so far been involved in the research (check out the logos above) and last Wednesday produced some useful brainstorming around the issues, resources and possible actions in our local community’s response to extreme heat.  

One of the interesting and energy generating exercises involved mapping the local area, identifying both community resources such as large indoor spaces (bingo hall, mosque) and problems (no shade & few plants in the High St., air pollution).