Chesham Community Assembly No 1
First Community Assembly in Chesham – Done!
“What might we do in Chesham to build our resilience in the face of a changing climate?”
The results of the first assembly are in!
What a great session! We had people from all sorts of groups attending, this included a wide age demographic and also a small representation of some minority groups. We will be working to get a more accurate representation of our local demographic for future assemblies.
Yes, future assemblies! All those who attended agreed it was a good way to come together as a community to discuss local issues around the climate and ecological emergency. The general consensus was that the next assembly should have a solution focused remit.
The main themes that people wanted to address included;
- How local community groups could come together to effect change
- Water (supply, demand, flooding, pollution)
- Transport and air quality
- Wildlife
- Buildings
- Community food growing
You can see the unedited comments from the groups here:
You can see summaries from each group here:
You can see feedback from those who attended here Note: Score 1 = ‘Strongly Disagree’, Score 5 = ‘Strongly Agree’:
Chesham Community Assembly No 2
Second Community Assembly in Chesham – Done!
“What might we do, to reduce water consumption around Chesham?”
“What might we do, to reduce the impacts of flooding around Chesham?”
The results of the second assembly are in!
What a great session! Experts, Allen Beechey (Chiltern Chalk Streams Project) and Paul Jennings (River Chess Association), introduced the assembly topics. They shared the importance of considering water and flooding locally, spoke about initiatives already happening and shared potential solutions for the community to take forward.
Everyone who came was keen to contribute and there were plenty of ideas shared.
Five projects came out of the assembly:
- Water reduction education team (community, schools and practical workshops, could include research into grey water systems)
- Lobbying for new build regulations, particularly grey water requirements, could also think about retrofit
- Mass community purchase and installation of water butts
- Flooding lobbying group (EA, Thames, Bucks) re Sustainable Drainage systems (SuDS), perhaps join master planning group
- Flooding education group (public and authorities) e.g. benefits of permeable surfaces, consciousness of the problem, raising awareness, gathering data, better farming practices
You can see the summary and comments from the assembly groups here:
You can see feedback from those who attended here Note: Score 1 = ‘Strongly Disagree’, Score 5 = ‘Strongly Agree’
In the next few weeks we will be working on a series of assemblies for 2021/22 to discuss these topics:
transport, air quality, rewilding and energy.
Watch this space for more information! Please join us, we would love to hear your views.
