Agenda item

This report summarises the outcomes of the Greening the Grey workshop held on 5 September 2024.  The workshop brought together Councillors, local residents, representatives of local community groups, national partners and Council officers to explore ideas on how ‘grey’ public spaces and green corridors could be improved in H&F to become greener, safer and more accessible for everyone.

Matthew Sales (Assistant Director, Programmes, Assurance and Analytics) introduced John Galsworthy (Director of Climate Change and Transport) and Sam Baldock (Policy Officer), who organised the Greening the Grey workshop and summarised the feedback received from the workshop held on 5 September 2024, covering the following areas:

• Background of the workshop
• Purpose of the workshop
• The reason for exploring how ‘grey’ public areas could be improved
• Key findings from the workshop
• Future work

It was noted that this was an important part of placemaking of Hammersmith & Fulham given that the borough had the second highest population of greenspaces in London and was the third most at-risk of flooding. How people wanted to use or interact with public spaces changed over the decades, for example there was a lot more active travel now than before. It was highlighted that the public realm would continue to be a key part of the Industrial Strategy and play an important role in enabling communities to interact. The future placemaking and transport vision included a focus on active travel and the infrastructure needed to achieve this, such as reallocating public realm spaces. As one resident put it, the key message which came out of the workshop was to “be bold” with related policies.

The Chair invited Cabinet Members to share their thoughts on the workshop and if there was anything that could be done better.

Councillor Sharon Holder (Cabinet Member for Public Realm) agreed that the event went very well and the people who attended understood what “greening the grey” was about. Residents were very grateful to have been invited, and they made great contributions towards the policy decisions around improving the infrastructure for the public realm.

Councillor Wesley Harcourt (Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Ecology) found the workshop very useful and highlighted that most people who attended were keen to move this agenda forward. It was interesting to see what their priorities were and how the work around climate change was impacting people, not just around carbon emission but also around topics of air pollution and flooding. It was important to consider how to bring residents along with the Council’s work and to overcome people’s resistance to changes in their local environment.

Councillor Jacolyn Daly noted that it was an inspiring workshop and a fantastic opportunity to meet residents with brave and bold ideas. The rambling society had great ideas about how to join up parks and greenspaces to create safe green routes for people to take. Reflecting on the varied feedback received from residents during consultation on school streets and rain gardens in her ward, she asked if there was anything that could be done to help residents with different opinions engage in conversations among themselves.

Councillor Helen Rowbottom welcomed this workshop and its findings and asked the following questions:

• Could the Report It app be expanded for residents to give suggestions on their local environment?
• Would access to green and clean tech be democratised across the borough, such as the WellHome Initiative by Dr Frank Kelly at Imperial College?

Councillor Helen Rowbottom also asked to see any notes from the workshop on democratising access to green and clean tech.

ACTION: Matthew Sales/John Galsworthy

Councillor Wesley Harcourt said that getting the health message of the WellHome Initiative across was necessary for changing people’s behaviour. Work to understand people’s perception around climate change was underway and would feed back into the work with Dr Frank Kelly in the new year. There was also an ongoing project with Imperial College on installing physical pollution barriers along curb sides. It was key to link health and climate change together in the communications of these projects.

Councillor Natalia Perez was curious about the boldest idea received from the workshop. John Galsworthy said that during a further session with residents of Harwood Terrace, the residents preferred the bolder idea of planting an architectural garden over installing more traditional humps, showing that the more transformational the team was being the more support they received.

Councillor Rory Vaughan commended the great work done by Councillor Holder and noted that a number of the initiatives were already in progress and had been discussed by the Economy, Arts, Sports and Public Realm Policy and Accountability Committee. He suggested reprioritising the key workshop findings according to how long it would take to see results. For example, regulating utility companies’ roadworks would take a primary legislation and was more aspirational at the moment. It was also important to evaluate how well the Council was doing on these initiatives, such as how the Sustainable Drainage Systems were performing in some of the major rainfall events recently. Recent work such as installing extra cycle storage, developing the tree strategy and the results of the park satisfaction survey could be shared with attendees of the workshop in order to identify what gaps there were.

ACTION: Matthew Sales/John Galsworthy

Councillor Sharon Holder said that the wide scope of public realm allowed the team to work across areas and with each other at the same time. The crucial thing was to let the public know better how it worked together as a system and more work could be done on communicating this better with residents.

John Galsworthy said that the workshop highlighted that good communication was needed and common consensus could only be forged with continuous conversations with residents, which was the biggest change delivered by the workshop.

Councillor Nicole Trehy also agreed that communication was key and enquired about the people who attended the workshop. Noting that a masculine view of the world had long dominated discussions on the public realm, it would be interesting to see how the workshop came together and how the workshop was being communicated to residents.

The Chair noted that the people who attended had a wider range of interests comparing to those who attended specific consultations held in the past. The attendees had similar views on policies, but they might not know much about things that were done outside of the areas of their interest, which linked back to the communication issue discussed. The Chair thanked officers for the workshop and the report, noting that the Board would consider bringing this model to other policy areas.

RESOLVED

1. The Policy and Oversight Board noted the report and provided comments and feedback on H&F’s Greening the Grey workshop.