Case studies

The Royal Borough of Kingston is committed to increasing the use of participatory democracy to develop responses to difficult issues. As a result, the council held our first Citizens’ Assembly, asking residents “how do we collectively improve air quality in Kingston?”.

Kingston Council is organising a Green Home Show at a local school in Kingston, which will bring together local retrofit educators, suppliers and residents who are interested in retrofitting their own property, are curious about retrofit or would like to know more about a career in a related sector.

Kirklees Council have a green ambition to cut carbon emissions by 30 per cent between 2005 and 2020. As part of that, Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH) has installed photovoltaic (PV) panels on several estates.

To get their estate to net zero by 2030 and prepare the borough for the impact of the climate crisis, Lambeth council have created a ‘future fit’ package for schools. This package consists of several projects, which reduce the schools’ carbon footprints, prepare them to be climate resilient, and protect school children from air pollution.

Lancashire County Council recognised that a planned highway capital surfacing programme was a highly carbon intensive programme of works, so begun a journey to ascertain the carbon output of the surfacing programme, record and measure changes made to reduce it, and develop tools to allow them to integrate carbon usage into the asset lifecycle modelling.

In February 2021, Lancashire County Council adopted a resolution to set out on an ambitious carbon reduction and nature recovery strategy that seeks to 'transition the Lancashire economy away from carbon by 2030 and address the biodiversity crisis'. They recognised that the planned highway capital surfacing programme was a highly carbon intensive programme of works so have begun a journey to ascertain the carbon output of the programme, record and measure changes made to reduce carbon outputs and develop tools to eventually integrate carbon usage into the asset lifecycle modelling.

Lancashire County Council have invested in Low Carbon Street Lighting, through the county wide conversion of 152,000 streetlights to energy saving LEDs.

Lancaster City Council declared a Climate Emergency in January 2019, at which point the Local Plan had been submitted and it was not possible to be significantly amended. The Local Plan was adopted in July 2020, and the Council immediately entered a Climate Emergency partial review to ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation become fundamental to placemaking in the District.

Lancaster City Council is looking to retrofit housing stock, engage with residents to explain the benefits and encourage more local contractors to bid for tenders.

Lancaster West Neighbourhood Team was established following the Grenfell tragedy to provide a suite of management functions including tenancy management, community development and repairs and to deliver a multi-million-pound refurbishment of the 800 homes on the estate.