On Thursday 4 March local groups from across London (including Southwark, Kensingon, Chelsea & Westminster, Hackney, Dagenham and Barnet) met at head office for the London Local Groups Forum meeting.
We spoke about what local groups were up to, what campaigns we were working on: all groups were working on Get Serious or Fix the Food Chain, or both (like us!). We heard about some interesting projects including Southwark’s Homes Going Green and the High Barnet Green Home Zone, and how Hackney local group had divided their group into sub-groups for people interested in public speaking, street stalls and research.
For campaigning during the run-up to elections on May 6 there’s a new website http://election.foe.co.uk which includes a blog and resources for election campaigning and an online action to co-sign a letter to party leaders calling for determined action to tackle climate change – if you haven’t signed this already please do!
We spoke about London strategies: Boris Johnson has just released his draft climate change strategy, but it’s not good enough! His CO2 emissions reductions target is 38% by 2020 (FoE are calling for at least 40% by 2020). His draft transport plan, also recently released, removes lots of good measures proposed by Ken Livingstone e.g. road traffic reduction targets have been removed. All the draft London strategies will be up for public examination in June, July, September, October this year, and we’ll be responding to them as a local group.
The next London Local Groups Forum meeting is on Saturday 5 June at Bonhill House, EC2A 4BX from 9.30am (light breakfast included!) preceeding the Greater South East Regional Gathering. All local group members are welcome to join – find out more and book your place.