Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Observations on UK heatwave
planning
PHE National Heatwave Plan annual seminar
Coin Street Conference Centre
Tuesday 14 March, 2017
Kevin Burchell and Ben Fagan-Watson
Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster
The
Urban Heat
project(January 2015 to June 2016)
– Examine the potential role of the voluntary and
community sector (VCS) (or third sector) in
heatwave planning and community resilience
planning.
Objectives
– Very varied sector
– From fully constituted national organisations
(eg Age UK) to very informal groups
– Age, ethnicity, faith, children, mental health,
disability, sustainability, health, travel…
– Has access to ‘vulnerable’ people
– Has access to a distinctive form of local and
grass roots knowledge
The voluntary-community sector
– Participatory action research
– Local impact (action), three case studies– Participatory workshops with VCS groups
– Create bridges between these groups and local institutions
(mostly public health and community resilience)
– Interviews with vulnerable people
– Strategic impact (research)– Ongoing engagement with regional and national policy
institutions
– Independent evaluation
Design
Observations on UK
heatwave planning
– Cultural familiarity with hot weather
– However, low levels of awareness among VCS groups
and ‘vulnerable’ people with respect to:– Risks (sunburn etc)
– Vulnerable groups
– Actions to take
– Rapid engagement and understanding
– Need for more national and local communications
Low levels of awareness
– Local VCS co-ordinating
organisations
– Communication hubs
– F2F communications
– National VCS organisations
– eg Age UK, MIND
– National communications
programmes
Potential role of VCS in communications
– Cold weather and floods – understandably – receive more attention
– Nonetheless, hard to avoid the conclusion that heatwave planning
requires more attention and offer great potential for development
– Heatwaves now feature strongly in the UK Climate Change Risk
Assessment (evidence review)
– It is important that this is carried through to the National Adaptation
Programme
Crowded policy environments
– National benchmarks are always
helpful but challenging to
implement
– ‘Bundling’ action on heatwaves
‘bundled in’ with existing activities
– advice services
– home visit programmes
– switching from ‘winter deaths’ to
‘seasonal deaths’
More action on heatwaves
– Heatwaves are not considered in planning
guidance
– Planners are not engaged
– Important for heatwave planning to
emphasise long term planning to a greater
extent, alongside emergency planning
– This requires cross-departmental action (as
in the Cross-government Group)
Long term spatial and urban
planning
– Offer considerable untapped potential for
heatwave planning and practical action
– Produced distinctive local ideas
– In many cases, were able to act as credible and
valuable partners for local institutions
– Important to emphasise this in future Heatwave
Plans.
The VCS groups
