Are you worried or frightened about climate change but not sure what to do to help, or who to share your feelings with? Come along to the Preston Climate Emergency Centre, 32 Cheapside (on the Flagmarket) between 11am and 3pm on Saturday 17th June where we will be holding an event for Great Big Green Week and writing “Letters to Tomorrow”.

Letters to Tomorrow is a project run by The Climate Coalition, encouraging people to write down their feelings about the future in the form of a letter. It could be a letter to a friend, or child or loved one, or even your future self, and should enable you to express your fears about the impacts of climate change if the planet continues to warm up at the current rate, but also your hopes for the governments of the world act quickly and decisively to soften these impacts. Letters can be typed, hand-written or be drawings; or you can help CAP with our group Letter to Tomorrow. For more information about the Letters to Tomorrow project, and to learn what happens after you write your letter, see their website https://www.letterstotomorrow.com/

This event will form part of our regular CAP members’ meeting but everyone, including non-members, is very welcome to join in! Look for the event in our Diary of events for further details.

Last Saturday May 13th, members of CAP and, happily, a few newcomers gathered at the Preston Climate Emergency Centre (CEC) for our annual workshop and development day. We were pleased to have Councillor Carol Henshaw, Preston City Council’s cabinet member for climate change and a supporter of CAP, attending too.  The day was facilitated by Helen Rimmer from Friends of the Earth North West who did a sterling job of keeping us inspired and focussed! We reviewed and celebrated many successes over the last year and reflected on lessons learnt. Most notable achievements include the Preston Pedals project which has completed many of its aims in helping more people to cycle rather than drive in Preston through delivering bike repair workshops and advice, cycling sessions for beginners and those wishing to regain confidence, and campaigning for safer cycling in the city. The opening of the CEC in August 2022 as well as progress in a number of other important ongoing projects such as the Community Energy project and Warm Homes Preston projects were celebrated. 

Lunchtime gave us a great opportunity to share ideas, not to mention a vegan Jacob’s Join which went down very well!

In the afternoon we put together our ideas for climate action for the coming year as well as plans for 2 upcoming events next month including a Great Big Green Week event on 17th June and an event during Refugee week with Preston City of Sanctuary on 24th June. More details for these events will be available on our calendar.

At the end of the day we all felt energised and inspired to get on with delivering our climate action plans.

Activism is, after all, one of the best remedies for eco-anxiety, and hopefully we may actually help to make Preston a better,  greener, cleaner, fairer city through our efforts. 

If you are interested in finding out more about Climate Action Preston and perhaps how you might be able to help, please contact us, or come along to our event on 17th June, to be held at the CEC.

May 13th 10-3 at CEC 32 Flag Market, Preston

Come and put heads together to plan events, projects and campaigns!

Free event facilitated by NW FoE staff member Helen Rimmer who did a similar workshop for us last year.

The meeting went well, the new constitution to allow more people to share leadership was adopted. An interactive session on ‘what would make Preston a healthy environment? followed.
The Committee for this year is now in place.

Next General Coordinating meeting to be held at 7.30pm on 13th December, 2022.

Venue TBC.

There were many events across Preston for the biggest ever celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature at the end of September

Mayor of Preston Cllr Neil Darby who is a longstanding member of CAP welcomed children and staff to the Mayor’s Parlour from some of Preston’s Primary Schools which had created posters showing the environmental activities and achievements from the 21-22 academic year.
These were displayed at The Town Hall, Preston Climate Emergency Centre, The Larder Cafe and Intact Centre.

‘Sustainability Saturday’ took place at The Larder, PR1 1DD with the monthly Repair Cafe offering electrical and sewing/clothing repairs, alongside children’s Dragonfly craft using recycled materials.

A ‘Preston Pedals’ mechanic fixed several bikes FREE!
People enjoyed delicious food and drink from the cafe.

At ‘Preston’s Climate Emergency Centre’  32 Cheapside (Flagmarket), PR1 2AR, lifelong environmentalist and dedicated anti-franking campaigner Nick Danby gave a talk on why the climate emergency means the moratorium on fracking needs reinstating.

Senior Project Officer with Low Carbon and Renewable Energy at LCC Robin Jones gave a presentation on ‘Solar energy strategies’ showing how Preston Solar Action is aiming to put this community energy project into action.

Dr Julie Ridley who leads the National Lottery funded project ‘Preston Pedals’ facilitated discussion on how ‘Everyday cycling’ is a way to tackle climate change.

‘Cosy Homes’ and ‘Staywarm Energy’ offered energy-saving advice at The Intact Centre in Ingol. Staff member for Intact’s nature reserve ‘Dobcroft’ Ian Wright, gave a presentation ‘Nature’s Solutions to Climate Change’ followed by a walk round.

The ‘Green Choir’ which had only met 5 times under the leadership of Jon Aveyard of Preston Music Workshops, shared songs of nature and songs of humanity.

Members of the public signed the ‘Warm this winter’ campaign petition and made smoothies with donated fruit by pedal power.

This short film Leicester by bike reports on a recent visit by UCLAN, Lancashire County Council, Lancaster City Council and Climate Action Preston to learn how the city of Leicester has encouraged cycling

Preston’s Climate Emergency Centre, the 17th Climate Emergency Centre in the UK, and first in the North, opened on 13th August.

The aim of the Climate Emergency Centre is to provide a space where the people of Preston can come together to learn; discuss how to reduce their carbon footprint, and tackle other social issues as they arise. Many of us were unprepared for the pandemic, let’s not let this happen again with our children’s futures, the environment and natural world. By working as a community we can achieve big things!

Blog Preston published an article which you can read more about the opening of the centre and its aims. https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2022/08/preston-climate-emergency-centre-launches-in-central-preston-with-a-range-of-talks-and-workshops-lined-up/

Stay up to date with the Preston Climate Emergency Centre at its Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/798615344393208/

See the new Preston Pedals launch video