Hounslow Green Recovery Board - Blog

After four brilliant Innovation Labs, we reconvened the Green Recovery Board on the 30th July to discuss what are shaping up to be our flagship projects and key interventions. 
 

• Creating the Hounslow Low Carbon Neighbourhood 
   
  We will create our own version of the low carbon neighbourhood which is relevant to Hounslow’s communities and our aspiration as a Borough. We’ll engage with the University of Westminster whose Masters students will be exploring 15-minute cities and its application to Hounslow. Their creativity could help us to visualise what our neighbourhoods will look like. 
   
  Collaboration will be at the heart of Hounslow’s Green Recovery and we’ll be working with Collaborate CIC to develop a plan to do this. Their Manifesto for a Collaborative Society is an inspiration for all change-makers and as Collaborate say themselves: ‘We believe that collaboration is the means by which we can achieve things together we can’t achieve alone and, in time, reshape those ends to reflect our shared values and interdependence, paving the way to a fairer, kinder and more sustainable society.’ (link to manifesto) 
   

• A low-carbon demonstrator neighbourhood in West Hounslow 
   
  Social housing provider Places for People have put down a funding bid to retrofit an estate of 300 homes in West Hounslow. Through collaboration with Hounslow Council and others, there is the potential to create a living, breathing national demonstration of a low carbon neighbourhood. In our next round of iLabs we’ll be thinking in more detail about how we can stimulate the amenities the community will need within a 15-minute radius, how to support our net zero carbon ambitions and help collaborate to transform this housing estate. The lessons learned here can be applied across the borough. 
   

• A Green Enterprise Zone 
   
  We want to make Hounslow a more welcoming place for businesses eager to develop green technology and services. We’ll create a green enterprise zone which will be a landmark destination for green businesses to cluster in Hounslow. Hounslow’s Green Recovery we explore creating incentives for this cluster of cutting-edge green businesses, including special planning arrangements to allow green infrastructure to be built easily when needed. 
   

• A study into 21st Century Green Mobility 
   
  We’ll conduct a study to examine global city approaches to the movement of goods and people, and we’ll apply this thinking to the development of green and travel infrastructure in and out of Hounslow. 
   

• Demonstrating green mobility around Heathrow 
   
  Lots of people who live within a five- or six-mile radius of Heathrow airport don’t use a bicycle into work. There are many barriers for people to cycle to the airport and it’s generally acknowledged that cycling around the Heathrow ring road is a daunting prospect. We’ll establish a pilot project to address the barriers by improving infrastructure, journeys and links into Heathrow. 
   

• The Green Academy Programme 
   
  We’ll explore how to deliver a series of training and upskilling programmes supplying the “Green” Technicians, Graduates, Operatives to fuel the Green Enterprise Zone and attract organisations to Hounslow, building greater employment opportunities. We’ll collaborate with existing education providers in the borough to delivery this cutting-edge skills programme, and we’ll draw on the expertise of specialist external providers as well. 

In addition to our flagship projects, we’ve drawn up a list of further interventions we might make as a Council to address each of the areas the iLabs have explored. You can see these in our Green Recovery Powerpoint presentation. 
 

Further discussions at the second Green Recovery Board 

To help with the flow of the discussion in our next set of Innovation Labs, here are a few key discussions that were raised in today’s meeting. 

• It’s important not to too narrowly define low carbon jobs. They are not just about energy. They perform physical roles and service roles too. There are two helpful definitions of green jobs: dark green jobs – people who have green technical skills, and light green jobs – these are people who work in the service sector whose working environment has been made zero-carbon. Both types of job are essential in our green recovery. 
   

• Could Hounslow be a test bed for autonomous electric vehicles? If Hounslow indicates that it is open to experimenting with this new technology, the borough could attract further green investment. There are major car distributors in the borough. Are we making the most of them? 
   

• We need a holistic approach to cycling. Bad weather, for example, is often a barrier to cycling. People would be more likely to brace cycling outside of the warm seasons if they knew they could take their bike on the tube, train or bus. People are put off cycling to work if there is no-where to leave bikes and no-where to make yourself presentable at the other end. We also noted the imminent changes to the law for cycling infrastructure. 
   

• There is a big need to address the ‘last mile’ conundrum. What are the alternatives to the delivery of goods to people’s homes other than gas guzzling vans? This has seemed particularly prescient during coronavirus as home delivery has skyrocketed. 
   

Where do we go from here? 

The next round of ilabs beginning next week will flesh out the flagship projects and we’ll also explore the data to decide which interventions will deliver the biggest impact with the resources we have available. Alongside the data, we also think it’s important to start where there is energy and willingness and to create a social movement for change. For the Green Recovery to delivery on its ambition we’ll use this energy as a springboard to create structured governance and evaluation frameworks. 

Seeing all the proposals set out in today’s board was particularly thrilling. Working with residents, business leaders, academics and many others, we’ve already achieved the beginning of a very powerful vision for Hounslow in just a few weeks. One of the participants said today that working on the Green Recovery Board had inspired him to think about moving to Hounslow. Let’s hope that inspiration is a taste of things to come!