Yesterday, Harry and I attended the WinACC (Winchester Action on Climate Change) Thinking Ahead Conference.
This conference bought together around 80 different people from the local Winchester area. These people were from the university, law firms, the cathedral, the local council and many more institutions and businesses.
The idea of this conference was to bring as many different opinions and ideas together to discuss the future of Winchester.
Many issues were discussed throughout the day, including parking, development, pollution, sustainability, and ease of access for members of the public.
After hearing from several different speakers throughout the day, and after an array of discussions on our tables, we all summed up what we thought the future of Winchester should look like...
Most of the speakers focused on what other towns had done to make their cities better. These included initiatives such as road closures during certain times of the day, so that children could play safely, developments in areas of Scandinavia, which affectively made the car obsolete, and the bicycle the main mode of transport.
The main issues overall that were discussed and summed up were,
parking, air pollution, lack of office space for businesses, lack of affordable housing, and ease of access. Some of the solutions that were discussed for Winchester were also ideas that have worked in other cities like Bristol and in Europe.
To solve the problems such as parking and ease of access, congestion charges were suggested, bicycle lanes, an improved public transport infrastructure, and stronger links from the train station to the main city centre. This would hopefully minimise the huge amount of air pollution Winchester produces each year of course, and as Winchester is one of the most air polluted cities in the UK, it is important that this is minimised to reduce the amount of carbon emissions that are produced into the atmosphere.
The improvement of the public transport infrastructure will also reduce this, because more people will be inclined to take public transport rather than driving into the city.
It was suggested at the conference by many that public transport was inadequate and did not reach enough of the surrounding areas of Winchester, so people were more likely to drive in and use their cars because of the lack of public transport available to them. This is something that many thought needed to be worked on.
Overall, this conference was an interesting and eye opening experience. It made me conscious of Winchester as a whole, and gave me ideas as to what the Student Union and the University could be doing to help reduce climate change for Winchester, and what we could be doing to strengthen our relationships with the local community and businesses to ensure that we all work together to reduce climate change.
If you'd like to get involved with WinACC, please visit their website for more information: http://winacc.org.uk/