Who are Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire? We’re a group of people living in Leicester and Leicestershire who are terrified and inspired by the climate crisis and climate justice and are working together to address these issues.

Currently we’re trying to get as many responses as possible into the Local Plan consultation which closes on 7th Dec 2020. The draft Leicester Local Plan defines how Leicester (and the surrounding suburbs) will develop in the next 16 years, it will also influence other cities across the country as they develop their own Local Plans. We aim to have over 400 people send in personal responses about climate change policy to this consultation, because although the current draft of the Local Plan asks developers to think about climate change, it currently contains very little in the way of climate related requirements.

In order to support you to think about and respond to the Local Plan we have put together a series of resources (below).

If you want to jump straight into writing your response, or reading the Draft Plan, our Local Plan short briefing tells you what is (and is not but needs to be) in the plan, and gives a few pointers on how you could respond.

You don’t have to respond using the consultation form – you can email your comments to planning.policy@leicester.gov.uk (make sure you say in the subject line it is a response to the Local Plan consultation, and give your postcode).

You can find a copy of the Council’s draft Local Plan here: Draft Plan and the consultation is here.

Two fun ways to start thinking about the issues in the Local Plan. Camilla Cancantata has written a song called ‘Dear Planners’ about the kinds of things our Local Plan could address which you can watch/listen to here. Climate Action’s events group has put together a 30 minute walk route and audio track. You could download them and go for a walk, see some ways the city is already addressing climate change, and hear about how they could be incorporated into the Local Plan. More info on the walk here.

For more detailed information on the Local Plan and what we need it to include you could:

• watch a recording of our 40 minute presentation on the Local Plan
• read some of the policies we think should be included in the Local Plan
• or go to our Low carbon planning and housing working group page where there is more information and resources, including a series of posts about what we think should be in the plan and is worth saying in your consultation response and a copy of the working groups consultation response.
• Read our Transport Action groups response to the consultation here: transport action group local plan response final .
• Read our Low carbon planning and housing group consultation response here: planning group response final .

Once you have responded to the Local Plan, please tell us here so we know how we are doing in reaching our target of 400 climate related responses.