Observations on UK heatwave planning - PSI: Policy Studies ... · Observations on UK heatwave planning ... (action), three case studies ... –However, low levels of awareness among

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

Thank you

[email protected]

Google ‘urban heat PSI’ to find the reports