Climate Action Leeds are in the process of opening a new hub in Leeds city centre at City exchange, Albion Street on the 7th floor. This is going to be the central hub for the 8 hubs dotted around various neighbourhoods across the city. The spacious new building offers several office spaces, a reception area, a kitchen area, meeting areas and a fantastic view across the city of Leeds. Community hubs are said to be the bedrock of Climate Action Leeds, but having a city centre base means they now have a central place for the hubs to meet so it was important that they have a really good place for organisations to come and meet.

The Location of each hub is important:

• it helps place hubs in a variety of localities, from urban to rural
• it puts climate action on the agenda for all types of communities across the city

Climate Action Leeds have launched an ambitious 5 year long programme aiming to help shape a Leeds that is “zero carbon, nature friendly and socially just by the 2030’s“. They are calling this space Imagine Leeds – a hub for climate action and beyond.

This is a place for everybody to come and think collectively about the future together including businesses, organisations and groups. This hub is beneficial to discuss things such as climate change, biodiversity, social inequality. A place to gather together vital information, tackle climate and environmental issues and support those working on climate action. There will be a map of Leeds on the wall in the kitchen area to pinpoint who is working in which area. There are lots of discussions, dreams, hopes, plans and practical tips will be shared in this space that can benefit all of us and help to save people money whilst tackling climate change.

The ambitious programme will be funded by The National Lottery Climate Action Fund and they will be offering good grants to community groups. Over the next 2 years they will offer a total of £150, 000 in grants of up to £5, 000 to support community climate action projects. There will be two opportunities for funding:

• micro grants of up to £1,000 for small grassroots groups
• small grants of up to £5,000 for organisations of an annual income of less than £150,000

The goal of becoming carbon zero by the year of 2030 is an ambitious one. However the idea set out by Climate Action Leeds offers scope for the future as ways to save on polluting the atmosphere with waste carbon emissions. Insulating buildings, investing in solar panels for your house, switching your heating down and turning off electrical appliances are ways to reduce carbon emissions. Leeds Climate Action offers practical tips and ideas on how to get there, how to save money and how to work together to reach this vision.

The Permaculture Association are delighted to announce their first Community Coaches Climate event held at the new hub in town on the 28th April, 10:00 – 14:00. The workshop will share the findings of Community Climate Coaches which is an EU-funded project supporting climate action across Europe. This is an opportunity to take part in a discussion about climate action. The workshop will also introduce the competencies, resources, tools and practices and how you can use them to raise awareness for climate action where you live.

How to get involved

Applications for grants are welcomed for Leeds based groups and organisations and can be found online at https://www.leedscf.org.uk/open-grants

You can find out about your nearest hub by visiting the website www.climateactionleeds.org.uk  and look out for events and community hubs and see where your nearest hub is on the website.

The Climate Action Leeds workshop: To sign up to the event visit the Climate Action Leeds website.

For more information about the hubs in general email: climatehubs@t4p.org.uk 

Email: hello@climateactionleeds.org.uk