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

k.burchell@westminster.ac.uk

Google ‘urban heat PSI’ to find the reports