• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Activism and Campaigning / City’s co-produced climate action plan ‘is a world first’
Five women in front of a grand five-story building, holding a banner saying 'Make the future green and accessible'

City’s co-produced climate action plan ‘is a world first’

By John Pring on 14th July 2022 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Listen

Disabled people have called for action to open up their access to green jobs, public transport, affordable food and clean energy across their city, as part of a pioneering, user-led climate action plan.

The plan also calls for blue badge holders in Bristol to be allowed to use bus lanes, for action to remove pavement obstacles, free window boxes for disabled people without a garden, and a “library of things” that would allow disabled people to borrow mobility equipment.

And it wants to see improved access for disabled people to carbon neutral personal transport and the natural environment.

The action plan – funded by the National Lottery-financed Climate Action Fund – was led by the disabled people’s organisation Bristol Disability Equality Forum (BDEF), which co-produced the plan with 300 disabled people who live or work in Bristol.

It is believed to be the first time anywhere in the world that so many disabled people have been involved in co-producing a plan to take action to address climate change.

The aim of BDEF’s Community Climate Action Plan is to find ways of acting on climate change that do not create new barriers for disabled people.

Laura Welti, the forum’s manager, said she was “completely gobsmacked” when she was told that the forum’s work was so ground-breaking.

The forum’s work has already sparked interest from other organisations in the UK and abroad, with the possibility of a visit to the US to share its work, and contact from the UK government, Disability Rights UK, the Centre For Sustainable Energy (CSE), climate action researchers, and the Feminist Green New Deal.

Five other disadvantaged communities took part in the Bristol Community Climate Action project, each of them co-producing a climate action plan for their own community.

The project, which aims to identify priorities that will help to deliver the city’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2030, was set up by Bristol Green Capital Partnership, whose members include Bristol City Council, the union Unite and CSE.

Welti said BDEF applied to be one of the project partners because it saw “an opportunity to get in before any work gets undertaken, so we get it right first time, rather than us having to react when they get it wrong”.

Part of BDEF’s role now will be to ensure that local projects that receive government funding for climate action work – for example on clean air zones, pedestrianisation schemes and public transport – pay close attention to disabled people’s needs.

The 65 recommendations in BDEF’s action plan are split between those actions it could implement itself, and those it now hopes to lobby councils, other public bodies and Bristol’s private sector to implement.

It has already had support in principle for the idea of setting up a group of disabled people that would oversee all of Bristol City Council’s climate action work.

And it is seeking funds to set up a new disabled-led social enterprise that would fix and sell affordable mobility equipment that has been reclaimed from the city council’s waste services, as well as running mobility equipment maintenance workshops.

Welti said she was “absolutely delighted” that BDEF had been involved in such pioneering work.

She said: “It’s giving a platform to the voices of disabled people in an area where they have been especially excluded to date.

“They have been largely ignored by the climate action movement and they had not really been considered at all by central government in terms of what happens with the sorts of work that they fund.

“I was completely stunned to discover that this was something so pioneering and radical.

“I just feel that it highlights how far disabled people still are from being considered as part of these larger movements.”

Welti said the work on the action plan had involved many disabled people – particularly those aged between 20 and 40 – who would not normally be so involved in its work.

This has allowed them to “get their voice heard through a disabled people’s organisation rather than struggling against the barriers they have experienced” with mainstream climate action groups.

The forum has already applied for funding to employ a new transport champion, a disabled person who would lobby transport organisations, and offer advice and support on climate-related plans, in areas such as pedestrianisation, access to green spaces, and public transport.

It also hopes for funding to employ a new energy champion, who again would be a disabled person, and would run workshops, provide assistance and advice on energy efficiency for disabled people, and lobby other organisations.

Among other recommendations in the action plan are for disabled people to be given grants that allow them to buy vehicles that use cleaner fuels; for all buses to have at least two wheelchair spaces; and for grants that make it easier for disabled people to buy accessible bicycles.

Other ideas include ensuring all new homes are at least partly accessible; running workshops to help disabled people grow their own food, and to help them cook the food they’ve grown; and ensuring that 10 per cent of the city’s allotments are accessible.

The action plan also says that disabled people should not have to pay charges for driving in the city’s clean air zone – which is being introduced later this year – if driving their vehicle is an access need.

And it calls on the city to build an “example home” that is “fully accessible and has energy that is good for the planet”, which can be used to inspire developers to build other such properties.

Picture: Bristol Disability Equality Forum members in front of City Hall in Bristol last November before joining a march to mark the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow 

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: BDEF Bristol Bristol Community Climate Action Bristol Disability Equality Forum Centre For Sustainable Energy climate action Climate Action Fund climate change

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

Government must reverse Tory policy on adapting to climate change, say disabled activists after court defeat
31st October 2024
High court case poses challenge to new government’s commitment to disability justice and co-production
25th July 2024
Election hustings candidates invent disability policies, days before general election
27th June 2024

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote

Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die

Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP

Timms misleads MPs on DWP transparency and cover-ups, as he gives evidence on PIP review

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister

Involve disabled people ‘meaningfully’ from the start when developing digital assistive tech, says report

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web