Students present climate action ideas to councillors

School children from across the borough have presented their climate action ideas to councillors at a Full Council meeting on 13th July in Stockport Town Hall.

The Schools Climate Assembly project took place between October 2022 and March 2023, culminating in two pupil-led debates taking place in the main council chamber at Stockport Town Hall.

In total, 850 young people from across Stockport took part in climate action and democracy lessons in the classroom, and proposed 130 ideas of how the council could help address the climate emergency.

The winning idea was submitted by St Paul’s Primary School in Brinnington and was voted on by 78 students from 28 schools and colleges when they took over the town hall in March. Students proposed supporting community gardens where people can plant and pick fruit and vegetables, which in turn reduces the carbon footprint of food.

Pupils from St Paul’s Primary School, Brinnington, and pupils from St Winifred’s Primary, in Heaton Mersey, presented their idea to Stockport councillors at the Full Council meeting held on Thursday, 13th July.

Cllr Mark Roberts (pictured below), Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment, announced the council’s commitment to make the children’s idea a reality, which will result in a number of actions taken to see the creation and care of growing spaces across the borough. This will include:

• New ‘Book Worms Gardening Clubs’ will be set up at public libraries, with schools and communities engaged with planting and maintaining these new growing spaces.
• Schools and colleges that participated in the Schools & Youth Climate Assemblies 2022-23 will be eligible for a one-off £200 grant to support food growing and planting for biodiversity in education settings.
• An educational resource will be created so that schools and colleges can teach about food and climate change.
• A commitment from the council to offer every school in Stockport a site assessment for tree and soft fruit bush planting within the next three-year tree planting cycle.
• A ‘We CAN‘ activity calendar will be created to celebrate all the climate and nature action ideas young people put forward. The activity calendar will be shared with all primary schools.

Cllr Roberts added:

“It was great to hear the ideas debated at the climate assemblies held in March, the quality of the discussion was exceptional and our young people here in Stockport demonstrated a high level of understanding of the issue of Climate Change. I hope to see some of them in our council chamber as local leaders and councillors in the future.

“It’s so important that school children and college pupils are a part of what we do, that as a council we listen to them, and they feel supported to tackle the serious issue of climate change. It is, after all, they who will have to live with the consequences of climate change the longest in our society.

“I’m delighted that the council have committed to addressing the ask of the winning project, as we did with sustainable period products last year and I look forward to schools and our libraries across the borough taking part and creating their own community gardens.”

“I also hope to see the work we did at Stockport on sustainable period products from our first schools climate assembly picked up by other local authorities and the benefits shared with other young people across the country. We’d love to see a Greater Manchester roll out of a period positive policy like this originating and championed from Stockport council and it’s young people.”