Since the declaration of the climate emergency councillors and officers have met with the Young Mayor of Lewisham and the Young Mayor’s Advisors to host a ‘Youth Forum for Climate’. The Young Mayor of Lewisham is elected yearly in Lewisham by Lewisham secondary school children and has a budget of £25,000 to spend on their projects. This event was very well attended and they were able to feed directly to officers their ideas about what Lewisham could do to tackle a climate emergency.
Lewisham is also supporting parents to close local roads after school time. By supporting parents to do this children can play safely in the street as well as reducing air pollution and encouraging parents to use active travel or public transport. During these events anti-idling cards were handed out to inform parents why they shouldn’t idle.
The anti-idling campaign included asking local school children to design a banner asking people to turn off their car engines. The winner was then selected and the design has been made into cards (as shown below) that can be handed out around schools and other idling hotspots to those in their cars.
