Our Shared Future

This was the title of the one day conference hosted at the University on Monday which brought together a group of academics from relevant departments and officers from the Council. As far as I can understand this was an initiative from the University, and more specifically the new Vice Chancellor, Professor Ian White.

Gathered with him in the evening feedback session were the relatively new Dina Romero, Council Leader, and the newly appointed Will Godfrey. So the word ‘new‘ is the operative word here and offers a new relationship where to all intents and purposes there wasn’t one. I think this was viewed as encouraging by the optimists in the room and less so by those more pessimistically inclined. Why am I optimistic?

• The time is right for real change – the planets are in alignment, as it were, see here,
• The younger generations who typically are too busy or immersed in studies are worried about their existence on the planet and are highly active,
• Even the oldies can see that the problems of an historic city functioning in an ever-more active time are deepening,
• Ian White has a great career track record, see here,
• He’s offering new approaches to intractable issues
• He’s been on a mission since his formal take-over in April to reach out and bring the city together, so that:

The University is globally leading and locally relevant.

• His colleague, Professor Nick Pearce from the Institute of Policy Research has impressed me at all the IPR lecture events at the University I’ve got to. His career is also pretty interesting and relevant for us in Bath at this time.
• Will Godfrey is new with plenty of relevant experience although I’m slightly struggling to find much available yet on his mission for Bath or even his lines of enquiry during his first 100 days.
• The nine month old council administration has revealed its corporate plan and its intended way of working which is business like and results driven.
• Transport and climate change do feature very heavily.

Three themes were considered. Apologies for the slide renditions – just photos from a seat in the audience and this is bunch of my recollections – not a formal record of proceedings.

Climate Emergency

Apparently 60% of emissions in Bath (or was it B&NES?) are due to heating (and cooling) buildings and this nearly all involves fossil fuels. In contrast transport represents half of this figure. I asked that transport was not forgotten. It’s currently not featuring on any of the slides.

It’s all about demand reduction. The difficulties of insulating buildings of listed status is recognised and there may need to be some relaxation of the rules. Apparently Bath Preservation Trust have already published guidance on this.

The big new hope is often called ‘behavioural change’ but that’s an outcome – it does not explain how we will all be impelled to make inconvenient choices. An example was quoted of the possible perversities. Get your home insulated and rather than saving fuel, a ‘smug and snug’ factor kicks in. The luxuriant higher ambient temperatures are enjoyed and no energy is saved.

City Infrastructure

Apparently there are 8,000 vaults under the streets in Bath. We know this because data has been assembled from many sources over the years. These are mostly viewed as a liability. Using all this data a virtual reality video has been prepared of much of this underworld where you feel as though you are travelling underground through Bath – well there’s an idea! What else could be done with these forgotten spaces?

Mushroom allotments, waste repositories rather than the unsightly tote bins and rubbish piles in the commercial districts, somewhere for rainwater surges to be attenutuated.

Cool-laboration (sic) and the ‘Democratic Deficit’

There’s 5,000 pieces of research done each year at the University. Maybe a proportion of these could be dedicated to Bath’s problems which may well then have applicability elsewhere.

It’s an inconvenient truth and universally dawning reality that resources have to be coordinated and focused on a global challenge and Bath could be an epicentre for this. As a historic city with geographical constraints making solutions far from easy.

The universities have so many exceptional resources at their finger tips – whether that is:

• futuristic engineering ideas
• high powered data analytics
• building digital platforms for public consultation and collaboration
• persuasive communications expertise.

It was emphasised that this was just a start but an encouraging one nonetheless. It will also have to convince the sceptics and realists with some tangible plans and deliverables soon. In a long distance run, there is often a preliminary sprint to jockey for a good position. The starting gun has been fired, loud and clear – there’s no time to waste.