Lead Organisation
Sustainability West Midlands
Project Delivery team: Alan Carr (Climate Change Adaptation Lead), Morgan Roberts (Project Officer)
Overview
Using our experience of supporting local authorities with climate change adaptation, SWM was commissioned by Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) to produce a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the county, and a Technical Report that analyses how climate change may affect Lincolnshire in future. LCC commissioned us directly on the back of our previous experience.
Aims
- To analyse UK Climate Change Projections to gain a clearer picture of how Lincolnshire’s climate may change over the course of this century; we worked with our Associate Ailsa Gibson to do this.
- To develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan in response to this which details how we feel Lincolnshire’s people, businesses, infrastructure, natural environment and services need to respond to deal with climate change impacts.
- To engage with many stakeholders across the county to upskill them on climate change adaptation and extract their views on climate risk, impact and response
Outputs
Through extensive engagement and research, the following outputs have been delivered:
- A Technical Report outlining the future climate change projections for Lincolnshire.
- The main resource: a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Lincolnshire.
- A nine-page summary of the above plan.
Hyperlinks to the above outputs will be included when they are published.
By way of stakeholder engagement, we:
- Ran an in-person workshop with ~30 stakeholders to introduce the importance of climate adaptation and to hear how they have been impacted by severe weather and what they believe needs to be done to effectively adapt to climate change.
- Conducted ~20 one-to-one online meetings with various stakeholders both internal to the council and from other organisations to ask in-depth questions about climate adaptation, by way of a follow-up to the workshop.
- Ran an online survey alongside the above to capture the views of a wider range of stakeholders.
- Ran an online engagement session with community group representatives to find out how climate change and severe weather is affecting them on the ground.
- Conducted a survey for community groups to capture a greater range of responses and views.
- Ran an online workshop for actors key to ensuring climate resilience on the coast, to further our understanding of the complexities of issues taking place here.
- Presented at LCC’s Corporate Environment Board both during the after the completion of the adaptation plan, as well as at a meeting of the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape partnership.
“Working alongside SWM on this important initiative has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Climate Change poses many threats to Lincolnshire, and SWM managed no mean feat in helping us to identify and address the risks to the features of the region that define it, but are also most vulnerable, from the huge agricultural sector to the Fens and the Coast. There are pockets of adaptation work already happening in Lincolnshire, but SWM were able to successfully bring many groups together to discuss these issues, and their extensive stakeholder engagement has set the tone for a holistic, cross-sector approach to adaptation that should be best practice anywhere. This project has confirmed their reputation as a dependable and trustworthy partner.” – Dan Clayton, Sustainability Manager, Lincolnshire County Council
Download the full case study
For further information on the project or to work with us in one of a variety of ways, please see our consultancy page or contact the SWM team on enquiries@swm.org.uk.