Our Story

Kendal Town Council declared a Climate Emergency and its first action was to convene a Citizens Jury to answer the question ‘What should Kendal do about Climate Change?’. As a council, we recognised that we would need all the help we could get to be able to provide a suitable response to this global challenge and recognise that we all have a part to play.

Now more than ever we need a plan for how Kendal can act, but it needs to be a plan guided by the people. To do this we organised a Citizen’s Jury. This has been done all across the world to help find answers to difficult problems. Fellow authorities such as Lancaster City Council as well as Leeds, Camden, Brent and Oxford have also followed a similar path.

An oversight panel was established to ensure the process was fair and unbiased and a clear terms of reference was established between the organisations. Those organisations set commitment to consider and action the jury’s recommendations. We do everything we can to help facilitate the Jury’s recommendations and have been establishing partnerships with the organisations on the panel to help assist with work in between panel meetings.

The Challenge

Organising the Jury was a community effort, which took a lot of communication and collaboration to pull it together. Funding was a huge challenge; as you may be aware resources are rather limited for town councils, therefore we had to seek external funding from multiple sources.

After a year of fundraising, grants were secured from Kendal Town Council, South Lakeland District Council, and Cumbria County Council. A round of crowdfunding was also used to help see the project and also develop a short film highlighting the Citizen’s Jury.

Shared Futures provided guidance to the oversight panel in structuring the sessions and how commentators should contribute to the panel. They were a huge help in delivering the structuring the Jury, and given their extensive experience in Citizens Juries and Climate Assemblies, provided invaluable advice and expertise along the way.

Another huge help for us, was the local community! There was a huge amount of knowledge and enthusiasm that we were able to harness, and as a result we formed four volunteer groups that assisted with communications, creative, evaluation, and IT.

Our Solution

The Jury was recruited via invitees to randomly selected addresses within the area. Individuals from age 15 upwards were invited to join the jury. 20 people were selected who reflect the diversity of the wider population (in terms of age, gender, race, attitudes to climate change.)

Jury members attended a set amount of sessions to share ideas and opinions and to hear from a range of experts who they were able to question. A set of 27 recommendations was developed by the jury and presented to the organisers for response and action.

Twice a year Kendal Town Council will reconvene jury members and committed organisations via a recommendations panel to report progress against each recommendation, provide an opportunity for partnership working and explore funding opportunities. The council will then action the recommendations they can and support other to do the same via partnership work in between panel meetings.

As a result, the 20 members in the Jury have made 27 recommendations with details on how they can be achieved. The council are in the process of hosting a Recommendations Panel to oversee the development and delivery of those recommendations in partnerships with the organisations best place to action them.

Want to find out more?

To find out more about how the Kendal Citizens Jury is fighting climate change, follow the link below:

https://www.kendalclimatejury.org/