Imagining 2050 Ballincollig
Community-led visions for low carbon and climate resilient futures
Ballincollig is a fast growing residential satellite town in the west part of Cork City. It is located beside the River Lee and close to the Iniscarra Dam
Steps and Tools Involved
- 1 Online Community Survey (156 participants)
- 2 Weekend Long Workshops (22 participants) carried between November 2019 - February 2020
- Participants included local residents, representatives of local community organisations and citizens with an interest in the region.
- Process involved deliberative communication and decision-making
- Use of several interactive visualisation tools such as visioning and sense making, empathy mapping and community mapping
- Final recommendations through a Ballot process
Toward a collective vision of change
'Seizing the opportunity'
Participants in Ballincollig were keen on identifying key areas of action and maximizing current assets toward local low carbon pathways and climate resilience.
This vision of change is orientated toward finding opportunities and making the prospect of low carbon transitions beneficial for Ballincollig
This includes increasing green areas, improving local energy efficiencies and promoting local food and grassroots eco-innovations.
Top three areas of action for the future in Ballincollig
Results based on online community survey with 156 participants carried between Nov 2019 and February 2020
Making sense of climate change
Associations between climate change and extreme events are strong which include local concerns over increased flood vulnerability, drought and water quality.
Workshop participants express a concern for the social and environmental impacts of climate change but also voice the need and desire to seek solutions and understand future opportunities for change.
Energy planning, education, reconstruction and transformation are dominant themes in attempting to make sense of climate change and implications for Ballincollig. A strong emphasis on democracy suggest an interest in collective action and societal engagement.
A community map toward sustainability in Ballincollig
Three areas of change include diversification of transport and mobility, improvement and maintenance of green and wild areas and housing.
Change is a seen as a hallmark of Ballincollig town since the 1950's and 1960's. The town has substantially grown, from a sparcely populated area to a vibrant and residential urban community with a population of over 18.000 inhabitants. Located beside the River Lee, it has a large regional park which is identified as a major asset by the local community. Greater access and use of the park for learning and engaging with nature is voiced as important toward promoting sustainability in the community. Many participants see value in extending green areas across the city to multiply benefits of green spaces beyond the regional park site. It was noted that further change in the community should be pursued with a balanced approach by providing both social, residential and enviromental infrastructures across different areas. Traffic continues to be a problem and emphasis on future diversification of mobility choices for local residents is seen as crucial for sustainability and wellbeing. Long term solutions with a view to 2050 include:
- Establishment of community councils;
- Substantial increase of allotments and green areas;
- Transition to organic farming practices;
- Improvements in local community care infrastructure;
- Local migrogeneration and renewable energy;
- Solar energy on all public buildings (schools, resources centres etc..)
Looking beyond ourselves
'Empathy mapping' was used to identify how different citizens would be affected by climate change. The empathy map aimed to identify climate impacts specific to each citizen. This included their hopes, fears, priorities, interests and behaviours
Imagining the citizen of the future
Hilights from workshop on diverse experiences and potential challenges faced by different people
The Younger Person
Some of the distinguishing challenges for the younger citizen in the future include exarcebated stress and poor health, time poverty and increased exposure to urban pollution. These issues were all seen to be exarcebated by the impacts of climate change and were identified as concerns in terms of access to community and nature, and healthy food.
The disabled person
The disabled citizen was portrayed as facing a number of challenges including increased difficulties in emergency situations, having housing and transportation options limited and diminished ability for securing/maintaining independence through adequate care service provision. Participants named this citizen Hope and voiced ambitions to establish closer ties between sustainability and critical care for people with disabilities.
Families
The family was identified as an important unit in the community that faces considerable challenges due to climate change now and into the future. Trends include higher fuel and cost of living, ageing demographics and changing transport infrastructure. Community services, adequate housing and local schools are identified as importants assests to help families toward sustainability and climate resilience.
Five Key Recommendations
- Public Transport and Research & Innovation should be key priorities toward decarbonisation of the energy system and to build resilience. 50% of participants propose continued improvements of the bus service as the most impacful strategy in the short-term;
- 64% of participants align with an increased overall renewable energy supply from current 10% to 70% by 2030 in accordance with current energy targets (inclu. electricty, transport, heat). However 54% of these participants think that 50% by 2030 would be more realistic for a number of economic and political reasons;
- Priority areas to target in terms of increased regulation by the government include Agriculture, Public Transport and Private Cars (in order of preference);
- Community ownership is identified as the preferred option to minimise local impact of renewable energy generation;
- Future funding of flood alleviation, recovery and prevention should come from innovative shared cost arrangements.
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