Twenty people from the Barrow-in-Furness borough came together to form the Furness Climate Change Citizens’ Jury in the winter of 2021-22. Their task was to consider the question: What should happen in the Furness area to address the emergency of climate change?
Making sure the public have a say in action to tackle climate change is part of the borough council’s Climate Change Policy. The council organised and part funded the citizens’ jury as one way to engage with its residents on the issue. The jury was also funded by the National Lottery through the Zero Carbon Cumbria programme, and was delivered by Shared Future.
The 20 members of the jury were chosen at random, making sure they reflected the diversity of the borough. From November 2021 to February 2022, they shared opinions, discussed ideas and heard from a range of experts before working together to agree a set of recommendations.
An oversight panel was set up to support the jury, with representatives from: Barrow Borough Council, Cumbria County Council, BAE Systems, Cando FM, Spirit Energy, Holker Group, Furness College, Extinction Rebellion Furness, Cumbria Action for Sustainability and Simon Fell, MP for Barrow & Furness.
Watch presentations to the people’s panel
The Furness Climate Change Citizens’ Jury heard from people with expertise on different aspects of climate change. You can watch some of the presentations on the council’s website.
Recommendations
The jury launched its recommendations in March 2022, with an event for local stakeholders, and another for the public. This gave people a chance to speak with the jurors about their reasons behind choosing certain recommendations and to discuss ways in which they could be met.
Want to read more about what the jury said? Download the full report.
