Petition Started To Save Brighton & Hove Environmental Education Project

A head teacher has started a petition to save an environmental education project from cuts.

Brighton and Hove City Council is scrapping the £41,000 Our City Our World project as part of £30 million in cuts and savings agreed at the budget meeting last Thursday (February 22).

The £41,000 covers the cost of a part-time environmental education officer who designs and delivers climate change, sustainability and environmental education programme, teacher training and advice and updates on a dedicated website.

A report to councillors before the budget meeting said that the saving was proposed in January, leaving no time for consultation with schools.

St Nicolas Church of England (CofE) Primary School head teacher Andy Richbell started the petition on the council website earlier this month as soon as the proposals were announced. It took a week before the petition went live.

Mr Richbell said that working with a specialist environmental education officer had brought the process further forward than schools would manage on their own.

He wanted the council to stop and rethink because the money was a relatively small amount when compared with an advertising campaign.

Mr Richbell said:

“What this project does is gets not just to the children, who are passionate about this, as we saw with the youth climate protests, but it gets to their families as well.

“It seems to me that it must be a cost-effective way of getting the message out. We know this is an important area to be working on.

“We’ve been nudged to move further and faster than we would have done if it had been left to me or my staff to lead on it because we have so much to do.”

The Our City Our World petition on the council’s website, which closes tomorrow (Wednesday, February 28), asked for the council to maintain the current funding for the project.

The petition said:

“Large-scale surveys in the city show that 90 per cent of young people, 97 per cent of parent and carers and 98 per cent of teachers in Brighton and Hove think it’s very important or vitally important to learn about climate change in school.

“The majority of young people are worried or very worried about climate change and less than half of young people are excited by the future.

“Our City Our World (managed through the council’s environmental education provision) addresses the above by working to ensure that climate change and sustainability is integrated into all curriculum areas, all children have regular access to nature, all schools take action to lower their emissions and empower young people to be changemakers and have hope for the future.”

At the budget meeting, Labour councillor Mitchie Alexander (pictured) gave schools hope that the project would continue with external support.

Councillor Alexander said that Our City Our World was a “non-statutory project” which was why it faced the brunt of the sweeping cuts to the council’s budget.

She said that she had been seeking external support to keep the project going because the specialist officer provided expertise.

Councillor Alexander said:

“We have been looking at who and which organisations locally would like to take on this programme in partnership with the council.

“I have had a rather positive meeting on how we can ensure Our City Our World can continue with longevity and sustainability.”