Community Conversations: How Warrington Youth shaped a vision for a Greener Future

Executive Summary

To address the limited involvement of young people in its response to the climate emergency, Warrington Council launched a youth-led Community Conversation in 2024.

17 young people were trained as ‘conversation starters’ to lead climate conversations across their communities, gathering input from over 70 peers, friends and family. Through four in-person sessions, the ‘conversation starters’ developed a bold, community-rooted vision for Warrington in 2024 and a set of recommendations for how to get there. The process has led to renewed commitment from senior decision makers in the council, with plans to embed the youth-led vision into council strategies and to continue with youth participation.

Objectives

The aims of the project were to:

• Engage young people in Warrington’s response to the climate emergency
• Create a youth-led vision for Warrington in 2040
• Identify actions needed to realise this vision
• Lay the groundwork for future youth involvement in decision making

Approach and Methodology

Engagement Methods

The project centred around four in-person sessions where young people learned about climate change, local impacts and the co-benefits of taking climate action. Between sessions, they acted as ‘conversation starters’, engaging their communities in over 70 informal discussions. The young people used insights from both the sessions and the wider conversations to develop a collective vision and set of actions for a climate-positive future for Warrington in 2040. 

Inclusive Practice

Participants were compensated with a £405 gift of thanks for participating in all sessions, and were reimbursed for travel and other expenses. This ensured no one was excluded due to financial barriers. Recruitment prioritised geographical diversity, ensuring outlying wards were included, and enabling some participants to join in pairs helped build the confidence of young people to participant who otherwise might have self-excluded.

Innovations

The engagement was designed around asset-based thinking – focusing on what people already know and value in their community. Participants co-developed a virtual reality representation of their future vision with a local artist, making the outcomes tangible and location-specific. This became a powerful tool for communicating with decision makers.

Key Outcomes

Community Reach

• 90 total contributors
• Of the 17 young people recruited, all were ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ concerned about climate change
• Young people with a disability or long-term health condition were underrepresented in the engagement
• No demographic data was collected from the community conversations 

Climate Impact

• Warrington Climate Emergency Commission (WCEC) committed to publish the youth-led vision on their website
• A formal response from WCEC will be shared and promoted to key actors and the wider community in Warrington
• The young people who participated will be invited to present their vision to Warrington’s Cabinet.
  • “one of the cabinet members who was at the event spoke very highly in that cabinet meeting about the launch event and about the youth vision. And it prompted the leader of the council to request if the young people would be willing to go along to the Cabinet to present their thoughts or present the vision in some way or their recommendations to the whole of Cabinet.”
• Plans are underway to establish a Youth Climate Forum and include youth representation in the WCEC
• The vision and recommendations are being integrated into key council strategies and plans

Social Impact

• The young people agreed they had more knowledge about local climate action having taken part in the process
• Many of the young people reported greater motivation to act on climate at home and in their community as a result of participating 

Internal Impact

• Aims to further prioritise citizen and youth engagement across the council, depending on resource

• Senior leaders, including Cabinet members, endorsed the process and are committed to engaging with the vision and recommendations

• Stronger cross-departmental working and connections

• “having done the project has kind of given us something to connect with people… all the time in this job are trying to make connections with people or link people up or link things up and trying to get a bit of buy in from people from all over.”

• Opened new pathways for collaboration inside and outside the council
• Aims to further prioritise citizen and youth engagement across the council, depending on resource

Challenges & Lessons Learned

Challenges

• Recruiting young people was difficult due to the need to build strong relationships with youth organisations, sessions taking place during exam season, and another youth engagement project running in parallel to the Community Conversations
• A large portion of time was spent on training the young people as conversation starters, which reduced time for detailed deliberations on the vision and recommendations
• Some of the session formats were tiring or less engaging to young people, especially speaker sessions and Q&As
• One venue lacked natural light which impacted participant energy 

In-Project Solutions

• We appointed a specialist recruiter to supplement outreach
• We redesigned activities between sessions to ensure variety and movement, keeping the energy high
• We changed rooms at the venue to ensure there was natural light

Lessons Learned

• Invest resource in local partners to support recruitment 
• Design youth sessions with more variety and creativity
• Visit venues in advance – place and space matter!
• The local artist was brilliant and brought the place-specific vision to life. Their work also acted as a key communication tool with decision makers
• Asset-based engagement works because it roots the discussion in place and community, rather than abstract net zero goals
• Clarity the purpose before choosing a method. Community Conversations work well for generating ideas but less well for finding common ground on contentious climate challenges (see our methods page for more on how to select the best method)

Communicating for impact

Due to limited communication capacity, outreach was minimal during the project. However, the vision, recommendations and artists work and will form part of Warrington Council and WCEC’s ongoing climate communications.

Additional Resources & References

You can read the final report on our website.

Contact Information

Climate Change & Sustainability Team
at Warrington Borough Council:
[email protected]
Warrington Climate Emergency Commission : [email protected]