📫Letter 22 — To Polly Cook

Keeping momentum when attention drifts

Date: 4 November 2025
Recipient: Polly Cook, Chief Officer for Climate, Energy & Green Spaces — Leeds City Council

Context

Week 4 of One Letter a Day turns to the people responsible for delivering climate commitments at city level.

Polly Cook leads the Leeds City Council’s work on energy, air quality and green space, the practical side of climate action where plans become systems: heating networks, building retrofits, public-sector decarbonisation and clean-air measures.

As national attention drifts toward short-term economic and political concerns, this letter asks what progress has truly been made on the ground, what slows it, and what kinds of civic partnership might help accelerate it.

Letter

Dear Polly,

Thank you for leading Leeds’s practical response to the climate emergency. The work your teams deliver on decarbonising buildings, expanding the district-heating network and improving air quality gives the city’s climate commitments real substance. It is demanding, often unseen work; but it is where promises become results.

I am writing as part of One Letter a Day: a year-long public correspondence that seeks to restore climate action to the centre of civic life. Each day I write to someone whose role or influence shapes how effectively we move from concern to delivery. I am contributing to rebuilding visible, respectful dialogue between citizens and decision-makers at a time when the climate crisis risks slipping out of collective sight.

Over the past two years, the national conversation has changed sharply. The climate emergency has largely disappeared from public debate, pushed aside by short-term economic worries, daily political dramas and a rise in populist arguments that treat the long-term transition as a luxury rather than a necessity. Government and media alike now speak mostly of green growth and energy pragmatism, steering us away from the deeper reckoning with limits — the systemic change scientists describe.

Yet Leeds has continued to act: building new infrastructure, improving air quality and protecting green space even as attention, resources and certainty have thinned.

May I ask: how much real progress do you feel Leeds has made over the past two years despite the shifting national mood, and what would need to change to make that progress faster and more resilient?

Where are the real bottlenecks: funding, policy continuity, institutional capacity, or civic engagement? And, just as importantly, what kind of help or participation from civil society would make the greatest difference — from neighbourhood groups, universities, or local businesses maybe?

I ask because your insight could help clarify what remains possible at city level, and how visible progress in Leeds can renew confidence that the global transition depends on countless local ones. Each place that succeeds strengthens belief that the larger goals are still attainable.

With appreciation,
Vivien Badaut
Founder, One Letter a Day

📨 Reply from Polly Cook

Good afternoon

First of all, can I thank you for your letter. It is great to hear from people who are so committed to the climate agenda.

Every year we report on progress and the next report will come out in December so I would encourage you to look out for that as that will provide details on new schemes and progress. I personally feel really encouraged by the refresh of the council’s ambitions as they have pushed climate adaptation and nature to the forefront alongside mitigation. I am also really pleased that an external party has been asked to act as the convener (Director of Leeds Climate Commission) as that helps to shift the focus onto a whole city approach with more collective ownership. If you don’t already follow the Leeds and Yorkshire Climate Commissions on social media, I would encourage you to do that to see what opportunities there are to hear more and be involved.

We are currently refreshing our #LeedsByExample website with the help of two students from Leeds University and I feel inspired by their energy and passion. Again, look out for its relaunch next year and help us to promote it as it will contain details on what is happening but also on what individuals can do to support.

From my perspective there have been really positive areas of government policy and funding – for example, district heating policy has been very well thought through and alongside side grant support, we have been able to really grow the city’s infrastructure. We have started to receive grants over more than one year, which is helping us to plan more effectively for housing retrofit.

The council declared a climate emergency because the public, especially the youth strikers were fighting for greater action but the voices opposing climate action now seem to be gaining momentum. My ask would be that people actively engage in the climate agenda – join their local climate action group, repair café, support their local school and then shout about what they are doing and why. Come and present at the Climate Emergency Advisory Committee and talk about what you are doing and the responses that you are getting – inspire others to get involved!

In the current climate where there is so much mis and disinformation, it is really important that other voices speak up and challenge some of the anti climate propaganda with their own positive case studies. Had a successful domestic heat pump installation? Enjoying driving your electric vehicle or cycling?  Tell your neighbours and friends - help to provide a contrasting narrative!

I hope that you have a nice weekend and thank you for reaching out.

Polly

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Comment below or share your reflections with #OneLetterADay.

Tomorrow’s letter continues Week 4’s focus on climate delivery and governance, turning to Councillor Katie Dye, Chair of the Climate Emergency Advisory Committee, exploring how democratic scrutiny can help keep momentum when attention drifts.