Letter 25 — To Noel Collings, West Yorkshire Combined Authority

From visible evidence to measurable systems

Date: 6 November 2025

Recipient: Noel Collings, Head of Net Zero & Energy — West Yorkshire Combined Authority

Context

Week 4 of One Letter a Day continues its focus on the institutions shaping delivery of the region’s climate ambitions.

Following yesterday’s letter to Professor Rosa Foster, which explored how regional progress can be made visible and measurable, today’s letter turns to Noel Collings, who leads the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Net Zero & Energy team.

If the Climate Commission sets direction, WYCA builds the machinery: heat networks, hydrogen, retrofit and local-energy systems.

This letter asks how those delivery efforts are being tracked, shared and connected to public confidence.

Letter

Dear Noel,

I wanted to write to you because your team’s work – designing, financing and coordinating the systems that will actually deliver net zero – is where ambition meets practical reality. From retrofit and heat networks to hydrogen and local energy, this is the space where progress becomes measurable and where public confidence will ultimately rest.

Much of this work happens quietly, out of sight, even though it shapes how we all experience the transition. That gap between delivery and visibility is what prompted this letter.

I am writing as part of One Letter a Day: a year-long civic experiment to reopen grounded conversations about the climate emergency, starting here in Leeds. Each day I write to someone whose work shapes how we think and act on this crisis. The letters and replies are published online to sustain a visible, respectful dialogue between citizens and decision-makers about what progress really looks like.

Yesterday I wrote to Professor Rosa Foster about making regional progress visible. If the Climate Commission sets direction, the Combined Authority provides the machinery of delivery. I wanted to ask how, within that machinery, progress is being understood, tracked and shared.

Are there systems or frameworks that can help see whether the region’s major programmes — retrofit, heat networks, hydrogen, local energy — are adding up to the scale of change we need?
How is meaningful progress defined and communicated beyond the technical sphere?
And how might communities or local enterprises help measure or communicate those results, making accountability a shared effort?

When people can see how the transition is unfolding, what’s changing and why, hope becomes evidence-based. Clear evidence doesn’t just prove progress; it fuels participation and reminds us that this transition belongs to all of us, and that collective effort is already underway.

With appreciation,
Vivien Badaut
Founder, One Letter a Day

📨 Reply from Noel Collings

No reply has yet been received.

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Tomorrow’s letter continues Week 4’s exploration of regional delivery, turning to Councillor Jane Scullion, Chair of WYCA’s Climate, Energy & Environment Committee, asking how political leadership can turn technical delivery into civic participation, and how visible progress can strengthen democratic legitimacy across West Yorkshire.