📫Letter 27 — To Ed Whiting (with reply)

From democratic legitimacy to institutional culture

Date: 9 November 2025
Recipient: Ed Whiting OBE, Chief Executive — Leeds City Council

Context

Week 4 of One Letter a Day follows the thread from local delivery to regional governance.
After exploring civic participation with Councillor Jane Scullion, today’s letter turns to Ed Whiting, Chief Executive of Leeds City Council — the city’s administrative centre of gravity.
If elected leaders set direction, the Chief Executive must hold the organisation steady through scarcity, competing priorities and public scrutiny.

Leeds has declared a climate emergency and continues to invest in tangible projects - district heating, active travel, flood resilience - while facing severe financial constraint.
This letter asks how an institution under pressure can stay open to civic imagination, and how it can trust and resource the energy that already exists in its communities.

Letter

Dear Ed,

I am writing as part of One Letter a Day: a year-long civic correspondence about the climate emergency, beginning here in Leeds. Each letter explores how progress is made and how institutions, leaders and citizens can keep acting together even when attention drifts. The letters and replies are published online to sustain a visible, respectful dialogue about what real progress looks like.

I’ve often wondered how a city like Leeds - ambitious about its future yet working under constant financial pressure - manages to keep its direction on climate. The challenge seems not just to fund the right projects, but to keep belief that each decision, even the hard ones, still serves a shared long-term purpose. That question, more than any single policy, is what prompted this letter.

Leeds has often supported projects with clear credentials and familiar structures. That caution is understandable: when budgets are tight, risk feels like a luxury. Yet some of the city’s most creative, community-led ideas struggle to take root for that very reason. I wonder how an organisation can stay open to new forms of collaboration that may start unproven but can build the trust and energy no procurement model can buy.

May I ask: in a city that has declared a climate emergency yet must live with constraint, how do you nurture a culture that keeps climate purpose woven through every service - housing, health, regeneration - rather than treating it as a specialist task? How can work with communities, civil society and universities turn limited resources into shared capacity and confidence?

I ask because much of the transition now depends on what can’t be financed directly: the soft systems that turn ambition into action. Engagement, communication and trust are what make capital effective. In a country where most people care about climate change, many still struggle to find where they can contribute. I believe true progress will come when institutions don’t just consult citizens but back them - when local projects, however small, are trusted as part of the solution and given real support to grow. Value doesn’t only come from adding capital to existing structures; it also comes from believing in the energy that already exists and giving it room to prove itself.

With appreciation,
Vivien Badaut
Founder, One Letter a Day

📨 Reply from Ed Whiting

Dear Vivien,

Thank you for your email.

The campaign that you are running is a really good way to continue to show that there is support for climate action when often in the media the focus is on those who are trying to slow down the pace of progress.

I think that as a council we have made quite a fundamental shift this year in the way that we position our ambitions, rather than them being led by the council, external conveners are leading the city conversation with the council’s support. The Resilient: Sustainable City ambition will be led by Rosa Foster, the Director of the Leeds Climate Commission. I have inserted an extract below about the Resilient: Sustainable City Ambition:

Leeds will be the UK’s first net zero and nature positive city, rapidly reducing carbon emissions and restoring nature, supporting people and businesses to make increasingly sustainable choices that improve their standard of living and create a regenerative thriving city.

Three goals underpinning this Ambition:

• Improving the resilience of our people, communities, businesses and services to the changing climate, restoring our connection with nature and creating quality green space where people can be active.
• Rapidly reducing carbon emissions, creating warmer homes and lower energy bills which help people out of fuel poverty and support businesses to lower their costs.
• Connecting the city by improving our transport system to be more sustainable, accessible, safe and affordable, providing people with good alternatives to car use.

 Here is the link if you want to read more: Our Leeds Ambitions in full | Leeds Ambitions

As a city we have always been clear that climate progress can only be achieved through a multi sector approach. I hope that this move to greater city ownership of our ambitions will help to enable greater action by all. 

Best wishes

Ed

Dear Ed,

Thank you very much for your encouraging reply. I’ve now published it, with appreciation.

I found it especially heartening to see how Leeds is shifting from council-led to city-led climate ambition under the Resilient: Sustainable City framework. The three goals you outlined express precisely the kind of joined-up, human-centred transition that One Letter a Day tries to keep visible.

I wrote to Rosa Foster earlier this month as part of the same series and very much look forward to hearing her perspective on this next phase. The alignment between city leadership and external conveners is encouraging: it feels like Leeds is moving toward the civic ownership model many of these letters have been exploring.

This week, taking advantage of the renewed media focus around COP30, I am writing to Westminster, starting with Alex Sobel, Rachel Reeves and Katie White, all from Leeds and all with strong influence on how the national conversation on climate is framed. I hope their responses will build on what you describe: a sense that real progress comes from shared purpose across every level of government.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to stay in touch and perhaps follow up later in the year when the city’s new structures have taken shape - particularly to understand how civic groups and residents might engage with the Resilient: Sustainable City ambition in practice.

With appreciation and best wishes,
Vivien

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Comment below or share your reflections with #OneLetterADay.

Tomorrow’s letter closes Week 4 with Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire — asking how regional vision and storytelling can renew civic hope, align politics with delivery, and keep the climate transition visible as both a shared duty and a shared achievement.