Letter 7 — To Councillor Lou Cunningham

Community voices and the climate conversation

Date: 19 October 2025
Recipient: Cllr Lou Cunningham, Green Party — Armley Ward, Leeds City Council

Context

The final letter of Week 1 of One Letter a Day turns toward grassroots and community leadership.
Councillor Lou Cunningham, representing Armley for the Green Party, has long worked at the intersection of community life and environmental justice. Her dual perspective, both as an elected official on the Scrutiny Board for Environment, Housing and Communities and as an active volunteer in local groups, offers insight into how policy and activism can reinforce each other.

Letter

Dear Councillor Cunningham,

I’m writing as a Leeds resident as part of my One Letter a Day project: a public experiment to rekindle dialogue between civic figures and communities around climate action. Each letter is addressed to someone whose role can help sustain that conversation, and is published online along with any replies to encourage wider civic engagement. Yours is the seventh and closing letter of this first week.

Your service as a Green Party councillor for Armley, your active engagement with local voluntary groups, and your seat on the Scrutiny Board for Environment, Housing and Communities position you uniquely at the interface between policy, environment and grassroots life. I am impressed by how you bridge community concerns and environmental justice in your ward, connecting residents’ everyday priorities with wider sustainability goals.

We are entering a pivotal decade. Scientists warn that the global carbon budget for 1.5 °C is almost spent, and that decisions taken in the next three years will largely determine the climate our children inherit. If current trends continue, London could experience summers resembling Barcelona’s in the 1990s; a striking reminder of how close to home global heating is coming.

Yet even as the evidence mounts, public discourse has drifted toward populism and division, with climate action often drowned out by culture wars and short-term politics. This is not just a moral test but a geopolitical one: either we act with substance now, or we face the compounded costs of inaction in the years ahead.

So, my question is this:

Given the current political climate, how can councillors and communities work together to move public conversation away from populism and division, and back towards shared responsibility for the environment?

Alongside this, I’m active with Zero Carbon Headingley and the West Yorkshire Climate Commission, and I hope this project helps draw more people into conversation and hope. Your insight would be invaluable, especially as next week I begin writing to academics and civic leaders to broaden the dialogue.

With gratitude for your commitment to Armley and the city,
– Vivien
Headingley / Hyde Park resident
Founder, One Letter a Day

📨 Reply from Cllr Lou Cunningham

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Next week, One Letter a Day begins a new phase of dialogue with academics of the University of Leeds, exploring how science, governance and community can reconnect around climate leadership.