Six years in the making, Nottingham’s first citywide Citizens’ Assembly is almost here - you could be one of the people paid to take part and shape the city’s environmental future.
It’s been a mammoth six year push, and an entirely volunteer-fuelled grassroots effort by Nottingham Climate Assembly (NCA) but we are (finally!) about to arrive at Nottingham’s first ever citywide Citizens’ Assembly, and you can be a part of it.
To lay my cards on the table, I've not been a passive observer in this story - I've been along to more meetings than I can count, but I haven't worked as hard on it as plenty of the other local people involved. We are a meadow of many flowers, of all ages and walks of life; next it could be your turn to bloom.
Since the pandemic (already feels a bit taboo to talk about, doesn’t it?) those of us lucky enough not to be considered ‘essential workers’, at least, briefly saw a window of possibility for change. We can stop what we’re doing, and do things totally differently.
When Broadmarsh Shopping Centre operators Intu suddenly went into administration in June 2020, it set off a chain of events which, over the next few months and years, embodied that possibility in a whole new city centre park - the Green Heart. Ewan Cameron’s pioneering petition quickly gained 12,000 signatures for making the area a greenspace; Nottingham Climate Assembly held the first public meeting on what to do with the former shopping centre as part of Green Hustle’s September online festival (that’s me hosting); and in December various visions including Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust’s for a wholesale rewilding of the space were put forward.
By the spring the City Council had embraced the community energy and launched their own Big Conversation on Broadmarsh - the city’s largest consultation to date, with around 14,000 citizen comments taken into consideration
By the spring the City Council had embraced the community energy and launched their own Big Conversation on Broadmarsh - the city’s largest consultation to date, with around 14,000 citizen comments taken into consideration. Broadmarsh Shopping Centre began to be dismantled, and by September 2024, the Green Heart was open.
If this is the most heartening story of greenspace creation in the city centre in the past century or so, then it must be a start, not an end to a new era of community-led, nature-centric regeneration. Here’s where you come in… NCA is now looking for local residents to take part in a Citizens’ Assembly about the future of Nottingham’s environment.
To be eligible you need to be over 16 and a city resident. From those who put themselves forward, sixty people from across the city will be selected to take part to reflect city demographics and areas as closely as possible. Participants will hear from speakers, take part in activities, and talk through the issues in small groups, around the question: “What would we like the environment of Nottingham to be in the future, and how can we move towards it?”
If you are selected and attend both assembly days there’s a £150 reward, plus free public transport and refreshments, as well as childcare, accessibility and language assistance.
No background in climate change, planning or environmental issues is required to take part and everything will be explained in plain language on the day, with trained, local facilitators making sure everyone gets a chance to have their say.
Participants will also get to visit City as Lab, an interactive 3D model of Nottingham, and take part in activities. All this is designed to help the group get properly informed and think through what they want for the city’s future.
Events run across three days in May 2026: a public exhibition on Saturday 9 May at Nottingham Contemporary, then two Assembly days on Sunday 10 May at Castle Meadow Campus and Nottingham Contemporary and Saturday 16 May at the Council House.
“People”, a wise colleague once astutely told me, “just need a damn good listening to”, and these are magic spaces for restoring a sense of confidence and human connection. Whilst you might actually enjoy the sensation of being heard, you’ll also be taking part in a conversation that matters - organisers hope it will amount to genuine policy changes. What the assembly decides will go into a manifesto and be put to Nottingham Green Partnership, a network of local institutions and businesses who are backing the event, as well as Nottingham City Council, local MPs and the East Midlands Mayor. If those demands aren’t met, well, we just keep organising and campaigning until they are.
“Hold on, what’s an assembly?” I faintly hear you cry… “Isn’t that a school thing where we sat and fidgeted as we were talked down to?” - not what we’re on about here. Citizens’ Assemblies are democratic tool dating back in some form at least as far as ancient Athens, where members of an affected population are gathered to make big decisions. In many indigenous cultures something close to this has persisted as the default form of democracy for millennia.
Through a process called sortition - a sort of democratic lottery - the assembly should be broadly representative of the relevant subject population. It’s about everyone meeting on the same level, getting their turn to speak, everyone getting heard and working deliberatively - thoughtfully, carefully, working towards consensus with expertise ‘on tap, not on top’ of proceedings. That does mean NCA need as many people as possible to put themselves forward so the final selection can be as reflective of the wider local population as possible.
Today we have representative democracy, where elected representatives - MPs and Councillors in most cases - are voted for once every five years or thereabouts. This representative democratic system sometimes has a weakness - where issues are so large and complex, or divisive amongst voting populations politicians aren’t able to find a position that will get them enough votes to win. Sometimes decisions must go to the people. The Irish abortion referendum showed how things could be different, guided by their own national Citizens’ Assembly. It’s my belief that 60 completely different, random people without ideological inhibition or electoral impetus - and access to good information, will almost certainly solve a problem better than any traditional political group or party.
NCA can’t claim to be the first Citizens’ Assembly in the city - we’re lucky to have New Art Exchange, who have pioneered citizen leadership in the cultural space by being the first gallery in the world to have a Citizens’ Assembly as part of its leadership structure. But it is the first one open to all city residents.
If you want to read more about the long road to get to this point in LeftLion, you might begin with Emily Giddings’ coverage of the planning and delivery of Nottingham Youth Climate Assembly. There was NCA’s first mini assembly at Nottingham Green Festival - which gave impetus to many more mini assemblies, held with the likes of the local NHS trust, Nottingham College, and local businesses. In November 2024 we covered the launch of the push towards this upcoming full Citizens’ Assembly and in the short month of 2026 so far NCA gets mentions from Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and our own Assistant Editor’s summary of Notts’ green scene.
This is a big story - not just about how we respond to climate and nature crises locally, but about how we do democracy in Nottingham. NCA represents a landmark moment, and an opportunity to shape not just the decisions we make today, but how secure and prosperous Nottingham lives are in the distant future.
Why not step up and be a part of it?
Anyone living in Nottingham City who is 16 or over can apply to be a part of Nottingham Climate Assembly. To register your interest, fill out the form here, or visit www.nottinghamclimateassembly.co.uk for more information.
If you have questions or are having difficulty with signing up, get in touch at admin@thenottinghamclimateassembly.com
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