Exeter City Futures has been engaging with as many citizens as possible to understand what they want for the future of Exeter. This has been done through a range of different engagement activities, including our ‘Have Your Say’ survey, white discs and face-to-face canvassing. A big thank you to all participants in this survey. Your responses have been vital in helping us to understand the needs of the city and its citizens.
In February, we opened a poetry competition calling for creative, inspiring and descriptive verse themed: Do you have a vision of Exeter’s future? In July Exeter City Futures hosted a ‘Visions of The Future’ day where citizens had the opportunity to take part in art activities to create their visions and share, discuss and hold conversations about what the future holds for Exeter with our Exeter City Futures team.
As part of our new innovation challenge definition process we are still engaging with the whole of Exeter’s community by opening up exetercityfutures.community, the purpose of which is to highlight problems and gather insights into the barriers Exeter faces in becoming energy independent and congestion-free.
Have Your Say – What you said
According to initial feedback, gathered from a series of public engagement activities following our launch, congestion was seen as the biggest problem that the city is facing. Almost 50% of respondents said that in the future Exeter needs to significantly improve its traffic problems. Other areas of concern were pollution, buildings and a lack of cultural variety.
Our survey also told us that the majority of people who live in Exeter tend to stay in Exeter, and that they love their city. There are many things to love about Exeter, geographic location being the main one, and it’s the city’s location that makes it perfect for harnessing the area’s renewable energy resources.
Achieving energy independence is essential to protecting Exeter in the near future, and making it greener and more prosperous. Every year the Exeter region uses enough energy to power 3.7bn smartphones. Only 1.5% comes from clean renewable sources.
What is exetercityfutures.community?
Exetercityfutures.community is the next step in an ongoing conversation with Exeter’s citizens, and the first part of our new innovation process. It’s an online platform for sharing ideas and insights about how our problems and needs can be defined, and how we can make our region energy independent and congestion free by 2025.
Everyone who becomes part of the community has an opportunity to discuss three key areas: The Energy Independent Buildings Challenge, The Zero Congestion Challenge and Our Next Exeter City Futures Challenge. In all of these three key areas we are asking for posts, comments, and votes that will help to build up a better picture of what needs to happen in order to help the Exeter region achieve zero congestion and energy independence.
Are you an Exeter region resident, worker, entrepreneur, researcher, service provider, parent, student or community group who cares about the future of Exeter and the wider world? Have you already filled in a white disc or participated in one of our surveys? The next step is to join our community and add your voice to the discussion. Your input is valuable and could change the future of Exeter city and other cities around the world.