The People’s Transition in Phibsborough, County Dublin
Beginning in March 2021, the intention of the project was to listen to, and learn from, the community’s needs and abilities in Phibsborough and then attempt to design a number of solutions that would benefit the community.
The project had three phases, the mapping phase, the listening phase, and the solutions phase.
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The mapping phase aimed to build a picture of the Phibsborough community. The key was understanding how people within the community could be included by assessing who was at greatest risk of being excluded.
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The community spoke about the need for a higher standard of and more affordable housing in Phibsborough. Safer and more reliable employment opportunities, coupled with issues around traffic, pollution, and transport were also important needs for many in the community.
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The solutions have been designed with expert input and are grounded in the needs and priorities identified by the respondents from the Phibsborough community.
The solutions developed are a retrofitting cooperative and a bicycle courier cooperative. Both of these solutions provide opportunities for employment, while the retrofitting cooperative additionally looks at the need for better housing standards, and the bicycle courier cooperative offers a means of addressing some of the issues raised around traffic and transport in the area.
Proposed Climate Solutions:
Solution 1: Retrofitting Cooperative
Solution 2: Bicycle Delivery Cooperative
You can see the full process in the map below
TUD People's Transition Phibsboro November 2021 President's speech
Bringing climate solutions to life in Phibsborough
The Bohemian Climate Cooperative
The Bohemian Climate Cooperative builds upon the Phibsborough People’s Transition pilot and seeks to accelerate local climate action and build community wealth through a community-led development approach. Named “The Spark”, this “learning by doing” project, led by Bohemian F.C. in partnership with the Technological University of Dublin, Connecting Cabra, Cosybatter, Football Association Ireland, Grangegorman Development Agency, Mountjoy Prison, Neighbourhood Network, Phibsborough Village Climate Club, Rothar, and StoneyBatter Pride of place is an exciting example of community-led local development for climate justice.
The Spark is one of 18 initiatives awarded Pobal funding under Strand 2 of the Community Climate Action Programme. By building capacity locally, the Spark project will develop training programmes in solar installation and retrofitting amongst other collective climate action initiatives. The cooperative has also recently launched a Community Supported Agriculture scheme, taking an important step towards an equitable food system."
