By Cllr Jason Brock
In early June, Reading Town Hall will become the temporary home of a world-famous piece of artwork.
If you hadn’t heard of Gaia before now – and I must admit I hadn’t until recently – then it’s worth looking up. It is, essentially, a seven-metre diameter installation of the planet earth. What makes Gaia so special, however, is that it’s created entirely from imagery captured by NASA, so it provides us with a chance to view our planet as it appears from space. A truly unique opportunity, unless you’re planning your own trip to outer space with Elon Musk at some point.
The installation is accompanied by a specially produced surround sound composition by BAFTA award-winning composer Dan Jones, and I’m told the experience is thought-provoking and hard to do justice to without experiencing it personally. Gaia has already visited Singapore, Australia, and a host of European cities, so Reading is in good company. We are privileged to be able to host the artwork right here in our hometown.
Gaia will be at Reading Town Hall for just over a week, from Saturday 10 June to Sunday 18 June. You will need a ticket to see it as demand is high, but at only £2 for adults, with under 14s free when accompanied by an adult, it sounds well worthwhile. You can reserve your place at whatsonreading.com/Gaia.
Naturally, I can’t think of a better place for Gaia to visit than Reading. As a town, we have already cut our carbon footprint by 55% since 2005 – that’s the fourth largest cut of all 374 local authority areas in the UK. The Council’s own carbon footprint – that is the carbon the Council is directly responsible for – has been reduced by an incredible 71.3% in just 13 years.
As a Council, we’ve also recently been shortlisted for a national Municipal Journal Award for Leadership in Responding to the Climate Emergency and are one of only 19 UK local authorities to retain the coveted Carbon Disclosure Project’s global ‘A’ list status. Both are recognition of the fact that Reading Labour have been taking bold climate action.
There are a whole host of actions behind our achievements in this area, some of which go back many years, but plenty of recent work too. The Council-owned bus company, Reading Buses, boasts the second highest bus ridership outside London, with huge investment to come to further improve services for passengers.
We’ve just invested over £2.5 million in clean technology at our two new leisure centres at Palmer Park and Rivermead, cutting emissions by 57% and 80% respectively. Almost half the Council’s refuse fleet are already electric, and the rest will be within five years, while our Council housing retrofit means our stock has a better EPC rating than the national average.
We know there remains an awful lot to do, but, as I’ve said here before, net zero by 2030 is definitely not something the Council can achieve on its own. Every resident, business and organisation needs to play their part and, importantly, central Government must play its role in providing the necessary funding for many more local carbon-cutting schemes.
Gaia forms part of the broader Reading Climate Festival, which runs from Saturday, June 10, to Wednesday, June 21.
You can see the range of online events and activities on offer across Reading at readingcan.org.uk/festival
