Cornwall's NVDA Assembly to Local Government Representation

Cornwall local XR group were the first to really get success in using NVDA as a tactic, running alongside community assemblies to achieve support from the local authority, initially, then later representation on the District Council.

What follows is the background for everyone to delve into and follow the example of to empower your local community to be heard by local government decision makers and be invited to participate in the statutory decision making process.

How Escalation From Assembly to NVDA and Council Decision Making Inclusion Began

In this video, Myghal Rual talks about Cornwall's Community Assembly here

Prior to the Festival of Resistance in 2022, in his own words, Myghal wrote the following summary of how their escalation process from assembly to NVDA began:

"In September 2021 we held a large protest of community coalition groups including Greenpeace, Green Party and XR, outside of our Cornwall County Council building. We decided to go inside the building to hold a People's Assembly on a climate related theme.

We then established contact with the Leader of the Council and other leading Council officials, with the aim of creating constructive dialoge with them.

We now have regular meetings with these council officials and present the feedback from our regular People's Assemblies at County Hall to council officials.

Some councillors have also joined us at our Peoples Assemblies inside the building, in recognition of the spirit of deliberative democracy.

We have also have a working group who engage with the council's carbon neutral team.

In June 2022 we set up a Marquee on Council grounds for a two week occupation.During these two weeks we camped in the County Council grounds and offered an extensive programme of educational events made available to the public and councillors.Initially we were asked to leave. We held firm and eventually Cornwall Council accepted our decision to stay.

These two weeks were an outstanding success, the Leader of the Council even gave a speech as did the Director of Public Health Cornwall, in the marquee.Extensive publicity was generated, largely positive.

Cornwall Council have an aim of Cornwall as a whole reaching net zero by 2030.We aim to ensure that by action, accountability and transparency this target is met."