SNP Forum / Core Strategy 8th December November 9, 2009

Hello All,

The SNP Forum scheduled for 8th December is no more : (

Instead has been Councillor Richard Cowell, Executive Member for Environment, on behalf of Manchester City Council, invites you to attend the Core Strategy Seminar  : ) !!!

So what is the difference?  Unlike a normal SNP Forum there will be some issues covered such as the Airport and Transport and Economy which aren’t aren’t normally discussed.

With the Core Strategy nearing its final stages Planning Strategy are keen to get your views on the Proposed Options document which can be found on the documents page of this website.  For the first time in this process, the Proposed Options proposed policy ideas in line with submissions from the last round of consultation, Refining Options.

The Event will be run in two sessions, one afternoon and one evening – see booking form below for details.

You get to choice which session to go to and which workshops you’d like to attend out of the following:

Housing, District Centres, Environment, Airport, Transport, Economy and General.

If you would like to attend please fill out the attached form:

Pre-Registration Form

It will be assumed that attendees have already read the document or at the very least chapters relevant to the workshops selected to attend.  SNAG members will be issued with a briefing paper which will summarize the content and the emerging policy.

Core Strategy Consultation October 30, 2009

OK we’re almost there now

Welcome to the Proposed Options Stage the Core Strategy for Manchester.  Consultation opens on Monday the 9th of November until 4th January 2009.

I can tell you that Option B was the most popular option following the refined options stage earlier this year (7% of us preferred B), which should please most of you no end.

As ever I’ll be sending a briefing paper to SNAG members ASAP to give you the low down on how the Proposed Option is shaping up.  Certainly none of the headline Spatial Policies have change, but I am yet to see if there is any devil in the detail; I should think not.

So what’s in the option which will lead to the flourishing of Manchester into a green and pleasant, sustainable 21st century haven of well-being and knowledge based industrial excellence?   I’ve only had a quick flick through so these are but my first impressions:

The usual slugs in the pottage include the preference of economic growth over economic development, airport growth (although there are mentions of high speed rail links) over greenbelt protection and a focus on development of the city centre as opposed to effectual sites for employment in the burbs.

I am picking up heightened levels of climate change related activity compared with the previous incarnation of this strategy but the dedicated climate change info measures just 1 small paragraph here and another one there on my climate change policyometer.  The waste management enthusiasts amongst you may find this rather disappointing.

So what’s coming up roses?  If I take number of pages as a proxy to the level of good policy, housing and design are smelling the sweetest.  Economic growth is of course the compost feeding everything in our great Mancunian City.

Watch this space.

Best Wishes, Tim.

SNP Forum – Climate Change Action Plan September 21, 2009

Dear All,

Sustainable Neighbourhoods Partnership Forum

You are invited to the next Forum: which will focus upon:

Climate Change Action in Manchester’s Neighbourhoods.

It will be held on: Wednesday 30^th September, 6-8pm
In: Committee Room 1, Manchester Town Hall.

The Forum will include a presentation from Richard Sharland, Head of Environmental Strategy, Manchester City Council.

The short presentation will be followed by facilitated workshops in which you will be encouraged to contribute constructive suggestions for priorities and actions.

The Green City Team have prepared this outline report about the CCAP.

If you would like to attend the Forum please inform Su Goldthorpe on the below details.

Please also forward this information to others as appropriate.

Best wishes, Tim.

s.goldthorpe@manchester.gov.uk

Tel 0161 234 4125

Latest EAP July 24, 2009

Hello,

Well a very short meeting but one attended at least by the Leader Sir Richard.  It always makes me a little happier when the big guns turn up.

Right so what happened?  Er…  I have to say not very much sadly.  In a nut shell “The main thrust of the discussion centred around the divide between focus on mitigation at the expense of adaptation or we can and should do both because they are so interlinked it wouldn’t work any other way.” At the end of the meeting I couldn’t help that many were still on the fence or were slightly confused as to whether a decision had been made.

There were no matters arising from the previous minutes and they were passed as a true and accurate reflection of the previous session.

There was a very short talk through the minutes of the ESPB meeting held on 9th July to which the only comment from the panel was to question the dedication of ESPB officers sitting on the Board due to apologies given and/or deputies sent.  It is worth mentioning here that there a very many number of other meetings – meetings with contractors, developers, GONW, service providers which may very well take priority over business meetings because no attendance would slow delivery.  There are also great efforts going into informing officers of potential and significant initiatives such as the Deep Geothermal seminar which was held in a full Lord Mayor’s Parlour.

There followed a question as to the scrutiny of  environmental strategy with suggestions the OSC should be doing more perhaps to drive the agenda forward as should input from opposition councillors.  Sir Richard answered accordingly that OSCs don’t drive forward anything – they scrutinise; neither do opposition councillors, so perhaps engaging with both the executive and the party in power might be a more successful method of driving any agenda.

The last item on the agenda was “the role and remit of the 5 thematic groups” but this seemed to be abandoned in favour of discussing mitigation vs adaptation.  Arguments included but were not exhaustive of:

• the headline aim of the CCAP is to reduce emission by a minimum of 1m tonnes;
• focus on mitigation but where ever possible include adaptation issues if they do not detract from the emissions reductions;
• focus on mitigation but remember that some mitigation exercises will direct us away from a the end goal of low carbon lifestyles…

Although I failed to see any concrete adoption of any of the above – I sensed that the the second argument got the most votes in people’s minds.

Obviously from a Transition point of view, it is important to start from a vision – the end goal and working backwards plan each and every move so that all mitigation and adaptation can be planned to achieve the vision.  I think the problem here is that we have until mid September to sort something out.  Time is a luxury right now that we can’t afford.  So mitigation first, then with more time on our side, construct the adaptation plans (which as was pointed out are largely determined by what happens in Copenhagen anyway) post December.

Worth mentioning that adaptation here = climate change adaptation such as flood defense and not behavioural adaptation – which is a worry.  Other points to develop at a later date are international connections and interactions, using the core cities to progress national transition thinking and peak oil.  (I did plant the question of peak oik and where its related issues fits into the CCAP; the response was that CCAP Energy Group will cover this, to which I responded it’s not really an energy issue it’s re-skilling and behavioural change issue.  A debate perhaps for another time…?).

Thoughts on a postcard please… you know the address, Tim.

Climate Change – a Year from Now July 23, 2009

On Tuesday August 4th, the people of Greater Manchester have an opportunity to come together to share knowledge and ideas about Climate Change and what to do about it.

A meeting at the Friends Meeting House will “look back” from August 2010 at three vital events:
the Copenhagen Climate Conference of December 2009
UK national election, to be held no later than June 2010
Manchester City Council Action Plan, produced in the second half of 2009, and “rolled out” during 2010.

On each theme, experts will speak briefly of the likely outcomes at each of these levels and their consequences. There will be ample time for questions, comments and suggestions.

Confirmed speakers include:
Dina Baird, the city mobiliser for Manchester of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition
Cllr Richard Cowell, Manchester City Council Executive Member for the Environment
A speaker from the grass-roots “Call to Real Action” group
A Conservative Party representative (invited)

The meeting has three purposes – info-sharing, networking and brainstorming.

The meeting will take place at the Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, Central Manchester (behind the Central Library). Stalls will be open from 7pm, with the meeting starting at 7.30pm.  It will finish no later than 9:10pm.  MCF will produce a booklet for the event with information on each of
the three themes.

The evening is free to attend, but we will be shaking a bucket and hoping to get a gold coin or two out of everyone.

The meeting is co-hosted by Manchester Climate Forum (www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk) and Call to Real Action (www.calltorealaction.wordpress.com)

Manchester Becomes Ethical Shopper July 3, 2009

Manchester City Council has released its Sustainable Procurement Policy and takes another step towards transistion.  In brief the new document gives preference to goods, services and products that are better for the environment, for society and for the local economy.  Preferences are given to small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and community and voluntary sector (CVSs) businesses and those which are magority owned by groups protected by legislation such as disabled, women and older people.   For greater detail please read the SPP Statement of Intent.

New Documents July 1, 2009

Hello,

I’ve just added some more documents to the SNAG library.  Including the Rethinking Capital (forum for the future), Green New Deal (NEF-ish), Road to Copenhagen (DECC & Defra) plus Manchester City Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Report 08/09.

Happy reading.

Draft Climate Change Action Plan Structure June 22, 2009

Hello Everyone,

The Green City Team have produced  a draft version of the structure of the Climate Change Action Plan.  When finalised this structure will dictate how the Action Plan will be constructed, who will be involved and what themes will be concentrated on.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know by Thursday morning.  The agenda for this meeting is here.  Again comments by Thursday morning please.

Best Wishes, Tim.

Carbon Reduction Commitment June 12, 2009

Please see below conversation regarding CRC raised following SNAG notes from the last ESPB.

FAO Nick Skates,

Can you please tell me whether under the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, organisations who use above 6,000MWh of energy but procure this from 100% renewable suppliers such as Good Energy are still required to enter the scheme.

I would also like to draw your attention to http://www.cheatneutral.com/

Best Wishes, Tim

Dear Tim

Thanks for your email regarding electricity procured from “renewable suppliers”.  The short answer to your question is that switching to a green tariff won’t exempt any organisations from participation in CRC.

Electricity supplied to participants via the grid will be treated equally using the grid average conversion factor, irrespective of the tariff structure adopted by the customer, meaning that green tariff electricity sourced via the national grid will not be treated differently from standard tariffs.

This is because all licensed electricity suppliers are obliged under the Renewables Obligation to source a specific and annually increasing percentage of the electricity they supply from renewable sources anyway.

This approach is consistent with that taken under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Agreements.

I trust this information will be useful.

(PS: I enjoyed the satirical link, many thanks for that)

Regards

Stewart Riley
CRC Team
Environment Agency
National Customer Contact Centre

Dear Stuart,

Enormous thanks for responding so promptly.  I thought as much.

It is such a shame that Government refuses to support 100% renewable energy production in this way.  It is also shameful that Government allows energy suppliers to profiteer from their packaging of “green tariffs” (a treacherous term which should be abolished) as the supply of green energy.  It is a rather dangerous state of affairs when consumers are duped into believing that they’ve already made the switch to a lower carbon lifestyle; the reality is that they continue to fund and provide backing/consent to carbon intensive energy supply.  Madness.

If CRC took into account sustainable energy procurement (i.e. 100% renewable) high level energy consumers could begin funding a formidable renewable energy infrastructure programme – simply by continuing to buy energy – with astronomical knock-on effects for the green economy and effectual employment for our engineers and scientists, not to mention climate change mitigation.  This would be real carbon reduction commitment.  The UK is rather uniquely placed geographically speaking, a position which has allowed to thrive agriculturally, socially and economically for thousands of years.  I’m not sure why we fail to maximise this fortunate position now.

CRC as it stands seems scarily similar to short term economic gain at the expense of the environment – on a continental scale.  However, I note with pleasure the crchelp@environment-agency.gov.uk address which I shall dredge for further info.  Thank you for your help and time.

Best Wishes, Tim.

Watch this space….

ESPB and EAP Update June 11, 2009

Session 2 of the Environmental Advisory Panel met on 4th June to continue cross sectoral talks on the advancement of the Climate Change.  It was a really useful, frank and open discussion with a presentation by Marc Hudson on the Call to Real Action.  Discussion focused mainly on the direction in which the formulation of the Climate Change Action plan.  It was understood that marketing was key in it’s delivery and that working groups should be set up with specialist from across the CVS, the public sector and private business. These groups would be tasked with the writing of topic specific sections of the plan.

Following on from this, members of Manchester Climate Forum met with Councillor Cowell on 10th June to discuss matters further.  The result of this is that the council is adopting the C2RA model for developing the Action Plan.  MCC are producing a ‘grid’ of themes which is to be produced via the EAP Forum http://eap.beproudlovemanchester.com/ The themes are to include areas such as behavioral change, technology and infrastructure.

The initiation of the process will begin immediately with suggestions for the themes being submitted to the EAP Forum (membership is closed however, nominations for new members are welcome – please get in touch for list of members or to nominate); these will be decided upon and published in the next two weeks.  The working groups as mentioned above will be established to write each of the themed sections.

The Action Plan is not to become a policy document – it will be a working document with the aim of competing for a larger share of the mainstream MCC budget and will also be used to lever larger contributions from MCC partners.

The responsibility of writing the Action Plan will lie with MCC, with the final sign off being from within the council.  Although there is a desire from Councillor Cowell that the ownership will be wider than the council and the names assigned to each theme will not be inclusively councillors.

The Environmental Strategy Programme Board met for the 6th time on Monday 8th June.  SNAG notes from this meeting can be viewed here.  Official council minutes are available here.

Best Wishes, Tim.