MCFly has been asking, for a long long time, about a million quid the Council has earmarked for climate change work. The money was announced in February 2008 (that's not a typo), with the aim of acting as "leverage for the development of a Manchester Carbon Reduction Innovation and Investment Fund, to be matched by partners and stakeholders to fund carbon reduction and renewable energy infrastructure projects."
In issue 6 of MCFly (August 2008) we reported what the Council had told us: that it was "within days, or at most weeks, of announcing a series of specific projects" that would be both 'commercially-robust' and 'future-proof.'
Well, we have kept asking, and can now exclusively reveal the following: Since the money was announced in February 2008, at absolute most £69,000 has been spent, on the following-
Smart Metering £5k (in the City Centre), Town Hall Retrofit £15k and i-Trees £49k, (with "£49k match funding for i-trees from the universities", which may mean only £20,000 of the £1,000,000 has been spent.)
We asked what projects are “in the pipeline”? i.e. what money is earmarked for what projects and were told that "no money has been earmarked as it will be a competitive process, with funding allocated on the strength of projects meeting the set criteria."
We also wanted to know if more money had been forthcoming. No further matching funds have come from "partners and stakeholders", as was initially hoped. Crucially "no further Council funds have been committed, the £1m was carried over into 2009/10."
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