At the latest meeting of the Environment Commission (EC) on June 8, energy infrastructure and resilience have emerged as major issues that need to be tackled in Greater Manchester. Commissioners [minus MP Piddington & Molyneux; Angie Robinson (Manchester Chamber of Commerce); Andy Cliffe (MAG) and Ian McAuley of United Utilities sent a substitute] spent an away day pin-pointing issues to lead the commission, and ways in which they could be tackled effectively. One suggestion was that each commissioner could champion a certain issue. Other concerns that emerged included the need to raise the climate change agenda and to deal with waste by altering consumer habits.
As planned, the EC invited Mark Watts (ex-senior advisor to Ken Livingston) to discuss the lessons to be learnt from London's failed Climate Change Agency, and how to avoid these pitfalls when forming Manchester's very own Climate Change Agency. One conclusion seemed to suggest that there needs to be a closer link with local authorities when carrying out any projects.
The commissioners have also asked for a review by independent assessment of the region's environment performance. This is vital to help assess how well/badly Manchester is doing and what really needs to be improved - the initial findings will be announced some time at the end of next week and MCFly will report on them in the next issue.
For more information, see www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info/environmentcommssion.html. For a graphic representation of who these guys are and how "it all fits together", see www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info/organisationalchart.html
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