Labour isolated in favour of airport expansion plan?

On Thursday 19th November, Manchester Council Planning Department approved the demolition of 200 year old cottages,and a neighbouring environmental and historical oasis on Hasty Lane. This to make way for an extra airport freight hanger to double its air freight capacity. Campaigners from the Stop Expansion at Manchester Aiport group were inside and outside the meeting to show their support for the residents. All five votes in favour of the demolition of the 2 cottages came from the Labour Councillors despite the wishes of the local residents, environmentalists and even local Labour Councillors who had previously rejected the plans at the Wythenshawe Area Committee on 22nd October 2009.                                                      

                                                                                             Hasty Lane now

This very unpopular decision has even been described as "worrying" by the Tories. Marie Raynor, the Wythenshawe Conservatives spokesperson commented that “to allow the demolition of two cottages, the destruction of a meadow, and the removal of a habitat for local wildlife sets a bad precedent. It sends a message to ratepayers, that Manchester's Councillors put the interests of big business before those of the people they were elected to serve.”

With the Greens, the Lib Dems, Tories, residents and environmental campaigners opposed to the plans, it seems Labour are increasingly isolated on the issue. A coalition of English Heritage, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit, the Council for British Archaeology, local councillors and residents and SEMA have all opposed the previous plans and Manchester Airport had to withdraw its application to demolish Rose Cottage. The new plan still intends to demolish the buildings, fell the trees and concrete over the pond to build two giant air freight cargo units whilst arguing that the development will be good for the local economy. This renewed assault seems even more damaging than the last and will be met with fierce opposition.
                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                       Intended Plan for Hasty Lane

The decision to go ahead with the expansion of the air freight facilities is in spite of the fact that air freight has been falling consistently for over 2 years (LINK http://stopmanchesterairport.blogspot.com/2009/02/manchester-air-freight-nose-dives.html). Added to this, it could seriously undermine the councils commitment to becoming a low carbon city. The Councils Climate Change Action plan was launched on the 18th of November, it makes bold commitments to reduce the City's climate change impact by 41% by 2020; it also talks about more green spaces whilst agreeing to build on Hasty Lane an area of biodiversity. Hasty Lane is one of the last parts of the Green Belt left out in Wythenshawe. If the council was serious about tackling climate change would they have made this decision?

Greening the LDF

I was emailed a blast from the past yesterday – my contribution to the transport section of the Local Development Framework consultation on its “Core Strategy” document from 2007. Every once in a while another part of the LDF process surfaces, bearing an obscure name, and inviting what the council class as a “consultation” from Manchester residents.

Graeme Sherriff of Manchester Friends of the Earth (FoE) assisted me with my section, and other people worked on a collective document that we called “Green the LDF”. This model of working helped us to pool our skills to produce a very credible response to the Council’s plans, which we regarded as neglecting climate change and the problems associated with rampant economic growth. It seemed sensible for community activists to try to engage with the planning process, to try to pre-empt problems relating to climate change, and maybe even to mitigate them further down the road.

The Core Strategy document was about setting the “vision” of the planning strategy for Manchester for the next twenty years. It is one of many documents that make up the Local Development Framework, and the consultation was supposed to explore the options for the future development of the city. The consultation itself only lasted eight weeks from when the document was made public (six weeks is the minimum they can legally get away with!) It was a steep learning curve for me as my knowledge of planning legislation and even transport planning wasn’t very developed at the time. I used the FoE “Community Resource Pack” to learn the basics, and I attended a training course put on by Planning Aid, who provided free, professional support and advice on planning issues to community groups who cannot afford to hire consultants.

The next phase of the consultation is now underway. But I am reluctant to spend too much energy on it. Despite learning a lot about planning and how the Council worked, our finished product was pretty much ignored. Our response document was received by the Council in Feb 08 but due to technical difficulties these were not even put on to the on-line consultation system by the time consultation on the Refining Options(phase 2) opened in April 09. This despite the fact that we sent our responses in electronically. After waiting the year I received a paragraph made up of council speak and empty rhetoric. It included contradictory statements such as "Manchester will be a successful sustainable City in the front rank of cities in Europe and the world" and "it will be a City with a growing economy driven by the strength of the Regional Centre and Manchester Airport which supports a successful City Region" .

This was a deflating experience – a feeling shared by most of the people I knew who’d responded to the consultation. At the end of the day the Council are legally obliged to consult people on the development plans. But the underlying political reality of such consultations leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

A Climate Change Action Plan for Manchester City Council

On Wednesday Manchester City Council will be agreeing its Climate Change Action Plan at an Executive Committee meeting in the Town hall. This action plan is basically a document outlining how the Council plans to reduce CO2 emissions by one million tonnes in Manchester in the years up to 2020.

Richard Leese, Leader of the Council will be eagerly flying a copy of this new document to the Copenhagen Summit(COP15) so that he can show off Manchester as a shining example of what a council can do to tackle climate change(I think?). As I haven’t seen the document yet I am trying to hold off on the cynicism and despite their appalling record I am willing to give the council the benefit of the doubt for now. At the end of the day it is in none of our interest for the Council to produce a limp or ineffective plan and so what if it helps Sir Richard boost his non existing environmental credentials to a bunch of politicians in the process. These politicians will probably be too busy looking for ways to get out of committing to making any real and meaningful changes to notice……hmmmmm……that’s best kept another blog post .

To be fair, I'm sure there will be some interesting initiatives in the new Action Plan, enough groups including us Greens and allot of well intentioned people have chipped in; it will no doubt 'talk the talk' as the Call To Action did early last year. I really hope that the Climate Change Action Plan is more than a collection of buzz words and token initiatives. There wont be any earth shattering revelations lets not kid ourselves and ultimately it won't tackle the root cause of Climate Change - the system - but it could mark a new era in the Council - it might actually start to take Climate Change seriously.

But if you are nervous about the whole thing, thankfully the Call to Real Action(C2RA), a group of concerned citizens, are going to write their own Alternative Action Plan. Just encase the Council misses out some things, as has been their habit in the past - Don't mention the war, I mean the Airport or its 13 million tonnes of CO2! The next step for C2RA will be to publish our version of the Climate Change Action Plan ready for Sir Richards trip to Copenhagen. The C2RA Group has cleverly been using what in battle is termed a 'pincer movement' to ensure that the Council achieves their aim of developing a climate change strategy. They have taken an inside/outside approach participating in writing groups, the environmental advisory panel and attending consultations that the Council set up whilst almost simultaneously the C2RA have been producing an Alternative Action Plan to plug the holes so to speak.

This week could be an interesting one ................