Housing Retrofit Report:
https://democracy.manchester.gov.uk/documents/s46125/Housing%20Retrofit…;
Considered report highlighting work around council and social housing and private sector housing schemes including energy company obligation grant and great British insulation schemes amongst others. Retrofit portal; any houser in MCR can use to access grants they are eligible for, e.g. boiler upgrade grant. Report details challenges around skills, funding, labour market, cost inflation and need to identify further funding, capacity and buy in from residents. Green Skills: There remains a need for 1000s of skilled workers in Manchester to undertake retrofit work. Work and skills team working with GMCA to promote these skills in the workforce in supporting GreenSkills academy and working with businesses to offer training to their staff. Cllr raised question of specific aims of delivery under this project across different housing types. Answered, focus of majority of retrofitting in social housing (1600 homes), which is usually most energy inefficient. Raised question, is there work and granting partnerships/collaboration happing between and across social housing providers. Answered, a variety of social housing providers have accesses small grants to retrofit their own stock on a small scale. More funding is needed to reach all Mcr Social Housing providers.
Manchester Green and Blue Strategy and Implementation Plan Report https://democracy.manchester.gov.uk/documents/s46007/Manchester%20Green…;
Emphasis that deliverability of the strategy is underpinned by cross partner and cross sector working. Next 18 months will focus on delivery within planning policy which considers and responds to climate change and considerations within the planning process. Questions around challenges of planting trees in highway initiatives and influencing and enforcing cleanliness of urban water ways. Answered, immense complexity around this work and efforts are ongoing in planting trees on-site and on highways in urban centres. Ongoing projects concerned clean waterways, again delivery on possible in partnership, working closely with united utilities, natural England, parks and river valleys teams to collectively consider Manchester's interconnected network to make change and increase dialogue across authorities. However, direct instances of water pollution are addressed by the environment agency, considering how Manchester can implement agency policy in local policy. Declining water quality across England has led to considering how to implement pollution control across localities and councils in joint plans.
Management and Provision of Allotments
https://democracy.manchester.gov.uk/documents/s46011/Allotments.pdf
Question raised, are the authority aware of numbers/% of allotment user reliant on their grown produce for food supply at home? Answered, work being done to understand demographics of allotment users in Manchester which will raise focus on affordability and those reliant on the plots. The report reflects the hard and wide work of community groups connecting with food banks to pass on food grown in allotments where it is unused. Popularity of demand for allotments is rising which may reflect increased need for varied food supply induced by cost of living crisis, community groups and societies are working across Manchester to train and teach responsible allotment management.