United Kingdom Hit the North for British ideas on urban renewal 31/01 10:45 CET

The face of Manchester is changing. It has the UK’s biggest solar energy project, on the tallest office block outside London, a brand new County court also boasting eco-credentials, and regeneration is in the air. After being the cradle of the industrial revolution, everything’s gone green.

A city’s environmental quality is its main trump card for attracting new residents as well as investors. But urban activity produces 80 percent of greenhouse gasses.

Greater Manchester is trying everything to reduce the city’s environmental impact. So “Manchester is my planet” has been born; a partnership allying universities and business with local authorites. Ther goal is to offer advice and support innovative projects, and inform the public.

Keith Boxer runs “Manchester is My Planet”; “We are trying to encourage the local authorities to look at their policies and programmes to improve the overall framework for adressing climate change in Greater Manchester. I think that’s been an important step forward to raise the climate change agenda at that level. We have that inspiration from the Industrial revolution, that legacy that we can build on, we were the first to bring the industrial revolution to the world, so I think people are very keen about bringing this new green revolution in to place in Greater Manchester”.

The “Manchester is my Planet” website invites people to reduce their carbon dioxide output. Each invidual contribution is designed to help the country meet its international quotas.

Over the last two and a half years 20 000 Mancunians have signed an ecological pledge. Out of the conurbation’s population of two and half million it is not much, but the minority is keen to set an example. That’s Mary Culhane’s ideal. .

She lives in a city suburb with partner Simon and Amber their two year old daughter. Here everying’s recycled, the electricity’s renewably generated, and Amber’s nappies are washable. They run one car on biodiesel and never fly;

“I think it’s just something to encourage everybody to join a part of community. Probably most of us were doing things already that were pretty good in terms of reducing our carbon footprint, but by joining it you feel that you are part of something a bit bigger, and hopefuly that makes you feel a little less of a freak”.

But behaving ecologically in a city is still too expensive says Mary. She wants public authorities to do more;

“The Government should help a lot more, I mean, you are going to supermarkets and you see loads and loads of loo-roll and handpapers and nappies, that have got nothing to do with being recycled. They should’nt be allowed to sell them, or they should cost more”.

From individuals to companies, the other target for local authorities in the battle against global warming. This time it is the economic argument that is to the fore. The message is simple; saving energy means saving money. That brass tacks realism finds many a willing ear.

Doing its best to spread the new credo in the north west is ENWORKS. This umbrella organisation raises public funds and co-ordinates the various projects to help small and mediium-sized companies reduce their environmental impact.

Steven Falder runs a paint factory. He called in the ENWORKS team. “In Manchester, the ENWORKS delivery partner is Groundwork. They have worked with HMG Paints to look at the way they manage their waste, the way they use energy, and to look at reducing their consumption across the board and making sure they don’t emit pollution into the atmosphere or the rivers.

It’s a legitimate interest for our business that we are seen to be good, cooperative and global citizens. I don’t want people looking at us and saying ‘Oh wow they are marvelous’. What I want people to do is to really say, ‘I would expect them to be good and they are better than I thought’.”

The business was born in the 1930’s, and survived industrial decline over four generations, today employing 300 people. It is making money, and has decided to clean up its polluted site.

“Since 1750, there’s been people making paint and dyes on this site. When my family came here, it was a typically derelict urban site. We have decided that we were going to stay here and grow the business and so, over time with a lot of support from my local friends and neigbours, we have tried to improve the area back to something that makes us all proud”.

This meant planting trees and digging an artificial pond to sit alongside the paintworks. It seems a paradox, but it is a real symbol of how the city’s psyche has been marked by its industrial past.

Manchester has a huge job ahead of it to face its future unhindered by its industrial past. Restoring the environment, and renewing its urban fabric go hand in hand. Swathes of the city have been spruced up, most visibly the sports complex site including the City of Manchester stadium in the east.

Until the end of the 1970’s this land was among Britain’s most polluted, spoiled by heavy industry says Manchester City football club’s Pete Bradshaw;

“When this photograph was taken it was 1957, and the World Health Organisation said that Manchester had the worst micro-climate in the whole of the world based on acid rain. Even on a nice sunny day elsewhere it rained acid rain in East Manchester. And that was 50 years ago so it is in the living memory of a lot of people”

The site was entirely redeveloped for the 2002 Commonwealth games. Today in its maintainance and day to day running it aims to set an ecological standard in sustainable development;

“Here in Manchester city we think that our stadium is among the greenest in Europe and probably the greenest in Britain because of a whole range of activities that Manchester City undertakes. The whole package of things that we do includes things like waste management, good energy management, how we transport and getting people to the stadium, away from the stadium, and how we buy things, really. And that’s all important to us”

The stadium’s flagship development? A towering wind turbine at the stadium entrance. “Right outside the front door of our stadium, we’ll have a 85 metre wind turbine generating between 2.5 and 3 megawatts of power every year, that will provide for all of our energy needs”.

Getting football to abandon its kicker conspiracies for a moment to think about how to save the planet is one way of changing the way people think.

Politicians, citizens, business leaders; everyone is being told they have a role to play in getting onside on the environment, and build cities that have a durable future. The north is rising again.