Passed away 21st January. 

It is with great sadness that we have heard of the untimely death of Gayle O'Donovan who was one of Manchester Green Party's most active members in recent years and who stood for the Party in the Manchester Central constituency in the general election. She also stood in the city council elections in Hulme ward, where she polled the highest number of votes ever for a Green Party candidate in a Manchester ward.

As well as working within the Green Party, Gayle was very active in building bridges with other progressive organisations and campaigners, and was very involved with initiatives such as 'Convention of the Left'. She was elected to the Green Party's national executive in 2010, as Local Party support co-ordinator, and subsequently moved to Norwich.

Manchester Green Party Membership Secretary Anne Power, who worked closely with Gayle during her time as an activist in Manchester, said

"Gayle came to my attention in Manchester Green Party when we were campaigning to get a Green MEP in the North-West in 2009.  She was clearly a dynamic person attracting people and invigorating them.  She was to be seen in Green Party meetings and Climate Change events around the city.  There was always laughter and serious debate.  She seemed ready for anything, bold, enterprising, challenging.
Working closely with Northenden Lib Dem Councillor Martin Eakins she played a leading role in organising the 'Save Hasty Lane' campaign against airport expansion.
She decided to stand in Hulme returning to live in Hulme in a tiny one room flat.  She set about campaigning in her own original way and soon had fellow students and Green Party members gathering round her in support.  She was tireless in her efforts to win in Hulme.

With limelight on the general election she was prevented from gaining that seat on the Council, but no one could have worked harder, more efficiently or rallied more friends than Gayle.

The next phase of life for her in Manchester was very hard as exhaustion set in.  She had a bicycle accident and was in pain and restricted for weeks, but she had gone for election to the Green Party National Executive and was travelling to London and working into the night as ever, as well as helping Salford Green Party set up independently.  She was in the law courts in Trafford in icy conditions helping the climate activists with their defence. 
Finally she decided to move to Norwich where the Green Party is well established on the Council and there was more opportunity for her to be effective.
She had found good accommodation and life looked so much more positive for her.

We were all deeply shocked and sad to hear of her death on Saturday 21st January 2012.

The Green Party has lost a valiant worker and I personally have lost an amazing friend."

There is a tribute page for Gayle on the Hulme Green blog 

The reality is likely to be very different.  The Airport City is a concept which is popular in some circles².  Such a concept assumes continuing growth in the importance of aviation; climate change, Peak oil and the ongoing economic crisis all threaten this cosy assumption.   Manchester City has a strategy of reducing Carbon emissions from the city by 48% by 2020 - this will make that laudable aim much harder.  

Apart from the environmental impact the economic case is also seriously flawed.   The aviation industry has a record of huge exaggerations in its claims for providing jobs.  Fourteen years ago, Manchester Airport's second runway was billed as providing 50,000 new jobs.  According to former Treasury advisor Brendan Sewell calculated that by 2006 using the ratios usually quoted in the industry the total was only 6,400³ .  If the same factor is applied to the 13,000 jobs quoted for this initiative, the true figure is likely to be under 2,000.  

Proponents of Airport Cities argue that a strength of the concept is that business activity can be focused in and around the airport site, without having to travel further afield.  How much benefit is that likely to be for those living in Manchester's deprived communities, particularly in the north and east of the city (furthest from the Airport)?  After years with one of Europe's busier airports Manchester is still the 4th most deprived borough in the country, worse than the comparable city of Sheffield which has no airport at all to speak of. 

Enterprise Zones themselves are a very dubious commodity, which are more to do with cutting business taxes and weakening planning laws than about providing a sustainable economic future.   Instead the government should be investing in true regeneration of local communities via measures such as

• - improving housing stock, including better insulation 
• - new social housing
• - local public transport 

along the lines of the Green New Deal⁴ published when the banking crisis first struck (a genuine Deal, unlike the Government's current half-baked Green Deal proposals).          

1.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-16526677

2.  http://www.insightgrp.co.uk/airport-cities-the-evolution.html

3.  http://www.aef.org.uk/uploads/Airport_jobs___false_hopes_cruel_hoax.pdf

4.  http://www.greennewdealgroup.org/?page_id=19                    

There has been a consistent campaign of door-knocking for several months now in Levenshulme. The 2012 candidate, David Mottram, working in tandem with other party members, has been listening to the concerns of residents and discussing all things political with them. He is in the process of speaking to residents of sheltered housing complexes, and in early December, he and a team of Young Greens – eight came along to do solid footwork on a wet, cold December evening – distributed the latest Green Party Levenshulme Newsletter.

It is through many such instances of personal dedication that a manifesto has been drafted. The Manchester Green Party has come to know the issues which are really important to the people of Levenshulme, and this manifesto – to be launched in the new year – is truly written for them. This is in marked contrast to a recent Labour Levenshulme leaflet, which is effectively a template, barely mentions Levenshulme, is intended to be relevant to everyone and ends up being helpful to no-one. (See David’s blog post on the topic here: http://levenshulmegreenparty.blogspot.com/2011/11/levenshulme-labour-or-manchester-labour.html)

David’s campaign manager, Nick Wilkinson, had this to say: ‘David has increased his share of the vote year after year in Levenshulme. He will fight, and has fought, ceaselessly to become a progressive Green voice on Manchester City Council. Our campaign for Levenshulme will show all of Manchester that fair is worth fighting for.’

The Green Party instead calls for the abolition of tax havens and for the immediate implementation of a financial transaction tax. It’s in part through such radically fair measures that the party would fund a citizens’ pension scheme – one which would shield the most vulnerable members of our society from poverty in a time of particular economic hardship.

The most recent monthly meeting of the Manchester Green Party highlighted the serious risks posed by fracking in Lancashire, which has been carried out on an experimental basis by the energy company Cuadrilla with the aim of creating up to 400 drill sites on the Bowland Shale.

‘Fracking’, or hydraulic fracturing, refers to a process by which natural gas is extracted from geological formations by means of boring holes in the rock and creating seismic activity deep underground. The process uses a great deal of water which is mixed with a wide range of chemicals – some of which are known carcinogens. Fracking is being brought to the UK for largely economic reasons: the technology required has become more affordable, and gas prices in general have become higher.

However, the outcomes of this complex process are today still very unclear.

Cuadrilla’s activities have recently received a great deal of coverage in the media, particularly after the company itself admitted that the recent earthquakes in Blackpool were likely to have been the result of the fracking process.

Lancashire County Councillor Sam Riches commented that the earthquakes are just the tip of the iceberg. She further explained that 'groundwater pollution and air pollution seem to occur as side-effects of the process, in the US experience at least; there is also the possibility of a chemical leak and of the pollution of agricultural land'. She also stated that despite claims that because natural gas is 'greener than coal' shale gas should be welcomed, fracking is demonstrably an energy-intensive method of gas extraction and as such carries a large embedded carbon footprint, thus contributing to climate change far more than other forms of natural gas.

A common argument used in favour of fracking is that it will create jobs. However, Eve McNamara, member of the residents’ association Ribble Estuary Against Fracking, argued that there is little evidence to this end. She also commented that ‘the focus on Shale Gas extraction will very likely detract from investments which could be made in renewable forms of energy, a sector which might lead to the creation of half a million jobs by 2020’.

This may seem like a problem local to the Blackpool area, but if not met with resistance now then the practice of fracking could become much more widespread within the UK. Furthermore, the need to treat and dispose of the 'produced water' – vast quantities of contaminated water which is one product of the process – means that the impact of fracking will come to locations which are not themselves near drill sites. Davyhulme is one example – bringing the impact of fracking to Manchester residents' doorsteps.

The Green Party of England and Wales – and of course the Manchester Green Party – is asking for a moratorium on fracking, based on the precautionary principle. That means that unless we are convinced factually that the technology is safe, then the government must prohibit it from being used. Green MP Caroline Lucas has tabled an Early Day Motion to this effect.

23 OCTOBER 2011

The student population of Manchester is Greener than ever before.

At the University of Manchester freshers’ fair in late September, approximately 185 students signed up to become members of the newly founded Manchester Young Greens student society.

It seems likely that the principled and consistent stance of the Green Party against the rise in tuition fees carried out by the coalition government has played a role in this apparent surge in Green student support.

A committee of ten members has been established, and several projects are already in development, notably a student food cooperative which will – in the words of committee co-chair, Nick Wilkinson – ‘not only combat climate change, but also student poverty by supplying students with affordable food. The Young Greens don’t just agitate for change. We are bringing the change right now.’

What’s more, a food recycling campaign is underway, to supply appropriate bins to students who do not possess them and to encourage those who do to use them. And Manchester Young Greens will be participating in the Student Union’s forthcoming Climate Action Week.

Manchester Green Party committee has followed these events with great enthusiasm, and welcomed the participation of several Young Greens at its last monthly meeting. MGP Chair Brian Candeland said, ‘Here in Manchester we have the largest University campus in the country so we are delighted to welcome such a thriving Young Greens group. We look forward to working with them over the coming year.’

Green placards calling for protection for public services and for investment in a million climate jobs were very visible.  Unlike the 3 'main' Parties the Greens went into the last election calling for investment to tackle the economic crisis, with a 'Green New Deal' to provide jobs in areas like social housing, public transport, and renewable energy. 

Meanwhile  the Tory-led Government is presiding over a failing economy, chaos in the health service and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor.  In addition Manchester seems a strange place for the Tories to hold a conference: they have not had a single councillor elected in the City for nearly 20 years, and over most of the City, the Green Party outpoll the Tories in local council elections.         

Chris Gibbins of Manchester Green Party expressed disappointment at the residents’ stance and said ’We believe that FC United are genuinely willing to enter into dialogue about the environmental impact of the development’. He acknowledged that many other local residents have participated in consultation with the club and do support the scheme.

The Green Party, he said, 'supports FC United’s ambition for a stadium in the city but wants to maximise protection for the local environment & ecology in Moston. Concerns include management of road traffic and car parking for match days, and any impact on the nearby wetland at Dean Brook, a Site of Biological Interest'. The Green Party and FC United are currently in dialogue about these issues.

FC United general manager Andy Walsh said ‘We are happy to talk to the Green Party – or anyone else – with constructive points to make about improving the scheme. The Greens have also suggested we install solar panels for the stand roofs and ground source heat pumps for the pitches, and we will look at this’. He went on to say ‘We have offered several times to attend meetings with RURA but so far this has been refused. That offer remains open’.

The City Council withdrew support in March this year for FC United's original stadium proposal for a brown field site at Ten Acres Lane, Newton Heath. The reasons for this have not been made public. The secretary of Manchester Green Party, David Mottram, says that this is typical of the City Council: ‘Why aren’t they more open in the way they handle big planning applications? Some local people in Moston are up in arms because they feel that they are being made fall guys by the City Council.’ ‘We don’t know the truth’, he says, ‘but people now need to keep talking to FC United and working for the best possible scheme in Moston’.

Note

The planning application is for Ronald Johnson Playing Fields, Lightbowne Road, Moston, Manchester M40 0FJ [application number is 096289/FO/2011/N1]. The application is likely to be considered by Manchester City Council’s Planning & Highways Committee at its meeting on 15^th September 2011

Contacts:  David Mottram  

0161 224 0079  Email secretary@manchestergreenparty.org.uk

Chris Gibbins:   

07730 654708

Within this, the Council’s ‘Directorate for Adults’ is expected to reduce its budget by £39.5 million (slide 5).

As part of these reductions the Council is running a consultation exercise on some of its proposed changes to its Social Care services and charging policy.

 Changes threatened  include 

• Greatly reducing the level at which users start being charged for services
• Replacement of human contact support with technology

The examples of the latter quoted in the consultation are

- replacing visits to dementia sufferers with  a text alert to remind them to do things

- supplying GPS for electric scooters

(see more detailed description on the Hulme Green Blog).

Whilst the consultation papers have lots of ideas about 'what could happen' it is difficult to make out what the changes are actually going to be. What is plain and not in the consultation papers is the number of services that will no longer be funded from 2012 (see table at the end of the paper).

Deyika Nzeribe, Hulme Green Party activist said

"The council are being very unclear about several aspects of what they are planning, including the extra cost to the individuals affected, and whether or not the Council will merge services with other local authorities, as they have done with legal services. 

Regarding claims of innovation if these are their best examples then this is not convincing. Also, will they trial these innovations before removing exsiting services?"    

The number of households in Manchester has increased by 37,549 in the last ten years whilst there have been 24,000 new homes built in the same period, mostly apartments. In 2010, there were 16,000 households on Manchester Council’s housing register – 7,000 more than in 2001. These are Manchester Council’s statistics.

However, according to recent official government statistics, the number of households on the waiting list was actually 22,448, a much larger number amounting to no less than 11.1% of total households in the city.

Whatever number ones takes, it is clear that in the last decade there has been a steep rise in housing need in Manchester. Nor is this pressure likely to diminish. The Council estimates that there will be another 56,000 households in Manchester in twenty years times. This is the crisis.

At the moment, the Council is building just 200 new council homes in Charlestown, Blackley and West Gorton whilst in the last two years only 255 empty houses have been brought back into use. Meanwhile, in December 2009, there were 13,760 empty homes across all tenures in Manchester, 8040 of these had been empty for more than 6 months. The Council itself states they have “a number of tools and legal powers to tackle empty homes” but they fail to use them. 

According to the Index of Multiple Deprivation, a national statistic which is an accepted measure for household deprivation, 228,235 of Manchester residents live in the worst 10% most deprived neighbourhoods nationally.  This equates to 62% of our households.  

Manchester Council has become reliant on the private sector for answering Manchester’s housing problems. No one doubts that there have been difficulties in financing social housing development, but Manchester’s Labour council has been extreme in its response.

Once, the Labour-led Council was a beacon for providing decent social housing but in recent years it has abandoned this, trying to outsource its housing department and wherever possible simply ditch its social housing responsibilities..

The Green Party believes in a Green New Deal for social housing. It believes that building new houses would not only provide decent homes for families but would also provide work for unemployed construction workers and help lift the region out of recession.

It believes that the existence of empty homes alongside tens of thousands of families on a housing waiting list is immoral particularly when the Council possess the legal power to take over empty property vacant for a long time.

Deyika Nzeribe, Hulme Green Party campaigner said "the Council should takeover and complete abandoned apartment blocks. When quizzed about their failure to do this, one councillor replied that such apartments did not fit the housing needs of most people on the waiting list. It would be interesting to see just how many of these applicants would turn down a two-bedroom apartment in a new block as ‘unsuitable’.

We challenge our Labour councillors to come up with proposals for solving Hulme’s housing crisis with similar positive proposals."

We have enough to do coping with a Cameron government without a  Labour Council oppressing some of its poorest residents. The proceedings at Manchester City Council Planning Committee meeting on Thursday were shocking. The main decision was to grant planning permission to MMU to build on Birley Fields in Hulme. Members spoke so quietly into their microphones it was almost impossible to hear.

The long statement on the MMU plan was gabbled and inaudible. The speaker for the defence of Hulme's last green space and community feelings was brilliant in content and delivery, but she 
was utterly ignored.

The developer ignored all the issues raised by the Hulme residents' speaker and and claimed amazing Green credentials for the plans with tall, extended buildings depriving local residents of light, and tiny patches of mown grass enclosed within buildings, a car park for 700 cars and no attempt to create a network of buses, buggies or many biking facilities.

One Hulme Councillor was allowed to attack residents in a very personal way throughout the meeting. If she is backing a great project for Hulme and the city, such behaviour should hardly be necessary. 

£8 million and 1/3 of workers are being cut by the Council. This will have devastating effects on children, parents and the local communities where Sure Start centres are essential to bringing people together. Ruth Bergan, Hulme candidate in the recent local elections, said “Manchester has been labelled the “Child Poverty Capital” of the UK, so Sure Start centres are far from being  a luxury. Every penny that is cut will make life harder for children, mums and dads across Manchester.”

Protecting children, mothers and local communities is the basic job of our elected representatives. The Green Party therefore demands that unless Sure Start is saved from the Labour cuts, Richard Leese should immediately vacate his position.

Labour again shows its true “New Labour” colours it, along with the Con-Dems they are attacking the very fabric of our communities. The Green Party is ready to defend Sure Start against Labour’s cuts.

Green Party Demands

·         Reversal of £8 million cuts

·         Freedom for centres to allocate their own funds

·         Sure Start must be kept public (in-house) and accountable

We also would like to thank everyone who put in time, pounded the streets, commented, advised, talked to us from your windows and rang us up, it all helped build our campaign. 

We are disappointed not to have won a council seat this time. However in the face of a Labour resurgence, we held our vote throughout the city and we are now in second place in four wards. 

Ruth Bergan, Hulme candidate said: “it’s great to see people sticking with the Green Party. We have a good base to continue to build on and will continue to pursue issues people raised with us. I am proud to have campaigned for the only party that campaigns against the cuts and has clear alternatives.”

David Mottram, MGP Secretary and Levenshulme candidate said of the result in his ward "I think people understand
that we are building for the future. Fifteen percent of the vote - up from 11% last year - in the face of the big local swing to Labour is  very encouraging; we are going to make Levenshulme a three-way marginal ward."

For a full list of Green candidates and their votes and percentages please see the Elections page

Green candidates beat the Conservatives in 15 wards, including most of the South Manchester wards, and beat the Liberal Democrats in 6 wards.   The highest Green vote shares were in Hulme (25.2%), Withington (15.2%), Levenshulme (14.8%) and Whalley Range (12.6%).

For the full set of results, see the Manchester City Council website

In local elections around the country, the Green Party have made net gains of around 20 councillors, including a gain of 10 seats in Brighton and Hove to become the largest Party on the Council.     

The campaign was launched in response to the threat of withdrawal of funding by Manchester City Council, and campaigners are concerned there has been a lack of public consultation over the future of the 36 centres around the City.  The City Council have indicated they could longer afford to run them without input from charities or other not-for-profit organisations; the campaigners fear that charities would struggle to take on the centre in the current climate.  In addition, removal of the Centres from public control would weaken accountability to parents and the community.  As part of the launch, campaigners released 36 balloons, one for each of the Centres in the city.

Brian Candeland (who is also Chair of Manchester Green Party) said - "I have been impressed by the work which is done through the Centres, which in many cases goes way beyond the basic support.  These Centres often provide early interventions which prevent serious problems; in doing that they not only improve quality of life for vulnerable people, they save the council money.  I believe it is essential that the Sure Start Childrens Centres should remain publicly funded and run as a public service.  The Council squanders money in other areas (e.g. the football museum), this is exactly the sort of service it should be supporting.

David Mottram, Secretary of Manchester Green Party, added "Removal from public ownership will lead to a disjointed service, with a wide gap in quality of provision across the city.  The Council need to think again about the future of Sure Start."      

For further comment, including the text of a statement drafted by the campaign group, see here 

 Bradford's three Green Councillors have successfully campaigned for better public transport and more local food growing. In the face of an 8.7% budget cut, they are also working hard with the Council to find savings in areas like energy usage to try and reduce job losses, especially in front-line services. 

Answering a question about what its like to be in a minority on the Council, Hawarun said "even one Green Councillor can make a huge difference. It shows the other parties that voters care about their local services and the environment. By working in the Council with others, we have been able to get a free shuttle bus in the city centre, help make savings to cut energy bills, raise the issue of where pension funds are invested as well as helping with day-to-day issues like street repairs and traffic problems".  

If elected, Green Councillors in Manchester would:

·         Continue to campaign against the cuts whilst working to save vital front-line services;

·         Fight for more local jobs;

·         Campaign for decent housing across Manchester;

·         Work to ensure decent transport;

·         Fight to preserve green spaces. 

Manchester Green Party is standing candidates in 28 wards out of a possible 32 this year, up from 25 a year ago.  The Green Party has had councillors in Bradford's Shipley ward since 2000.   Picture shows 12 of the Manchester Green candidates with Hawarun,

Across Manchester, Greens are campaigning to defend services from damaging cuts. Greens are also campaigning to maintain Manchester’s green spaces, including Birley Fields in Hulme and supporting residents to develop a community orchard on unused public space in Levenshulme. 

Brian Candeland, Chorlton candidate, said “we think it’s important that as many people as possible in Manchester have the opportunity to vote Green. A vote for the Green Party is a vote for protecting services and green spaces, and for more green jobs to get us out of the recession and move towards a more sustainable society”.

For the full list of Green candidates see here 

Manchester Green Party say the Government’s claim that ‘we are all in this together’ is nonsense – their proposed cuts will hit the most vulnerable hardest.  Green Party activist Ruth Bergan, who attended the march, said “Their cuts will be won’t work. The tragedy is that a million people will be thrown out of work by the Coalition when we need a million more workers taking up Green jobs. Jobs that help invest in the future, like tackling climate change and providing clean, affordable energy supplies for our future". 

Manchester Greens say that we can’t afford to lose 50,000 NHS jobs and we can’t afford the highest unemployment for 17 years. They argue there are cuts that we can afford. Instead of cutting public services we could tackle the £42 billion of lost revenue through tax evasion and tax avoidance, save £3 billion per year by cancel ling unnecessary road building and £4 billion a year by scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme.  These are the right kind of cuts - not public service cuts that will hurt everyone.

The current Government, following decisions taken by the previous Labour administration, is committed to a huge expansion of the UK nuclear energy industry, some reports suggest plans to build 10 new reactors at a cost of £3 billion each. Brian Candeland, Chair of Manchester Greens, said "The billions being spent on nuclear energy could be much better spent on investing in measures to reduce our energy use, like home insulation, as well as in protecting public services."

Manchester Greens argue that because there is currently no genuine solution to the issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste, nuclear power is inherently risky, and is vulnerable to the combination of human error, design failure, and unforeseen events. Brian Candeland said “the earthquake and tsunami in Japan have had horrific consequences for tens of thousands of people. The impact on the nuclear industry is a stark reminder of the dangers of nuclear power. Given that there are cheaper, quicker, and crucially safer, ways of meeting our energy needs and emisson reduction targets, it is particularly perverse here in the UK to launch the building of a fleet of new nuclear power stations”.

The Government has put on hold a decision about renewing Trident, however the Conservatives are committed to this project. Renewing Trident would cost UK taxpayers around £34 billion in initial replacement costs, plus billions more over the weapon’s lifetime, money the Greens say should be spent on services and green jobs.