Almost £200m of funding has been put in place so far by the Council to help deliver on our ambitions to tackle climate change, it has been revealed.
The full extent of the Council’s financial commitment to becoming zero carbon has been set out for the first time as part of a suite of reports published as it prepares to set its budget for 2022/23.
Some £192m has been assembled so far to support the Council’s aim to become zero carbon by 2038 – leading by example in the city’s drive to reach the same target. The Council’s current Climate Change Action Plan aims to halve its direct emissions of carbon – a key factor in climate change – by 2025.
The funding includes £76.4m which the Council has provided, £65m secured from the Government, £41m secured via Greater Manchester Combined Authority, £4.3m European Union legacy funding, £4.3m from partner organisations such as registered social housing provider One Manchester and £1.1m from Manchester Climate Change Agency.
This has already delivered projects including the replacement of the city’s 56,000 street lights with low emission LED alternatives, new electric bin lorries and the completion of the Civic Quarter Heat Network (a shared heating system for prominent city centre buildings which will significantly reduce their emissions.)
Work has also taken place to improve the energy efficiency of dozens of council-owned buildings, particularly through the use of solar technology and ground/air source heat pumps.
The funding is also helping to create more green space (such as the new Mayfield Park, Manchester’s first new city centre park for 100 years which will open later this year), plant thousands of new trees through the £1m Tree Action MCR programme, provide better infrastructure for walking and cycling across the city and build new low carbon social homes.
Even more funding will be required for the Council to achieve the target of reducing half of its direct carbon emissions by 2025.
This includes the potential purchase of a solar farm to provide electricity for the Council’s buildings and further work to decarbonise those buildings, improvements to cycling and electric vehicle charging infrastructure and retrofitting council-owned social housing to radically improve its energy efficiency.
Campaigning group Climate Emergency UK recently rated our climate change action plan as one of the best council plans in the country, and the best of any metropolitan authority.
Council Leader Councillor Bev Craig said:
“Taking action on zero carbon is one of our absolute priorities. There’s much still to do. The Council and the city as a whole still need to go further to achieve our ambitions. But the scale of investment taking place shows the strong progress which is being made.”
Councillor Tracey Rawlins, Executive Member for Environment for Manchester City Council, said:
"These figures help demonstrate the extent of our commitment to tackling climate change.
“They also underline how much funding we’ve been able to bring in from other sources to back this mission.
“The multiple projects which are being brought forward are resulting in real reductions to the Council’s emissions – we are on track to meet our initial target of halving our direct emissions by 2025. But more importantly they are also creating real health and lifestyle benefits for Manchester people, for instance through more green spaces and making it easier to choose greener, healthier transport options.
“Some of what we’re investing will help reduce the Council’s future energy costs as well.
“While the headline figure shows how far we’ve come, we are under no illusions that we need to maintain and build upon this momentum.”