UPDATE 21/1/2013 – Success! Sir Richard Leese has replied. You may think he is unduly optimistic, but he HAS answered the questions. You can read all about it here.

Please write a polite email/tweet to the Leader of Manchester City Council.  (r.leese@manchester.gov.uk or @SirRichardLeese), asking him to give an answer to a question some trouble-maker posted his blog a week ago.

Something like this;

Dear [you fill in – might be “Glorious Leader”, or “Rick” or “Sir Richard,” or “fellow cyclist”],

re: your blog post “Changes”

we appreciate that you are quite busy with the horrendous budget cuts. Nonetheless you DID put up a post last week about climate adaptation, and there was a straightforward question that you have yet to answer.  It seems it may get forgotten, since there is another blog post up already.  I am writing to ask you to reply to the question – after all, blogs are supposed to be about two-way communication.

Here is the question, in case you need a reminder –

“at the end of the blog post you write

“The update has considerably more on adaptation than the original but continues to challenge us all to address one of the most fundamental issues facing the world today.”

Well, I’d like to refer you to the papers for the first meeting Low Carbon Hub meeting (6th December 2012), which I believe that you chaired.
In the main paper for that meeting “FUTURE WAYS OF WORKING AND BUSINESS PLAN REVIEW” there is a pretty blunt assessment by the officers of the Greater Manchester Environment Team (paragraph 4.2, on page 5)

“It should also be noted that a significant proportion of deliverables for which no resources were identified at the beginning of the year, have also been progressed. The key exceptions are that we have not progressed the roll out of the MCC carbon literacy project across GM, we have not substantially followed up the actions from the Ecocities launch….” (emphasis added)

Could you please tell us what your response to this report was on the 6th December when it was tabled, and also what precisely will be different “going forward”.

Thanks

[your name]

PMT??  Stands for “Practical MCFly Tasks.”  Every Wednesday we are going to ask readers to do something (usually something simple and quick, but occasionally a bit more complex and a bit longer).  That “something” might be “publicise the latest issue of MCFly on facebook” or it might be “respond to this consultation” or it might be something else.  If your group has something that you’d like to see in this slot, email us at mcmonthly@gmail.com

“MCFly: giving you PMT every week of the year.”