After the passage of the “Clean and Green Spaces” Initiative through Executive on its way to Full Council, Cllr Nigel Murphy speaks to MCFly editor Marc Hudson.The youtube is just the audio with a picture. #veryunimaginative

Transcript
On the Clean and Green Spaces Initiative – the recommendations have just been accepted by the Executive. My understanding is that it now goes to Full Council to be ratified on Wednesday 9th October . When does the money start flowing? When can community groups and people start bidding for use of some of this money to start making Manchester cleaner and greener?
Well, I think any project can go forward from now. We’re looking at how we get that process streamlined. We’re looking at interactions via the web to try and appeal to everyone, people phoning up the helpline, “we’d like to have x, y or z” We could do with having some formulated bids. But I’d suggest that communities start working together, because the best type of bids are going to come from a group of people rather than just individuals. So, start working on them now, and the system will be on the website live as soon as possible.

Formulated bids can go forward, we can assess how they are going to impact long-term so they’ve got … the whole idea of the bid is to “invest to save” so we can have long-term initiatives. Because this is one-off funding, it’s not continual funding. So, what can we do to change attitudes and change behaviour which is going to make the city cleaner and greener.

And definition of green? Because there’s nothing in the report – that I read – that mentions carbon dioxide emissions or biodiversity. There’s certainly stuff in there about “clean” . But what does the Council mean by “green” in that context?
I don’t think we want to be too prescriptive. I think that’s why we want the communities to come up. So it could be self-grow type initiatives, it could be ways of how we can actually reduce carbon emissions within the community. So are they looking at shared transport schemes or .[sorry, inaudible] Remember, fourteen and a half million is a lot of money – it can make a huge difference in the communities, but it’s got to be spread and be effective in a very short time. So the green could cover anything; we don’t want to be prescriptive on what it’s actually going to be used for.

And is the Council going to put up a list of criteria about how the projects will be selected and who will do the selecting and right of appeal if a bid is rejected.
What is very clear about this is we don’t want to get bogged down by bureaucracy. We want it to be a streamlined process moving forward, so that people can actually apply and have the effect. The whole formula of how it’s going on has only just been approved in the last hour has got to be sorted out . It’s moved quite quickly since the dividend was announced from the airport. We don’t want it to be a cumbersome process. We want it to be as easy as possible for communities to bid for that money to make the differences on the streets of Manchester.

Presumably though money can’t be dished out and bids can’t be accepted until the legal process is complete and this has been ratified by Full Council because it is after all a key decision.
Well it can’t be spent. It’s public money that’s got to be spent … it’s got to be accountable and transparent on how it’s being spent, so correct.

DISCLAIMER: MCFly’s editor Marc Hudson has worked with, and will work, with Jo Campbell of the “Ask the People of Manchester” campaign. Make of this what you will. This disclaimer will appear on all stories about the Clean and ‘Green’ Initiative published on MCFly.