The bad news just keeps on coming.  On Tuesday 4th February at 2pm, the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee of Manchester City Council will discuss the so-called Climate Change Action Plan 2014/15 – 2016/17.

The following Wednesday (12th February) this 40 page fantasy document will be rubber-stamped by the Executive of Manchester City Council.  Both of these eye-stabbingly depressing non-events will take place in the utterly-misnamed “Scrutiny” room of the Manchester Town Hall extension.

Full analysis of this “plan” will follow this weekend on this site.  For now it suffices to say that it contains more fine words and aspirations, but few firm SMART goals with names dates and metrics attached.   Despite a section entitled “Performance since 2009/10” there is precisely zero acknowledgement of the almost-total farce that has been the City’s (not just the Council’s) enacting of the 2009 “Climate Change Action Plan.  If we can’t even admit that there has been more going wrong in this city than can be blamed on the Tories’ austerity budgets – and their singling out of Manchester – then there isn’t really much hope for change, is there?  Not from the centre, from our lords and masters, anyway…

Despite the requests at the July 2013 Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee by councillors Kevin Peel and Fran Shone for there to be quarterly progress reports, no such commitment has been made.  This will shock nobody, of course.

I’ll leave you with this gem from deep in the report –

“A challenging interim target of a 20% reduction had been set for the end of 2013/14, from 2009/10. Performance to date indicates this is unlikely to be met.” (p 13)

Marc Hudson
mcmonthly@gmail.com