UPDATE: Next meeting is Tuesday 26th August from 7pm at the Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St. More info to follow…

If you want Manchester to have environmental action, you’ll need to get together with other citizens. Our elected leaders have proved themselves unable and/or unwilling…

Every July the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee, made up of 15 or so out of the 96 elected members of Manchester City Council, is supposed to get a report about how the council has performed on carbon reduction in the previous year.   The bureaucrats and Executive Member for the Environment traditionally try to spin missed targets – or increases – as “success”.  Well, this year they seem to be doing away with even that. Here’s the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting.

Last week I wrote to the chair of Neighbourhoods Scrutiny, the relevant officer and to the Executive Member for the Environment. I asked what had happened to the report.  I have had, of course, no reply.

Perhaps the Executive Member for the Environment, Councillor Kate Chappell, would like to blog about it. Oh, no, wait – despite repeatedly promising that she would start a blog, she’s now said she won’t.

What does all this mean?  It means that if there is going to be any effective scrutiny of the Council, it will need to be done by citizens, not councillors.  If you want to get involved in making this happen, there’s a meeting tonight, at Subrosa, 27 Lloyd St South, Moss Side.

You won’t be forced to take on things you don’t want to do, “training is provided” etc.