Political will

Influence..

New leadership;

Advocates, activists!;

Gorton South MP – labour candidate influence priorities of new MP;

Andy Burnham most likely mayor of Greater Manchester. Influence his first 100 days in office – manifesto;

Collective vision;

A clever economist (to make it pay);

Tipping point (Joanne Roney new Chief Executive in Manchester Town Hall)?

Vision and strategy

Political agenda in GM;

Produce a coherent vision of this different Greater Manchester;

Prepare and present ideas to councils; interest groups of citizens etc;

Develop vision with buy in at all levels, Garden City?;

Prioritise the outer town centres – Ashton, Hyde etc;

Old council estates with houses and gardens – could be transformed to garden city?;

Enter these ideas into the debate/mobilisation of GMSF, tower blocks etc;

Link to current strategies: climate change (mitigation and adaptation), transport, green infrastructure;

Joined up garden city strategy – bottom up and top down;

Top down becomes equal to bottom up governance;

Do some work on the unsaid elements – industry, money…;

New land ownership models/approach ‘pooling’ land;

Planning permission, land trusts;

Create and distribute pattern ‘recipes’ to follow for food and regenerative gardening in each architectural style;

Communication

Capturing political imagination of people;

Spread the word; explore ideal further;

Utilising brown field sites – how to do this? Showcase contaminated sites;

Reframe current mini-exemplars within a garden city/ Urbal story;

City-wide marketing campaign towards this as a unified goal;

Public debate of alternative policies (alternatives to GMSF);

Increase and keep increasing the proportion of citizens with awareness of and the will to increase green infrastructure;

Learning and education

Learning from existing growing projects;

Education for everyone – start young!;

Do a process like this with more people/groups;

Climate change adaptation;

Chats Moss; upland peat;

Ecological – permaculture; easy ecological gardening;

Capacity building – planners; communities; designers; visionaries;

Join up the many smaller initiatives into a cohesive campaign.

Engagement and networking

Network of community projects;

Engagement of local businesses e.g. breweries;

Connecting places – to each other and to nature;

Better networking of existing green projects – issue of competitivity;

Support set up of place-based production – such as baking, food processing;

Organised green civil society/community groups.

Practical actions

Funding for ‘public goods’ eg allotments, parks;

Build with decent sized homes and gardens;

More job sharing- leads to more time, less stress;

Enhance canal infrastructure;

Car free days (impossible perhaps? -[ why not? – see Europe]);

Small ‘demonstration’ projects at street and neighbourhood level to start momentum building;

Gardening information centres – Cuban style ‘kiosks’ with information and seeds.

Political

(Some) political will;

City-wide government;

Collaboration (of sorts across combined authority cities and boroughs;

Peripheral councils beginning to adopt alternative model of governance eg Oldham, Wigan;

But….

Resource hungry City – carbon dependent;

Austerity cuts

Space

The Green Belt;

‘Exburbs’: North- wind, water, power; south – Cheshire plain, food!;

Canal network;

(some) cycle paths eg Fallowfield loop;

Railway verge;

Linear green spaces (river valleys etc);

Parks – food production, community involvement social focus;

Online purchasing – shopping centres could become communal/leisure/social space;

Dense urban centres (compact is good);

Radial routes (like Ebenezer Howard model);

Low land prices;

Availability of land – brownfield;

Lots of growing space but not all in the right place;

Green infrastructure – corridors into the city;

Blue infrastructure – rivers and canals

Growing

Gardens, allotments (culture of gardening emphasis on physical exercise – cycling;

Local initiatives eg Gorton growing local food, also social enterprises;

Have all the tools – do we need a tipping point?;

Potential for green gardens;

Allotments; network of allotment sites;

Empty gardens;

Manchester city of Trees;

Built environment

Urban villages around edges of GM;

Tall building s and lots of rain (good);

Pedestrianised areas – hard spaces but could be greened

Pollution ;

More floods;

Transport

Improving public transport network;

Canals, trams, roads (busy)

Community

Cohesive communities;

Parks – social focus;

Changing patterns of shopping – shopping centres could become social spaces;

Existing towns and villages as local centres;

People’s willingness to change and adapt;

Cultural and sports facilities;

Apple Tree Court (Salford) – social capital and experience

Exemplars

Can learn from: Kindling Trust, Veg box projects, Unicorn farm, Green slate farm, Glebelands, Food Wythenshawe etc;

Hulme Community Garden Centre;

Ordsall Hall garden and education centre; seed library;

Unicorn grocers and suppliers

Worsley hall – RHS;

Biospheric Foundation (gone but not forgotten);

Exemplar schemes eg market garden in Mersey Valley; coops; renewables;

Historical partial garden city implementations, garden suburbs, garden villages (Chorltonville, Alkrington, even Wythenshawe with their positives and limitations).

..and there will be many more..