Governance and Regulation in Local Environmental Policy Making

Case-study Working Paper Number 3

October 2002

MANCHESTER: CHANGING ATTITUDES TO THE ENVIRONMENT INTHE ENTREPRENEURIAL CITY

David Gibbs, Andrew E G Jonas, Aidan While

Department of GeographyUniversity of HullCottingham Road

Hull HU6 7RX

Acknowledgements

This research project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Grantnumber R000237997). We are grateful to all those who have given up their time to beinterviewed during the course of the project. All errors and omissions remain theresponsibility of the authors. The working paper is an abridged version in whichdirect quotations have been removed. Comments on the paper should be directed tothe authors at the address above.

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1. Background to the project

The overall aim of the research project is to investigate the processes underlying theformation and status of local environmental policy making regimes in the UnitedKingdom. International and national policies, such as the UN Agenda 21 Programme,the EU’s Fifth Environmental Action Programme and the UK SustainableDevelopment Strategy, all stress the local scale as a key site for policy intervention.The new Labour administration has continued this local emphasis with sustainabledevelopment forming a key part of guidance and policy on Regional PlanningGuidance, the Regional Development Agencies and Community Strategies. Localadministrations have developed their own policies and strategies as a response tothese higher-level policy initiatives, but also from their own "bottom-up" perspective.While these initiatives see local authorities as the principal local agencies responsiblefor the delivery of environmental policies, this project is focusing on a much broaderrange of interests and groups. Specifically, we aim to discover whether localauthorities, local firms, government departments, pressure groups etc., have coalescedinto clearly recognisable environmental policy networks or what we term‘environmental policy regimes’. We are examining the different forms these regimestake in different localities in the UK, as well as their different approaches toenvironmental policymaking and the different ways in which concepts of theenvironment enter the local policymaking discourse.

We are particularly interested in analysing local environmental policy makingas a process involving different partners, networks and/or coalitions (i.e. potentiallydifferent ‘regimes’) and to find out why some policies and approaches are adopted insome localities and not others. This open-ended approach enables us to avoid theempiricist assumption that local environmental policies and policy making areuniform between and within localities. We see the environmental policy makingprocess as politically mediated and involving potentially conflicting economic andenvironmental interests and groups in each locality. Our intention is to discover thedifferent ways in which this conflict is managed by different policy making regimesin the case study localities. A key area of conflict within local environmental policymaking is the perceived need to integrate economic development and theenvironment. Policy documents often refer to the commonly used (though ill-defined)concept of sustainable development to stress the necessity of integrating these twopolicy areas. However, to date integration has largely occurred in the realm ofrhetoric, rather than reality. The limited knowledge in this field indicates that this is aparticularly problematic area for local policy makers. We would suggest that this isnot so much a failure of policy per se, but a failure to recognise that policydevelopment and implementation are essentially social and political processes. Theresearch addresses these issues by seeking answers to five key questions:

• Who are the major decision-makers influencing environmental policy at the localscale and how well are they integrated into the economic policy making process?

• At which points in existing governance structures do environmental policy makingnetworks and processes intersect with economic policy making at the local scale?

• Can relatively coherent ‘local environmental policy making regimes’ be identified?• What is the involvement of non-local actors in local environmental policy making?• What are the links between local, regional, national and international

environmental policy making?

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The answers to these questions necessitate empirical investigation, which we haveapproached through in-depth case studies of six local authority districts in the UK andinterviews at regional, national and international scales. In-depth study was conductedin six local authority areas located in three English regions. These local authorityareas (and the regions) are: Leeds City Council and North East Lincolnshire Council(Yorkshire and the Humber region), Manchester City Council and Lancaster CityCouncil (North West region) and "Greater Cambridge" and Waveney District Council(Eastern region). Each local authority area is the subject of a working paper devotedto that particular area - the current one deals with the City of Manchester. Thisworking paper is based on 26 face-to-face interviews (involving 28 interviewees)undertaken between October 1999 and October 2002, together with the interpretationof a wide range of background primary and secondary documents and local pressreports.

2. Area profile and context

The administrative City of Manchester is the core city of the Greater Manchesterconurbation in northwest England. As the de facto regional capital Manchester is theseat of much regional government, of significant concentrations of retail, commercial,office and higher education, the location of a great deal of transportationinfrastructure – including the UK’s largest provincial airport – and the home of a largenumber of cultural, media and sporting activities of regional and national significance.However Manchester is a city of significant contrasts and challenges. The economicsuccess of the city centre is in sharp contrast to surrounding communities which suffersome of the highest concentrations of crime, poor health and poor housing in thecountry (Giordano and Twomey, 2002; Hebbert and Deas, 2000)1.

The City of Manchester has a resident population of 430,000 as comparedwith a population for Greater Manchester as a whole of approximately 2.5 million.Covering just over 11,500 hectares Manchester is strikingly under-bounded, withalmost no suburban population, unlike the cities of Birmingham and Leeds2.Manchester’s boundaries run in a long narrow strip south from the City Centre of theconurbation to the Airport. This includes the football ground of Manchester City, butnot Manchester United, which is located in neighbouring Trafford. Manchester’sunderboundedness is a legacy of the 1972 local government reform, which placed thecore of the city within the broader context of a Greater Manchester MetropolitanCounty Council (GMC). Abolition of the GMC in 1986 did not just constrain theCity Council, but also effectively separated the core city from its affluent commuterbelt3. The advantages and problems of being a major regional centre with a relativelysmall domestic population base are an important contextual element in many aspectsof Manchester’s urban governance, including the interplay between economicdevelopment and environment in and around the City. 1 Manchester contains within its boundaries some of the most economically disadvantaged areas in theUK (Giordano and Twomey 2002). By the end of the 1990s 27 of the 33 wards were among the mosteconomically disadvantaged and at 9.1% the unemployment rate was twice the national average.2 Manchester is less than half the size of the Leeds metropolitan authority area.3 Manchester has an exceptionally weak tax base. By the end of the 1990s 94% of dwellings were inCouncil Tax value bands A-C and only 0.4% in band G-H. The City’s tax base is further eroded by aNational Non-Domestic Rate System that siphons property tax out of a relatively buoyant economy andgives back a depleted allocation based on a head count of the resident population (Hebbert and Deas,1999). One of the City Council’s key aims over the last decade has been to reverse the City’spopulation decline.

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There are inevitably strong links between Manchester and the widerconurbation. While aspects of sub- or city-regional governance have continued post-County Council through the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA),AGMA’s role in strategic management has tended to be limited to a series of discretepolicy areas, though this has recently started to change with the development of itspolicy unit and the preparation of a sub-regional strategy. Nevertheless the legacy ofthe County Council is reflected in the fact that the city-region is still the main scale ofintervention for strategic approaches to waste management, air quality and publictransport planning. Under the control of the Greater Manchester Passenger TransportAuthority (GMPTA) and Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive(GMPTE), Greater Manchester has become something of a centre of excellence inintegrated public transport and transport planning, not least in terms of the success ofthe Metrolink tram system that opened in 1992 and is currently being extended acrossthe conurbation. Since the late 1990s AGMA has supported a sub-regional tourismpromotion organisation, Marketing Manchester. AGMA is also active in wildlifeplanning, which operates through the Greater Manchester Biodiversity Action Plan(Audit Section (1990), Phase 1 and Phase 2 Habitat Surveys (1991), WoodlandManagement Plans (e.g. Blackley Forest) and the Greater Manchester WildlifeWorking Group. AGMA funds the Greater Manchester Ecology Unit. AGMA hastraditionally maintained a small secretariat with the day-to-day functions shared out toindividual authorities.

The concept of Manchester also stretches between city and sub-region.Following the City Pride initiative in the early 1990s, the core metropolitanauthorities (Manchester, Salford, Trafford and latterly Tameside and Stockport) haveundertaken a range of joint strategic initiatives under the City Pride Partnership(Manchester City Council, 1995). In the 1990s there was talk of enlarging the citybeyond its current administrative boundaries, but this is likely to be resisted by otherlocal authorities in Greater Manchester (see Robson, 2002). However ties within thecity-region appear stronger than the City Council’s initial relationship with regionalinstitutions such as the North West Development Agency (Deas and Ward, 2000),though here the situation appears to be changing rapidly. The regional context maybe particularly relevant for our study given the North West’s reputation for innovativeregional scale work on environment and sustainability issues during the 1990s (Whileet al, 1999). In terms of local political control, since 1984 the Labour Party hascontrolled Manchester City Council with a large majority. Opposition parties havebeen small, with the Conservative Party reduced to the point of virtual non-existenceand the Liberal Democrat share of the vote growing relatively slowly andconcentrated into particular areas of city.

Manchester as ‘entrepreneurial city’

Like most of the UK’s northern industrial cities, Manchester’s economy was hit hardby economic restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s. Over the following two decadesurban leaders were to make significant strides in repositioning Manchester as aninternational city of major commercial, cultural and creative repute. During the 1990sManchester’s local mode of governance became increasingly dominated by what hasbeen described as a particularly ‘high octane’ ‘entrepreneurial’ strategy designed tobuild a new national and international image as a post-industrial city (Robson, 2002;Williams, 2000). This has included bids to host the Olympic Games (unsuccessful)and the Commonwealth Games (successful), as well as a series of major development

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projects designed to revitalise the city centre and develop the City’s sporting,transport and cultural infrastructure. Hard hit by the underboundedness of its urbanjurisdiction, Manchester’s regeneration strategy also suggests an attempt to enhancethe local tax base by attracting middle class residents back into the city.

According to the City Council, Manchester is now one of the top 10 Europeancities for business location and in the world’s top 50 as a conference centre, while itscity centre has the highest rental levels of any regional centre in the country(Manchester City Council, 2002). Key economic strengths of the city include: aconcentration of established and emerging internationally competitive growth sectorssuch as financial and business services, cultural and creative industries, ICT-relatedindustries, life sciences and tourism; one of the largest University campuses in Europewith three major universities; its role as a major transport hub; a redeveloped citycentre following a major IRA bomb in 1996, with the expansion of commercial andretail sectors and a new era of city centre residential development; a distinctivenational and regional profile; and cultural, leisure and sporting flagship developments.In effect, Manchester has been transformed from an economy based on primary andmanufacturing industry to one increasingly based on services. The City’s urbanrenaissance is reflected in a growing tourist trade and a vast increase in city centreliving centred on converted warehouses along the City’s waterways4. While the citycentre has tended to dominate economic strategy, a long-term regeneration strategyhas targeted the ring of deprived communities across the inner-city area (Williams,2000).

3. The environment and economic development in the 1990s

It has been argued that by the early 1990s Manchester tended to lag behind certainother local authorities on sustainability issues: ‘indeed, it would not be unfair to saythat the position in 1993 was that a Conservative government was out-radicalling theLabour City Council on this issue, and that Manchester had been slow to respond to agrowing national momentum’ (Kitchen 1997, p.188). While there is a degree of truthin Kitchen’s argument, Manchester City Council seems to have been comparable withother metropolitan authorities in terms of environmental performance at that time.Moreover the situation was to change rapidly over the next few years as a range offactors combined to stimulate a range of actions around sustainability issues.

The main stimulus for change can be traced to the City Council’s successfulbid to be the host city for a Rio Summit progress-checking event following acommitment made by John Major, the then Prime Minister, at Rio in 1992. Withinsufficient time to prepare for the original date of September 1993 it was agreed tohold a government-driven event in Manchester in September, followed by the mainGlobal Forum event in June 1994. However when government funding was put intothe September event, Global Forum ’94 was scaled-down, and was almost cancelledon a number of occasions. Locally and nationally Global Forum was something of apublic relations disaster, attracting a series of negative news stories in both thenational and local press. While Global Forum did little for Manchester’s image, theevent – which attracted 1,500 visitors from over 60 different countries (Kitchen 1997,p.195) – was felt to have been a worthwhile exercise in its own right.

4 The number of city centre residents was expected to rise from just over 1000 in the mid-1990s to10,000 by 2000.

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One of the consequences of Global Forum was to open possibilities formembers and officers to pursue sustainability agendas One of the results was the‘Manchester 100’, which presented a series of initiatives clustered around elevenpolicy areas, and was documented as an input to Global Forum (Manchester CityCouncil 1994b, p.192). From Global Forum onwards progress on sustainability issueswas clearly not as quick as some had hoped. The environmental lobby inside andoutside the City Council was, however, sufficiently strong to prompt an acrimoniousdispute within the Council over air pollution/traffic pollution, which revolved aroundthe question of car flows into and out of the City Centre.

Planes, newts and automobiles: economy-environment conflicts in the 1990s

It has been argued that the future of post-industrial cities depends on their ability tobalance quality of life with the need for mobility and speedy transportation within themetropolitan area (Glaeser et al, 2001). Given Manchester’s dependence on in-commuting, ensuring easy access to the various city centre functions was (and is)crucial for the City Council’s growth strategy. Although the construction of theMetrolink light-rail system in the early 1990s had begun to encourage people to shiftfrom cars to public transport, the City Council still faced major problems in terms ofcar pollution. This began to surface as a political issue in the second half of 1994,when local monitoring work in Manchester City Centre showed that there was asignificant problem of air pollution concentration on certain days. The ManchesterEvening News subsequently published extracts from a government comparative studythat appeared to show that on some occasions the air quality figures for Manchesterwere worse than elsewhere. It also ran a campaign, on ‘Manchester as the mostpolluted city in Britain’. In the following elections a new party, Fresh Air Now(FAN), working in association with the Green Party put up candidates in 30 of the 33wards. However, FAN failed to generate widespread public interest – FAN received3.2% of votes in wards it contested and 3% of the city-wide vote (Kitchen 1997). Forthe remainder of the decade the City Council appeared to close ranks aroundeconomic development projects.

The conflict over air quality was followed by a similarly acrimoniouscampaign against proposals for a second runway at Manchester International Airport.For Manchester City Council, the airport – of which it is the major shareholder5 –represents a key economic asset, both in terms of the jobs and income it provides andstimulates, and the image it generates. The City Council were particularly aware ofthe role the Airport could play in attracting inward investment from internationalcompanies, as well as consolidating the existing base of professional firms6. Thedecision to build a second runway was designed to accommodate a forecast growth inpassengers from 10m in 1995 to 30m in 2005, making Manchester the UK’s secondbusiest airport. Coinciding with a range of high-profile national environmental 5 Up until 1974 Manchester Airport was a municipal enterprise, which became jointly owned byManchester City Council and the Greater Manchester County Council from 1974-1986. In 1986 theAirport became a private company jointly owned by all 10 of the Greater Manchester district councilsand managed by a board comprising representatives of those authorities and full-time executivedirectors. Manchester City Council kept 50% ownership with the rest divided between the10 districtcouncils thus giving MCC a 55% shareholding.6 Robson (2002) points to the string of companies attracted to the southern sector of the city leading tothe airport. This includes the high-profile Siemens (Fujitsu) building, which houses one of thecompany’s headquarters and a major training facility. There are currently plans for Fujitsu to relocatewithin the city.

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demonstrations, Manchester Airport’s new runway became a cause celebre forprotestors, who dragged out the public inquiry for 101 days and prepared for battlewhen government gave the go-ahead for the scheme in 1997. With environmentalactivists digging tunnels and occupying trees, the Airport attracted sustained nationalmedia interest, turning protestors like Swampy into minor celebrities. At the locallevel opposition was sustained through the efforts of a vocal protest group – theAltrincham-based Manchester Airport Environment Network - who essentially arguedthat the environment was being sacrificed for a ‘holiday airport’. In June 1997 thelast protestor was dug out after 408 hours in one of the tunnels. Tony Blairsubsequently opened the runway in February 2001.

For reasons that are still not clear to many of those involved, Manchester CityCouncil, and particularly its then leader Graham Stringer – also the then Chairman ofManchester Airport Authority - were drawn into an increasingly acrimonious publicconflict with the environmental protestors. For environmentalists this marked thecontinuation of an earlier conflict between the City Council and environmentalist overthe wildlife importance of a derelict site close to the University that had become hometo a colony of newts. The fall-out from the Airport issue led to further controversywhen the City Council rejected the Local Agenda 21 Forum’s draft strategy because itcalled for a tax on airline fuel. The LA21 Forum previously set up and supported bythe City Council was subsequently disbanded and later replaced by a new groupselected by the local authority (see below).

Although Manchester City Council emerged from the 1990s with something ofa poor reputation for environmental policy this image betrays a more complex pictureof environmental work within the city during the 1990s. As local political leaderspoint out, Manchester clearly faced a series of unique circumstances that shaped thepolitical debate in particular ways, not least in terms of the Airport expansion issue.Moreover, with little support from central government, the key political priority wasto consolidate the city’s economic future as a European regional centre. In anunderbounded city with severe problems of economic deprivation and dereliction, theruling Labour Group was reluctant to see its few competitive advantages underminedby what were perceived as unreasonable environmental demands. Indeed, physicaland economic renewal brought a series of benefits in terms of environment andsustainability. Although it was not initially promoted under the banner ofsustainability, the Manchester Metrolink was to become an example to UK cities interms of sustainable urban transport7. With a majority public shareholding,Manchester Airport has also been particularly active in developing strategies forsustainable development and environmental improvements in and around theAirport’s activities8. In other areas, attempts to develop environmentally-soundpolicies were restricted because of a lack of central government support (e.g. over busderegulation) or the reluctance of developers. The point is perhaps not thatManchester was any less ‘environmental’ than most UK local authorities, but that, forvarious reasons, elements of the environmental agenda had come to be seen assomething of a threat to the economic and physical renewal strategy, and this skewedpolitical debates and City Council discourses in particular ways.

7 By the late 1990s Metrolink had upwards of 14m passenger journeys per year, taking around 20% ofjourneys that would otherwise have been made by car.8 It might also be argued that as part of the North West region, many of Manchester’s key decision-makers were involved at some level in a range of innovative regional environmental plans andstrategies (see While et al, 1999).

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4. Greening the growth machine? New agendas for environmental governance

Our research was undertaken at a time when environment and sustainability issuesappeared to be rising up the local political agenda. By mid 2001 Manchester waspreparing its community strategy (with the final draft published in January 2002), theDeputy Leader was releasing a new Environmental Action Programme for the CityCouncil, changes in national regulation were forcing urban leaders to explore newways of tackling waste recycling and air quality issues, and the City’s LA21Partnership was putting the finishing touches to its LA21 strategy. There was also afeeling that ‘modernisation’ of the local political structure, and particularly theintroduction of scrutiny committees, would offer new opportunities for ensuring thatenvironmental issues were being progressed within the local authority. In addition,the Planning and Environment Department of the City Council was beingincorporated within the central Chief Executive’s Department, a move which wasvariously seen as strengthening strategic approaches to planning and the environment,or further eroding the independence of environment and planning officers. Withmajor redevelopment projects – including the Great Northern Initiative andMillennium Quarter in the city centre9 – continuing across the City, spin-off benefitshave included a £550m major expansion of the Metrolink, and a range of publictransport initiatives, including the introduction of Quality Bus Corridors andintegrated transport strategies for major developments as Greater Manchester cementsits reputation as a centre of excellence in integrated public transport and transportplanning (Howcroft, 2002)10. Capitalising on the City’s growth as a tourism andconference destination Manchester has taken a leading role amongst British cities inpromoting sustainable tourism11. Sustainability and environmental issues have also

9 The £150 million Great Northern Initiative is a partnership between the City Council, the North WestDevelopment Agency, the European Community and private sector developers to redevelop the areabetween G-MEX Centre and the Great Northern Warehouse for a new Convention Centre and 500,000sq ft of retail and leisure uses and a new civic square. The Millennium Quarter is a new sector in theheart of the City Centre around Manchester Cathedral. Its key elements will be: a new civic publicspace, a new visitor centre for the Cathedral, a new City Park, and the Urbis Centre, a £29m visitorattraction and cultural facility based on the experience of the modern city. Other major redevelopprojects currently underway include the redevelopment of the Northern Quarter and Southern Gatewayfor residential and retail uses, redevelopment of Piccadilly train station, and the major regenerationprogramme for East Manchester.10 The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive has obtained powers and funding for a majorextension of the Metrolink system, with three new lines to Oldham and Rochdale, east Manchester andAshton-under-Lyne and South Manchester, and Manchester Airport. Bidders for the projects are alsobeing asked to consider building further extensions to Trafford Park, East Didsbury and Stockport andthe Lowry Centre spur in Salford. The upgraded Metrolink network is expected to carry some 50million passengers annually, as well as provide new opportunities for jobs, leisure and shopping. TheGMPTE is also developing a forward-looking rail investment strategy to address problems in thecounty’s rail network, with the capacity in Manchester city centre a top priority, though these work willprobably not start within the ten-year time frame of the Strategic Rail Authority’s current strategic plan(see Howcroft 2002). In 2002 Railtrack completed a package of works to upgrade Manchester’sPiccadilly Station.11 Over the last decade tourism and hospitality has emerged as a key area of economic activity. By2001 the City was attracting 17 million visitors a year, with 4.5 million tourists staying overnight.Manchester has developed a particular niche in ‘independent’ sector tourism and city breaks.Marketing Manchester – the image promotion organisation for Greater Manchester – has been active indeveloping an initiative called sustainable tourism. This is essentially about working with hotels toraise awareness and promote best practice, with a particular view to a more environmentally awareconsumer (see Marketing Manchester, n.d). Marketing Manchester has worked closely Green Globe,

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been progressed through the City’s major regeneration schemes and various initiativesto clean up the city in preparation for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Thus there is evidence that while the boosterism of the 1990s is still strong,environmental issues are rising up the political agenda in Manchester as part of abroader based approach to economic regeneration in urban policy at local and nationallevels. The Leader’s annual address to the Council in May 2000, for instance,emphasises that although the Labour group has been committed to tackling poverty, itis only during the last few years that the City Council has had real support fromcentral government in this area. Significantly, perhaps, in a relatively short addressparticular emphasis is placed on the need ‘to make much more progress’ onenvironmental issues (though interestingly the term sustainable development is notused). Key priorities include more recycling and reducing car-use within the City,albeit all in the service of continued growth for the city centre:

We are already a leader in integrated transport … but it is still clear that wedon’t yet have a system that will get enough people out of their cars and ontopublic transport, and we need to make sure that we get more people eitherwalking or cycling or using public transport rather than cars. Coupled withthat we need to reduce journeys, and for those people who still think, rathermisguidedly, that it’s nicer to live in Knutsford than it is to live in city-centreManchester, we need to do far more in creating more housing types that wouldencourage those people to live in the City instead of commuting those longdistances that create pollution.12

The impact of government regulation is particularly marked in areas where centralgovernment has set targets for improved environmental performance by 2005, namelyair quality and waste management. Meeting these targets will require a range ofproactive initiatives from the City Council and other partner organisations (seebelow).

Although debates about environmental issues have begun to open up in theCity, the room for manoeuvre is still felt to be relatively limited. With pressingeconomic and social issues still to be tackled, and many areas of the City still in needof physical renewal, City Council officials point out that it would be unrealistic toexpect Manchester unilaterally to pursue a strong green approach. Compared witheconomic, social and health issues it is felt somewhat inevitable that environmentalconcerns should not be seen as the central priority. In general, discussion aboutenvironmental and sustainability issues in strategic documents is fairly rudimentaryand tends to be linked to the appearance of the built environment. As a result there isa feeling amongst environmental pressure groups that although the environment hasbecome part of decision-making in the city, in aspiration or approach sustainabilityissues are still not receiving sufficient attention.

For some environmental groups the general approach to environment andsustainability issues is demonstrated by Manchester’s draft Community Strategy(Manchester City Council, 2002a). This followed on from the Local Government Act2000, which expected each local authority ‘to promote economic, environmental andsocial well-being and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development’. the environmental standard for the hotel and tourism industry. Tourism and visitor activity is worth£530m per year to the city’s economy.12 Available on Manchester City Council’s website www.manchester.gov.uk/localdemocracy/speech/index.htm

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Published as a consultation draft in October 2001, and subsequently as a final draft inJanuary 2002 the City Council’s draft Community Strategy had seven proposedthemes: (1) Competing in the global economy (economic development); (2) Investingin children, families and young people (education); (3) Extending housing quality andchoice; (4) Making Manchester safer; (5) Tackling Health inequalities; (6) Creating amodern transport infrastructure; (7) Enhancing the cultural base and promotingdiversity (sport, the arts, and tourism). Environment and sustainability issues are notgiven their own chapter, but are listed as one of five cross-cutting themes togetherwith creating sustainable communities (tackling poverty), diversity (equalopportunities), young and older people and embracing the digital age. Although theStrategy recognises the ‘the need to work at both the strategic and more local level toimprove the quality of Manchester’s environment’, sustainability issues are tacked onto the end of Chapter 4, Extending Housing Quality and Choice. The only monitoringand evaluation indicators related to sustainability are air pollution (which would bemonitored anyway) and ‘peak hour journeys to the City Centre by means other thanthe private car’ (p.39). It is noticeable that the latter does not necessarily entail a shiftaway from car-use.

The structure of the Manchester Community Strategy has potentialimplications for the ways in which the Community Strategy will be taken forward.Although environmental issues are intended to influence all aspects of the Strategy,because working groups and action plans are being developed around the sevenproposed themes sustainability issues may lack the capacity-building and dedicatedfocus afforded to other economic and social issues. Responses to an earlierconsultation draft of the Community Strategy highlighted the limited focus onenvironmental issues (Manchester City Council, 2002b). Although the communitystrategy represents the first stage of a wider process of community planning, the speedwith which the Strategy was produced – in advance of the Local Strategic Partnership(LSP), which was launched in January 2002 – has tended to reinforce existing modesof representation, though the speed of preparation seems to have been dictated byrequirements for urban policy funding (especially access to Neighbourhood RenewalFund monies) rather than any deliberate aim to privilege some interests over others.Nevertheless, while the LSP brings together a representative group of keystakeholders, dedicated representation for environmental groups is noticeably absent.

The approach to the environmental component of the community strategyechoes some of the criticisms levelled at the City Council’s approach to Local Agenda21. Following the dissolution of the original LA21 Forum in the mid-1990s, thedecision was taken to create a new Partnership Group in 1998 to develop a new actionplan and initiate action. This time however the City Council retained control over theprocess by inviting representatives from major public and private organisations.Chaired by Eric Bichard from the National Centre for Business and Sustainability13,the Partnership Group brings together representatives from the public, private andvoluntary sectors, including United Utilities, GM Waste, various people from the CityCouncil, Manchester Airport, Tidy Britain Group, health authorities, Red Rose Forest,

13 The chairman of AMEC, the national development company that has been heavily involved in arange of development projects in Manchester, was initially approached for the chairman role. TheNational Centre for Business and Ecology (NCBS) is a partnership between the Co-operative Bank andthe four Greater Manchester Universities. The NCBS was originally set up in 1995 as the NationalCentre for Business and Ecology. It advises public and private sector clients on a wide variety ofsustainability issues, advocating environmental and social solutions for a sustainable future.

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Voluntary Action Manchester, Greater Manchester Bus Operators, Friends of theEarth (who withdrew from the process at an early stage) and others.

From the outset emphasis was placed on the need for an action-orientedapproach oriented towards tangible strategies; ‘getting things done as opposed towriting strategies’ (Minutes of first LA21 partnership group meeting, 14 July 1999).The City Council set the framework for the Partnership by developing a draft strategyand approach at the beginning of the process. Under the City Council’s control, thereformulated approach to LA21 shifted away from a city-wide focus to emphasiseaction led by each of the selected partner groups. Although the reformulatedPartnership Group brought together a range of influential public, private and thirdsector stakeholders, from the outset the feeling was that the potential for genuinepartnership input had been lost. The final Local Agenda 21 document was still inpreparation at the time of undertaking the research14. However interviews revealed apatchy commitment to the LA21 process and a general lack of enthusiasm for itsoutput. In the later stages of preparation many of the members of the LA21 groupacknowledged that the new strategy was unlikely to make much of an impact ondecision-making within the city, though again in this area Manchester’s experience isperhaps no different from most other UK local authorities.

Manchester’s Environmental Action Programme

As Manchester’s draft Community Strategy emphasises, one of the key currentchallenges is to find ways of ‘mainstreaming’ environmental policy. Acknowledgingsome of the past deficiencies in the City Council’s approach to environment andsustainability issues, in 2001 the Deputy Leader took the lead in developing a newEnvironmental Action Plan for the City Council. Here the main idea was to ensure aclear and consistent environment policy and strategy across the authority. Developedthrough a time-limited Members and Officers Environmental Panel and chaired by theDeputy Leader this new cross-cutting Plan is intended to provide a framework andfocus for the Council’s operational activities (the Community Strategy is seen as thebest place to develop strategic and partnership-based measures that address theeconomic, social and health aspects of the Council’s environmental agenda).

Although the purpose of the Environmental Panel was ostensibly to providestrategic direction for the Council’s environmental activities and partnerships, theEnvironmental Action Plan seems to be primarily concerned with the Best Valueprocess in terms of clarifying the Council’s roles and responsibilities and ensuringthat environmental issues are considered within service reviews15. The principalfocus of the Action Plan lies in ‘prioritising the Council’s actions to improve theappearance and quality of the physical environment’ (emphasis added). As such ispurpose is ‘to give practical expression to the Council’s future plans and actions onenvironmental issues and to deliver tangible improvements for residents and other 14 Although it was published in mid-2001 Manchester’s LA21 statement has not yet been madeavailable on the City Council’s website.15 Best Value regulations require that all City Council services be fundamentally reviewed on a 5-yearcycle. The Best Value regime also requires that all service reviews reflect the principles of sustainabledevelopment. To help ensure that this is translated into action the Panel developed new ‘guidance’ foruse in Council’s Best Value Service Review Teams. The guidance requires that specific environmentalimprovements of services be considered and actions put in place to achieve improvements. Withineach Review Team it is also proposed that a designated officer would have responsibility for ensuringthat environmental considerations are addressed as part of the review. It is expected that theseinitiatives will embed environmental issues within the Council’s service improvement process.

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service users at the neighbourhood level’. It is anticipated that the Plan will notrequire additional capital or revenue resources, though this may need to be reviewedin the future as some of the actions may require additional funding16.

The Environmental Action Plan is grouped around key priority areas forfurther improvements in mainstream service delivery, namely: neighbourhoodmanagement services (waste collection and street cleansing, dog fouling, tipping,flyposting and graffiti, noise nuisance and housing condition and appearance); parksand open spaces; the quality of the built environment (regenerating brownfield sitesand contaminated land and improving streets, roads and waterways); wildlife,woodlands and habitat conservation; air quality; waste minimisation, reduction andrecycling; energy efficiency and conservation; environmentally friendly materials.For each priority area the Plan identifies the Council’s power and responsibilities, keyactions and timescales, roles and responsibilities of other agencies and partners, andperformance indicators and key targets.

Some of the more innovative policies include Green Travel Plans (as specifiedin the GM Local Transport Plan for 2001/2-2005/6), the appointment of a new travelco-ordinator (again a requirement of the Transport Plan), a wildlife partnershipworking group, and plans to fit all new Council HGVs with low emission Euro 2 fuelas part of Manchester’s commitment to the Florence Declaration (1999), whichcommits signatory local authorities to replace their vehicle felt with clean and/or lowemission vehicles. In general ‘new’ policies arising from the EAP are commitmentsto existing plans and policies. While the approach to sustainability issues is notparticularly radical, the EAP is nevertheless felt to be a significant step forward interms of the City Council’s environmental agenda. One of the key principles of theEAP is to introduce performance monitoring linked to an annual environment report.The EAP was subsequently mentioned in the Audit Commission’s praise forManchester City Council’s approach to environmental sustainability (Manchester CityCouncil press release, 2002). Particular strengths include the Council’s record forconsultation with its communities and responsiveness to local concerns aboutenvironmental clean-up.

5. National target setting and the changing politics of air quality and wastein Manchester

As outlined above, during the mid-1990s air quality/pollution emerged ascontroversial local political issue in Manchester, centred on the issue of car-use and achallenge to the City Council’s economic development aspirations. Outside Londonthe politicisation of air quality issues tends to be fairly unusual in a UK context, notleast because technical air quality data have been difficult for non-experts to interpret(Bickerstaff and Walker, 1999; Rydin, 1998). In recent years a new national regimeof Air Quality Management has begun to push issues of air pollution more firmly intothe local political arena (see Beattie and Longhurst, 2000). Following on from the1995 Environment Act, the National Air Quality Strategy (1997) set out objectives for

16 In terms of funding support, the Deputy Leader has been active in developing the CAS:H grantsscheme for practical community-based projects. Drawing on EU and City Council funding £2m isavailable for bids from community groups. Emphasis is placed on physical improvements and schemesthat address crime and disorder priorities.

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8 pollutants, seven of which are the responsibility of local authorities and had to beachieved by 200517.

As Beattie and Longhurst (2000) point out, the new regime requires a multi-disciplinary approach, moving away from the technical functions of EnvironmentalHealth Departments that have traditionally been responsible for aspects of industrialpollution control, and involving concerted action in land-use planning, transport andeconomic development. Effective air quality management will also require localauthorities to work more closely with the public in changing behaviour (Rydin, 1998).The New Objectives in Air Quality (England) Regulations (2000) set out the processthrough which each of the objectives are to be achieved in terms of each localauthority undertaking a comprehensive 3-stage review and assessment of air quality inits area. On completion of the third stage, local authorities are required to designateAir Quality Management Areas and written action plans for areas where theobjectives will not be met by 2005. These will set out how they will attempt toachieve Air Quality standards and objectives in the designated area. In Autumn 2001central government announced its intention to raise efforts beyond the 2005 targetsand commit the UK to revised 2010 targets (Reeds, 2001).

Following the campaigns of the 1990s, air quality simmered as a local politicalissue in Manchester. A transport task force was formed by the City Council andprogress continued on integrated transport strategies and measures to reduce buspollution. The main strategic response came from the Association of GreaterManchester Authorities, which produced a Greater Manchester Air Quality Strategy(‘Clearing the Air’, December 2000) and is currently working on an Action Plan thatwill include on ongoing package of measures including awareness raising andeducation, new technology and improved public transport18. However it has alsobecome clear that as the main focus for air pollution, Manchester City Council willhave to take the lead in developing additional measures for the city. As a result, inOctober 1999 the Physical Environment Scrutiny Committee launched a majorindependent review and assessment of man-made air pollution and air qualitythroughout the City19, which included an Inquiry that was advertised and invitedresidents and stakeholders to have their say. The subsequent report, published in June2000, demonstrated that by the target year of 2005 Manchester was likely to complywith desired levels of 5 of the 7 pollutants named in the Government’s Air Qualitystrategy, with action required in respect of oxides of nitrogen and particulates incertain areas at certain times. The review identified exhaust fumes from car journeysas the main impact, but recognised that the issue would have broad implications forManchester’s economy and thus require action at a regional or national level. Thiswider perspective is emphasised by Manchester City Council’s members and officers,who point out that as an underbounded regional centre Manchester has adisproportionate share of traffic flows and ‘free riders’.

There is also a concern that unilateral restrictions on car use within the Citywould favour neighbouring boroughs; and here there is a particular concern about 17 The seven pollutants are Benzene, 1,3-butadiene, carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide,particulate matter (PM10) and sulphur dioxide. Ozone is not included in the local targets because of itslong-range transport.18 The sub-regional approach to air quality is co-ordinated by the Manchester Area Pollution AdvisoryCouncil, which was formed in 1974. Membership is drawn from the councils in and around GreaterManchester and the aim of the Air Quality Working Group is to provide a uniform approach to airquality management throughout the Manchester area.19 The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology carried out the review andassessment.

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Trafford Park, a major regional out-of-town shopping and leisure centrecontroversially sanctioned by the Conservative government in the mid-1990s andsituated a few miles west of Manchester City Centre under the jurisdiction of TraffordMetropolitan Borough Council. Crucially, the Trafford Centre, which was built onland under the control of one of the Thatcher government’s Urban DevelopmentCorporations, offers free parking and easy access from the conurbation's motorwaynetwork. As a result there is a feeling that with air quality Manchester is being askedto ‘pick up the pieces’ of central government policy20:

Given this context, Manchester City Council has consistently pushed for a co-ordinated sub-regional approach, with the Air Quality Management Action Areabeing designated at AGMA level. While such an approach would make sense givenAGMA’s previous leading role in developing the Greater Manchester Air QualityStrategy (‘Clearing the Air’, December 2000) and the fact that the Local TransportStrategy is developed at Greater Manchester scale, some of the other GreaterManchester authorities have been reluctant to take joint responsibility for some ofManchester’s problems. With central government also reluctant to enforce a sub-regional approach Manchester has had to develop its own separate action plan, albeitin conjunction with the other GM authorities. Interestingly, although Manchester CityCouncil sought to lobby both AGMA and central government, it does not seem tohave sought to mobilise a wider coalition to represent the City’s interests.

The implications of this still have to be resolved, particularly in terms of howdemanding central government will be in terms of action. The City Council hasalready been active in a range of measures to improve air quality, including a greaterinvolvement with Red Rose Forest in strategies for tree planting, moves to improvepublic transport (including setting up a Bus Quality Partnership with the PassengerTransport Authority and bus operators), new bus priority areas, plans for a walkingand cycling strategy, and completion of the Manchester/Salford Inner Relief Road. Atthe same time, however, the City Council has been reluctant to discourage carjourneys, which are seen as essential for the servicing of the City Centre. One of thekey actions in the transport section of the Community Strategy (Manchester CityCouncil, 2002) is to improve car park facilities within the city centre, a move that isclaimed to have involved an increase in new car park development.

As the retrofitting of the city continues, repopulation of the city centre and theMetrolink extension may hold the key to reconciling the need for accessibility withimproved air quality in Manchester. Certainly the Metrolink extension offerssignificant new opportunities in terms of integrated land-use and transport planning.At the same time, there is evidence that the new breed of city centre residents arebecoming increasingly active in campaigning on quality of life factors like openspace, noise and air quality, and that access to public transport has been a key factorin the location (and relocation) decisions of companies in Manchester. In mid 2001the Manchester Evening News reported that the City Centre building boom waspushing pollution to an all-time high and that a Friends of the Earth survey has foundthat the North West is the most polluted region in England (Manchester EveningNews, 2001a). The new politics of air quality management in Manchester may onlyjust have begun.

20 Rydin (1998, p.1442) points out that air quality policy has traditionally been ‘marked by an attemptby the state to resist pressures to act, to withdraw responsibility and turn away form the impossibleproblems without losing face’.

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The new politics of waste in Manchester

Like most metropolitan authorities Manchester City Council has not tended to beparticularly active in waste reduction and recycling. This partly reflects thedifficulties in organising kerbside collections in metropolitan areas, but also seems toreflect a lack of commitment on the part of both the City Council and the organisationresponsible for waste services, Greater Manchester Waste Ltd. (the company ownedby Greater Manchester Authorities). It has been argued that the sub-regionalframework for waste management has tended to offer few incentives for Manchesterto prioritise active recycling or reduction policies because waste charges are sharedbetween authorities on a per capita rather than per tonnage basis (Interview). HereManchester’s underboundedness has tended to benefit the city and impose additionalcosts on the other GM authorities, many of which have been more active in recyclingstrategies. Despite continued pressure from community-based projects andenvironmental campaigners, kerbside collections have tended not to be integratedwithin the City’s waste collection strategy.

At the end of December 2000 Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority’sconsultation on a new sub-regional Joint Recycling Plan (Tameside MBC, 2000)showed little evidence of plans radically to change waste management methods inGreater Manchester. However the growing pressure on local authorities to meetnational waste reduction targets is placing increasing strain on Greater ManchesterWaste Ltd, not least by encouraging some of the other authorities to consider thebenefits of developing alternative arrangements21. During 2001 this pressureincreased following a failed experiment by Greater Manchester Waste to reduce thewaste going to landfill by removing some of the organic waste from the mixed wastestream to produce a ‘soil conditioner’ to spread on landfill sites and classified asrecycling. Having accepted this technique, the Environment Agency wassubsequently forced to classify Soilformer as waste following complaints aboutunpleasant litter and odours in East Anglia. Aside from GM Waste’s (and thus GMauthority taxpayers) investment in the new process22, soilformer was expected to meetaround 10% of the recycling target. With recycling performance on glass and paperfairly poor, Greater Manchester Waste and the constituent local authorities will haveto move quickly to consider other options. The worry for local councillors is that, asin other localities, a failure to meet the targets by other means will necessitate newincinerator development, a politically unpalatable option that is guaranteed to provokemajor local opposition.

In Manchester there is strong Council commitment to sustaining GreaterManchester Waste, not least because of trade union links and the City Council’sreluctance to contract services out to the private sector. In 2001 the City Councilentered into a joint venture with GM Waste. The new company, ManchesterCollections Ltd is intended to bring more flexibility for the expansion of publicrecycling facilities and kerbside paper collections. The contract is worth £25m oversix years and the company is required to achieve the government’s targets. The visionis that Greater Manchester Waste Ltd will become a leader in its field in terms ofrecycling and composting. By the end of 2001 this was already beginning to open

21 The statutory target for reductions in waste going to landfill is 25% by 2005. Greater Manchesterhas been given lower statutory targets of 10% by 2003 and 18% by 2005. The aspiration in theGMWDA plan is 14.7% by 2003 and 21.7% by 2005.22 This was estimated at £6m in interviews.

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alternative possibilities for waste management in the city, with plans for a consortiumto engage and stimulate community-based approaches.

6. Searching for the green voice: environmental leadership in Manchester

One of the interesting aspects of local environmental policy-making in Manchester isthat despite being able to draw on a large body of environmental expertise in andaround the city, this has not tended to coalesce into political influence within oroutside the City Council. Despite a large number of committed environmentalistsliving or working in the City, the City of Manchester tends to lack the concerted greenlobby that we have seen in places like Lancaster or Leeds. Since the mid-1990sleading members and officers of the City Council have not tended to push a strongline on the environment, though there are signs that this is changing with the DeputyLeader’s work on the Council’s Environmental Action Programme and one or tworecognised environmental champions beginning to climb up the Council hierarchy.Greater Manchester does have a long-standing SERA group23, which has at timesbeen influential in linking local politicians and environmental activists but hasdeclined in influence since the late 1990s.

There is also evidence of environmental champions within the local businesscommunity, including the Co-operative Bank, Manchester Airport, and the NationalCentre for Business and Sustainability, whose director chaired the second stage ofManchester’s Local Agenda 21 process. Companies like Manchester Airport and theNCBS have been active in pushing green initiatives through the local Chamber ofCommerce. However formal business involvement in environmental policy at theurban scale has tended to be fairly weak and where companies have been prepared toget involved they have not tended to be able to exert influence in urban governance.There are a number of reasons why this may be the case, including general difficultiesin engaging business in strategic environmental work and the absence of formalpartnership opportunities around strategic governance in Manchester. At the sametime, for the larger ‘regional’ companies like the Co-operative Bank, the regionallevel emerged in the 1990s as the main arena for progressing sustainability issuesthrough the North West Business Leadership Team, North West Partnerhsip andSustainability North West (While et al, 1999).

Outwith the business community there are a large number of people living orworking in Manchester who have demonstrated considerable knowledge, expertiseand commitment in sustainability and environment issues, not least in terms ofacademic staff within the City’s three universities (see for example Ravetz, 2000).The Universities also bring a large student body into the city, and this seems to havebeen the focus for a wide range of local environmental campaigning during the 1990s.However after a strong recent history of local environmental activism in the 1990s(which included the Airport protest and Reclaim the Streets demonstrations) publiccampaigning on environmental issues has tended to decline.

Our research revealed a strong core of committed community activists whohave continued to campaign on a range of issues and developing innovativeenvironmental demonstration projects. One example is the small group that formed

23 The Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA) is the environment campaignaffiliated to the Labour Party, yet is an independent think tank and green pressure group. SERA worksto bring green ideas to the Labour Party by organising events, publishing reports and briefings andrunning membership campaigns. It is primarily focused on MPs but also some active regional groups,namely West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Enfield, Norwich and Norfolk, Sussex, Glasgow, Bristol.

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the Manchester Environment Resource Centre Initiative (MERCi) in 1997 afterseveral years of local environmental activism. MERCi is based in an old cotton millon the banks of the Ashton canal close to central Manchester that was bought andrenovated by the group as a Centre for Sustainable Living. MERCi’s aim is to workwith local people and organisations to address social exclusion and reflect on what itwould take to make Manchester a sustainable city. It also acts as a green businesscentre for up and coming social enterprises. MERCi, which is part of the Network ofCentres for Change (this includes the Centre for Alternative Technology atMachynlleth, South Wales), has become the acceptable face of environmentalactivism for Manchester City Council. The City Council provides some financialsupport for MERCi and directly funds the Manchester Environmental EducationNetwork co-ordinator based in MERCi’s building.

Historically Friends of the Earth have played a similar role in campaigning onnatural environment issues, being particularly effective in raising issues through thelocal media during the 1990s. Although a core FoE group remains active within thecity compared with the1990s, by 2001 it appeared to be in a fairly weak state. As onecouncillor pointed out, the quality of environmental debate in the city has suffered asa result. Nevertheless FoE remains a visible presence in the City through its regularnewsletter and its direct campaigning on issues such as air quality and recycling. Onething that has happened in Manchester is that the energy of some of the campaigninggroups in the 1990s has been channelled into tangible projects. At the same time, thelocal political environment and the limited scope for developing an environmentalprofile have undoubtedly disillusioned those with an interest in environment andsustainability issues. While Manchester has networks of committed individuals andpressure groups – including the Manchester Wildlife Group, the ManchesterUniversity Green Group, a Green Party that has begun to contest seats in certainwards in national and local elections24 and a number of amenity groups – that oftenhave close links with one another, these diverse groups have tended not to coalescearound a common environmental agenda.

7. Retrofitting the city: regeneration and the urban environment

Manchester’s renewal has entailed significant physical redevelopment of the CityCentre and inner city. This includes massive growth in city centre living, theMetrolink rapid transit link, the City of Manchester Stadium and other new nationalsports facilities for the Commonwealth Games, and the rebuilding of the city centrefollowing an IRA bomb in 1996. Whilst much has already been done to renew theCity Centre, a number of major projects are still underway, including a £10minvestment in Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of the centre, and development plans forthe radical restructuring of areas on the edge of the City Centre.

From the early 1990s onward Manchester has been the focus for a series ofmajor strategic regeneration programmes that have formed a necklace around the citycentre (see Williams 2000 for overview). These have included Hulme CityChallenge, Hulme URBAN, the Central Manchester Development Corporation area,the rebuilding of the bomb damaged city centre by Manchester Millennium Limited,and a variety of emerging initiatives co-ordinated by the New East Manchesterregeneration company. Manchester has been particularly effective in levering-in 24 The Green Party’s Vanessa Hall polled 1,018 votes in the general election (3.9% of the vote). In the2002 local elections the Green Party polled 359 compared with 506 for the successful Labour Partycandidate in the Hulme constituency.

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private sector investments through regeneration partnerships. City leaders have alsobeen renowned for developing a distinctive mechanism for the delivery ofregeneration. The Manchester ‘model’ is based on a delivery body with a semi-autonomous arm’s length-relationship to the local authority, serviced through a teamof officers seconded from Council departments, the private sector and otherorganisations (Robson, 2002). The company owns no assets but engages with keyplayers from relevant agencies that can deliver aspects of the regenerationprogramme. The benefits of this arrangement lie partly in projecting a commercialethos, but it also speeds up the decision-making process.

The Manchester ‘model’ can currently be seen in East Manchester. Launchedin October 1999 East Manchester was one of three pilot Urban RegenerationCompanies (URCs) set up by central government and focuses on an area that wasonce the main focus for engineering in the city and thus suffered the largest job loss inthe city during the 1970s and 1980s. The New East Manchester Company – a jointventure between the City Council, North West Development Agency and EnglishPartnerships – is intended to build on a range of existing activity in the area includingSRB schemes, a Health Action Zone, New Deal for Communities, and theSportscity/Sports Action Zone development associated with the 2002 CommonwealthGames. The NEMC aims to bring £1.5-2 billion of investment over the next decade(£570m from the public sector). This will include 12,500 new properties,improvements to a further 7,000 properties, significant environmental improvementsand major new industrial and infrastructure development (New East Manchester Ltd,2001).

Aside from airport expansion in the 1990s, physical redevelopment has nottended to generate significant ecological conflicts in Manchester. While there hasclearly been large-scale development across the City, much of the developmentactivity has focused on brownfield sites either in the city centre or in regenerationareas25, meaning that the main conflicts have been played out in terms of heritage anddesign of the built environment (Williams, 2002). Development tensions have tendedto arise from the pressure that growth has placed on open spaces in the moreprosperous southern suburbs, where there are well-organised local resident groups.

The other side of redevelopment is that it can provide new opportunities interms of retrofitting the city to meet environment or sustainability objectives, forinstance through the design and layout of buildings and new infrastructure, or theremediation of industrial land. There is also potential for environmental activity to belinked more centrally with the economic and social goals of regenerationprogrammes. However while regeneration programmes have led to strikingimprovements in the physical environment, and while projects like Metrolink haveclearly brought sustainability benefits in terms of reduced car journeys into and out ofthe city, there is a feeling amongst regeneration professionals that more could havebeen achieved in terms of contributing to environmental sustainability. This isattributed partly to the attitudes of urban leaders at the time and the push to ensurethat redevelopment happens as quickly as possible, especially in the case of the citycentre; but it also reflects the restrictions of national regeneration programmes at thetime. As such, regeneration professionals in Manchester point to the ways in whichtheir approach has changed as lessons have been learned about the impact of earlierregeneration programmes.

25 The draft Regional Planning Guidance for the North West set a target for 85% of new developmenton brownfield sites in Manchester, compared with a national target of 60%.

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In this context the New East Manchester initiative is felt to go beyondprevious regeneration schemes in terms of opening up possibilities for linking theeconomic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability (Interviews). Part ofthis is due to the scale of the New East Manchester project (which includes anEducation Action Zone, New Deal for Communities programme), but it also reflectsincreased Government emphasis on ‘joined up’ thinking. Clearly the physical changeapproach still dominates in terms of plans to re-populate the area, but plans for NewEast Manchester include ambitious recycling programmes, a proposed green businesspark and resident involvement in environmental improvement (though cf MERCi,2000)26. In this sense a proactive approach to environment and sustainability issues isfelt not only to offer particular employment and skills development opportunities forlocal people, but also to give competitive advantage in terms of attracting residentsand companies to invest in the area.

One of the particular successes of Manchester’s regeneration experience lies inthe development of Groundwork Manchester, which is part of a national federation ofenvironmental regeneration charities27. Originating from a meeting between the CityCouncil and local business (including the Co-op Bank, CIBA, ICL (Fujitsu),Kelloggs) Groundwork Manchester was formed in the early 1990s to help supportregeneration work in Moss Side and east Manchester. Since then it hascomplemented the city’s evolving regeneration agenda by developing and deliveringin partnership with other agencies sustainable programmes of environmental activityin areas of need. This includes physical environmental improvement, education,community involvement, training and employment (including Intermediate LabourMarkets), support for community-led enterprises, and improving environmentalperformance for business. With an income of over £4m in 2000/1 (GroundworkManchester, 2001)28, Groundwork Manchester is now a major asset for the city interms of ensuring a holistic approach to environmental activity, and this was recentlyrecognised at national level when its Community Environment Programme receivedan Award for Best Practice in Regeneration from the British Urban RegenerationAssociation (BURA). The Community Environment Programme is supported by theNew Deal for Communities programme.

Elsewhere in the City two developments currently underway also suggest newpossibilities in terms of linking physical change and environmental sustainability.One scheme already underway is the £130m Mackintosh Village mixed-usedevelopment scheme by the developers Taylor Woodrow. Due to be completed in2005, and designed by Terry Farrell, this flagship scheme is part of a comprehensiveredevelopment of the Southern Gateway to the city centre. The Mackintosh Villageitself will provide nearly 50,000 sq m of apartments and 3,000 sq m of commercialspace along with parks, shops, a children’s nursery, shops and other amenities. Asone of the largest single city centre regeneration schemes in the country the

26 There are also plans to create a ‘green business park’ in Wythenshawe, South Manchester, as part ofthe regional ENWORKS programme administered by Groundwork North West.27 Groundwork seeks to use the environment as a means of engaging and motivating local people toimprove the quality of their life. Working in partnership with local people, local authorities andbusiness Groundwork’s purpose is ‘to build sustainable communities through joint environmentalaction’. Programmes of activity focus on six areas: communities, land, employment, business, youthand education.28 Resources secured include £900,000 from the European Regional Development Fund, the 5-year2.4m lottery funded ‘changing places’ programme, almost £1m per year through the city’s regenerationinitiatives, over £1m a year for New Deal 18-24 intermediate labour market activity and support fromthe private sector (Groundwork Manchester, 2001).

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Mackintosh village is based around a converted mill complex. Our interest, however,lies in fact that alongside two 21-storey residential towers, a third block of flats – the‘green building’, which incorporates a windmill on the top and solar panels to harnesswind and solar power - is expected to be one of the most advanced ecologicalresidential developments in Britain and a benchmark for low energy design (PeterHetherington, The Guardian, Feb 20 2000). For Taylor Woodrow, which has alsoworked on the Millennium Village in Greenwich, this brings immediate rewards interms of marketing the new development scheme, but it also distinguishes theMackintosh from other city centre residential schemes both in terms of its image andthe possibility for reduced service costs for residents.

Meanwhile on the eastern side of the city centre, proposals for the NewIslington Millennium Community sketch out a ‘utopian vision’ of a mixed tenure,energy efficient urban village for the rundown Cardroom estate (Urban Splash et al,2002). Spearheaded by Urban Splash, New Islington is one of seven areas selectedfor the Government’s Millennium Communities Initiative29, and partners includeAlsop Architects, English Partnerships, Manchester City Council, New EastManchester Company and Manchester Methodist Housing Group. Based onconsultation with existing residents, initial plans include cafes, gardens, open spaces,shops, offices, studio spaces, a wildlife haven, a ‘poncey wine bar’, ‘a restaurant withthree Michelin stars’, an angling beach and cutting edge architecture, all groupedaround recreated canals Urban Splash et al, 2002). Again, what is interesting fromour perspective are the ways in which the Millennium Communities ideal hasprovided new opportunities in terms of sustainable development. In this sensesustainability not only includes mixed-use and mixed-tenure, but extends to allaspects of the design and operation of the new development. It is envisaged, forinstance, that on-site boreholes will provide drinking water, while energy will beprovided by a series of combined heat and power plants. An on-site treatment plantwill treat sewage, while household waste will be separated at source. In terms ofaccess the development will include a station on the Metrolink extension. Here theprinciples are (1) that residents should not have to make a conscious attempt to reduceenergy and consumption, but that the building and service infrastructure should do itfor them; (2) that the developer should be part of the energy supply chain in order tojustify long-term gains from the additional capital cost of energy efficient buildings;(3) that being good to the planet should cost residents less not more. Being part of theMillennium Communities programme has clearly helped stimulate a challengingapproach to sustainability and urban design. Nevertheless New Islington is acommercial venture that has to make a profit. As such it is intended to show that bymaking more money from less and making it cheaper to be green, sustainability givesthe developer ‘market advantages as well as being kinder on the environment’ (UrbanSplash, 2002).

While the Mackintosh and New Islington schemes are only a small part of theredevelopment currently underway in Manchester, they mark a growing feeling that‘sustainability’ is becoming increasingly important in offering competitive advantagefor new development, not only at the level of the individual projects, but also for thecity as a whole. New Islington for example is underpinned by a conscious attempt to

29 The Millennium Communities Programme was initiated in 1997 with the launch of the developmentcompetition for Greenwich Millennium Village. A range of different sites have been chosen todemonstrate that energy efficient, environmentally responsible development is achievable regardless ofgeographic location. Each Millennium Community project will need to meet environmentalperformance standards for its dwellings that are more exacting than current building regulations.

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outdo the first Millennium Community in Greenwich. The shift to sustainabilitychimes with moves to stabilise the existing city centre by increasing its appeal tofamilies with children, particularly in terms of active planning around issues such assafety, schools and shops. These initiatives are likely to be crucial not just in terms ofstabilising the city’s urban renaissance, but also ensuring that city centreredevelopment helps move the city forward in terms of environmental sustainability.

8. Conclusions

During the 1990s Manchester City Council received bad press locally and nationallyfor its approach to local environmental policy. However this seems to haveoverplayed the conflict between environment and growth in the city. While urbanleaders have been aggressive in attracting investment and development Manchesterhas had to contend with a series of particular challenges that have clearly influencedeconomy-environment relations. These include the city’s weak local tax base, thedesperate fight to secure the city’s economic future, the scale of rebuilding workrequired in the city centre and suburbs, the unequal burden of air pollution in theconurbation, and the tensions surrounding the expansion of Manchester Airport.

At the same time, some of the City’s high-profile environmental conflicts havetended to obscure innovative approaches, particularly in terms of local transportstrategies. In many respects, Manchester’s future is coming to rely increasingly onenvironment and sustainability initiatives in order not only to secure competitiveadvantage in terms of the ‘quality of life’ offered by the city, but also in terms ofmaintaining accessibility in and around the city. Policy-makers in Manchester (andother authorities in the region) have also used environment and sustainabilityarguments to question the North West Regional Development Agency’s plans for a‘southern crescent’, and to make the case for regional planning strategies thatconcentrate development in existing urban areas30. It would appear that having gonesome way to securing the city’s economic role for Manchester’s movers and shakersthe future is green.

As Manchester moves from ‘high-octane entrepreneurialism’ to somethingresembling ‘steady-state growth management’ one of the key messages to emergefrom our case-study is the key role of national urban policy in setting the frameworkfor local environmental governance in the UK. During the 1990s economy-environment tensions mapped out in this case-study report can be traced in part to anational regulatory framework that took on the discourse of sustainable development,but at the same time left cities like Manchester with little option but to pursue a‘growth first’ agenda. Over the last few years there is evidence that Manchester’sleaders have sought to create a more overt strategic framework for environmentalpolicy-making. While this may reflect local changes in leadership or new challenges

30 While the North West Development Agency’s Regional Economic Strategy gives priority toregenerating the region’s urban areas, it also included a controversial proposal for development in the‘southern crescent’; an area viewed as having high growth potential in North Cheshire to the south ofthe Mersey Belt conurbations. Many of those associated with the subsequent Regional PlanningGuidance process (in North Cheshire as well as the conurbation areas) felt that the ‘southern crescent’sat uneasily with the emphasis elsewhere on urban renaissance and the proposal was dropped after itwas contested at the public examination (Counsell and Haughton, 2002). Prepared by the regionalchamber, North West’s Regional Planning Guidance includes an innovative core strategy based onmaintaining and enhancing ‘quality of life’ capital. This was upheld at public inquiry despite strongcriticism from the pro-development lobby and the Government Office for the North West.

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facing the City, new central government targets for environmental performance, airquality management and waste reduction are also having an impact.

Finally, the Manchester case-study demonstrates is that we should be wary ofeliding the discourse and practice of local environmental policy-making. Whilefurther analysis would be required to reach a definitive judgement, for all thedifferences in attitude to the environment there does not appear to be a radicaldifference in local environmental performance between Manchester and other similarcities. Certainly while Manchester received criticism for its car-friendly policies,similar accusations could be levelled at Leeds (another of our case-study localities),not least in terms of commuters’ impact on inner city residents. The differencebetween the two cities during the 1990s seems to lie not so much in actions on theground, but in the attitude of urban leaders to the environment. WhereasManchester’s key decision-makers have been reluctant to make extravagant claimsabout environmental policy, in Leeds, a more open attitude to environment hasallowed city leaders to incorporate – and at times perhaps, to co-opt – environmentaland sustainability agendas within the dominant growth agenda. The point here is notnecessarily that Leeds has performed better, but that it has undoubtedly presented abetter image within and outside the city in terms of environment and sustainability.This shared understanding may have facilitated changes that would not havehappened in somewhere like Manchester but the difference is marked at the edgesrather than the core of local strategies.

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