Have your say on the future of the local environment

Bury residents are invited to a Love Your Environment listening event which will feed into a ‘green’ masterplan for Greater Manchester.

The event is held on Wednesday 14 February (6pm to 7.30pm) in the Peel Room at Bury Town Hall. The workshop will feature a presentation and group discussions. To book your place, register at http://bit.ly/2EvRnXN

This listening event is one of many taking place across the conurbation where people can discuss, debate and share ideas about what they want from a green, carbon neutral city region and what they think needs to happen to achieve this.

The meetings lead up to a Green Summit being held by Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor, on 21 March. Held in Manchester, it will help establish a new bold target to become a zero carbon city and draw up an Environment Charter.

Councillor Alan Quinn, Bury Council’s cabinet member for the environment, said: “Our environment affects us all, and future generations will never forgive us if we don’t take action now to protect and improve it. I would urge Bury residents to come to the local listening event and take part in the mayor’s initiative.”

You can also get involved by completing the online survey https://pollev.com/GreenSummit and have your say on social media to ensure that a broad range of residents and community groups have a voice. Tweet @GMLowcarbonhub #GMGreenCity

Cllr Quinn added: “We’ve been undertaking a number of initiatives in Bury to improve our environment, as well as working across Greater Manchester to reduce levels of air pollution, especially nitrogen dioxide.

“We’ve been lobbying the Government to give Bury the money needed to implement the Radcliffe and Redvales flood defences; investing in our Green Flag parks; banned fracking on council-owned land; and banned the release of Chinese lanterns on our land.

“We’ve also, with our residents, increased our household waste recycling rate from 27% in 2011 to 60% in 2017, and reduced Bury Council's carbon footprint by 27% since 2008/09.”

Cllr Quinn added: “In the Prestwich high street scheme, we are using a green Sustainable Urban Drainage System using street trees, and are looking (after public consultation) to join the City Forest Park to create a park 50% bigger than Heaton Park in the south of the borough.

“We are also working with City of Trees to plant three million trees in Greater Manchester, a tree for every man, woman and child in our conurbation. We are also working with City of Trees to combat the threat to our tree stock of Ash Die Back and other pests and diseases which threaten our indigenous trees.

“Bury Council is looking at buying electric vehicles where possible to reduce carbon emissions, and implemented an LED lighting replacement scheme reducing street lighting carbon emissions by 70%.

“We were also the first council in England to call for a deposit return scheme to increase the recycling of single use plastic bottles, and we have recently called for the reduction in the use of plastic packaging used by local supermarkets.”

ENDS

Press release issued: 7 February 2018.