Please edit and personalise this below as you see fit. Please let us know when you send the emails, and what replies you get (we will keep a public tabulation of which councillors are contacted, and which reply. We won’t use your name/email address)
If you don’t already know who your councillors are, put your postcode in here.
If you live in any of these wards below, it might be worth personalising…
Ward | Facts worth bearing in mind when you are writing your letters. |
Chorlton | Eve Holt seconded the Climate Emergency motion to full council in July 2019 |
Crumpsall | Richard Leese is leader of the Council. |
Harpurhey | Pat Karney chairs Constitution and Nominations Committee, which will examine any “improve scrutiny of climate” recommendation before it goes to Full Council |
Hulme | Annette Wright proposed the Climate Emergency Declaration that was passed unanimously in July 2019, and chairs the Climate Subgroup (that has not met since January 2020, through no fault of her own)LeeAnn Igbon is chair of one of the six scrutiny committees (Neighbourhoods and Environment) and will be |
Levenshulme | Bernard Stone, who is chair of xx scrutiny committee is standing down at the next election |
Northenden | Sarah Russell chais Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee, which in February 2021 recommended that scrutiny be overhauled to give greater prominence to climate change |
Dear Councillor x,
I know that you voted to declare a Climate Emergency back in July 2019. I am writing to you to ask you to put “meat on the bones.”
You may be aware that on Tuesday February 9th the members of the Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee recommended that the scrutiny arrangements of the Council be overhauled. The impetus for this was a petition, signed by almost 2000 people across at least 31 wards of the city, calling for a dedicated Climate Change scrutiny committee.
I am writing to you for two reasons.
Firstly, I’d like to find out what is happening in my ward around reducing carbon emissions (the city has a target to be zero carbon by 2038, but we’ve already used a quarter of the carbon budget for the rest of the century in the last two years alone) and how I can be part of the work.Secondly, I am urging you to exert whatever pressure you can so that the proposal which comes to Full Council on Wednesday 31st March is as bold and creative as it possibly can be. We need real climate scrutiny, now. The remit of the climate emergency scrutiny committee, its membership and the way it works are all crucial for us to meet the ambitions in the Climate Emergency Declaration of July 2019.
You may be aware of Climate Emergency Manchester’s brief document on the suggested remit, membership and functioning of a new committee.
Please let me know if we can talk, on the phone, via a zoom call or even, perhaps soon, an appropriately socially-distanced catch up.
Also, I know how (rightly) concerned everyone is about GDPR, so I should be clear – I am very happy for you to share both this email message and my email address with other councillors, and for them to contact me about this.
Yours sincerely…