Welcome to Greater Manchester’s consultation hub

Our Pass will provide 16 to 18 year-olds (12/13^th academic year) in Greater Manchester with free bus travel alongside a wealth of sporting, cultural and leisure opportunities.

The pass is a two year pilot starting on September 1, 2019, led by Mayor Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), with support from Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM). The pass has been developed with Greater Manchester Youth Combined Authority (GMYCA), and a host of other youth organisations, groups, schools and colleges across the city-region who helped with the overall design and name of the pass.

Our Pass has been designed to support young people at a crucial point in their lives and aims to raise aspirations of all young people across Greater Manchester. It is a commitment to the opening up opportunities in the city region to young people.

This survey was used to ask young people across the city-region what opportunities they would like to be available with Our Pass and how opportunities should be allocated. We specifically asked:

• Which opportunities young people would be most/least likely to take up?
• What young people are interested in?
• Which apps young people use the most?
• Whether opportunities should be discounted as well as free?
• How opportunities should be allocated?

The survey was open from May, 9 and ran until June, 23 and was promoted across social media channels. Our Pass partnered with GMYCA and other youth work led partners to share the survey across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The survey received 662 responses overall, 94% of which were received by respondents aged 18 years or younger (the target audience for Our Pass).

The survey results gave an insight into opportunities most and least popular amongst young people. The top three opportunities respondents reported most likely to take-up being indoor leisure complexes, such as cinema and bowling (86%), restaurants (79%) and live music (67%), whereas the least popular included under-18 clubs and bars (58%), museums (44%) and watching sports (44%).

Respondents were also asked to rate their level of interest in a number of commodities. Food, music and clothes were rated the highest (all within 90%), with beauty, computer games and sports rating the lowest (all under 60%).

As well as interest, respondents were asked their thoughts on opportunity allocation. The vast majority of respondents (96%) believe that Our Pass should provide discounted shopping and vouchers, as well as opportunities. Additionally, 87% of respondents said they would be interested in discounted opportunities as well as free opportunities.

The results of the survey have been collated into a report and sent to the Our Pass Board who ultimately make decisions regarding Our Pass.

We’ve listened to the results and are currently developing Our Pass opportunities based on the results with businesses across Greater Manchester. Using the feedback, Our Pass has already developed a range of opportunities including:

Sports

• Manchester Giants (Basketball and Netball)
• Oldham Boxing and Personal Development Centre
• Challenge 4 Change
• Helly Henson Watersports Centre

Music and Culture

• Palace Theatre Manchester
• Manchester Opera House
• Parklife
• Hallé Orchestra

Additionally, as 96% believe that Our Pass should provide discounted shopping and vouchers as well as opportunities, Our Pass have officially partnered with JD Sports who are currently running a £50 gift card competition for young people who sign up for Our Pass before the launch in September and will continue to apply discounts to all Our Pass users.

Our Pass are currently encouraging other businesses across Greater Manchester to get involved for the launch of the pass on September 1.

Programme for Change represents a major transformation programme for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service with the aim of ensuring the Service has the right resources in the right places, is well-equipped, well-managed, and well-led.

There is a recognised need for GMFRS to modernise, and there has been ongoing work for some years to develop the Service to ensure that it is in line with today’s risks. The new governance arrangements and the election of a Mayor in 2017, who has responsibility for the fire service, has acted as a catalyst to drive this need for transformation forward.

The Outline Business Case for Programme for Change sets out in detail the challenges faced by GMFRS and our proposals for how the Service might look in the future.

This consultation is the public's opportunity to contribute their views on some of the content of the business case, including -

• Our proposal to consolidate six fire stations into three brand new, state-of-the-art community fire stations in Bolton, Manchester and Stockport
• Our proposal to manage our fleet of fire engines, whilst ensuring that we still have a response time that is faster than the national average

The survey was open from March 25 and ran until May 31.

You can view the full Programme for Change consultation report here.

In total we received 402 responses to this consultation which included 1,286 individual comments. These were received via the online survey and via email.

Members of the public were mainly concerned with the reduction in the overall number of fire engines in Greater Manchester. This concern was evidenced by referencing the emerging risks of moorland fires, high-rise buildings, future building developments and the threat of terrorism

Other feedback included the increase in funding for emergency services and the need for more campaigning at a national level to secure support for GMFRS.

In addition to this public feedback, there was also significant feedback from staff and trade unions, which isn’t featured here, but has contributed to decision making.

The results of the survey have been collated into a report that has been considered by the GMFRS leadership and the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and has informed potential changes to the initial proposals. The consultation report was also presented at the GMCA Corporate Issues and Reform Scrutiny Committee.

The feedback we received from the survey as well as our engagement with staff have informed a number of proposed amendments to our initial proposals.

Our updated proposals include:

• The current arrangements around the number of firefighters on fire engines will be maintained for this financial year.
• Firefighter numbers will remain at or above May 2017 levels for at least the next financial year.
• Firefighters will see their role around prevention and protection enhanced, in areas around fire safety visits, inspections and enforcement activity. We will allow sufficient time for our firefighters to be adequately trained and equipped to fulfil these duties whilst retaining a number of additional specialist prevention staff to support complex cases.
• We will develop alternative delivery models for volunteering and cadets and continue our Princes Trust work to allow more time to develop future options.
• We will maintain a fleet of 50 fire engines for at least this financial year.
• The fire station mergers go ahead as planned as well, which will see the creation of three brand new state-of-the-art fire stations, alongside ongoing investment in stations, including welfare facilities.
• The initial requirement to reduce 113 non-uniformed roles has reduced to 60 roles and the service continues to aim for no compulsory redundancies. The service will work with any staff impacted to help them find new roles.

The revised proposals will be considered at the meeting of Greater Manchester Combined Authority on Friday 27 September.

Stockport’s Town Centre West has the potential to be a new urban village of up to 3,000 new homes with complementary mixed use development and the social infrastructure required to support a significant increase in the residential population.  Our proposal to create a Mayoral Development Corporation to lead the regeneration of the area came about in response to the Mayor’s Town Centre Challenge and our urgent need to maximise the potential of brownfield sites to accommodate more housing in light of GM Spatial Framework.  The MDC proposal also responds to Stockport Council’s Town Centre Living agenda which looks to redefine Stockport’s residential offer for existing and future communities and make the town centre a residential destination of choice. 

The consultation on the creation of a Mayoral Development Corporation and associated proposals closed March 10, 2019 after an eight week period of public consultation.

During the consultation we asked a number of stakeholders, including local residents their views on a number of areas. Including –

• Whether or not the development of a Mayoral Development Corporation would be the best way to drive forward long-term regeneration for Stockport’s Town Centre West
• Whether or not the creation of a Mayoral Development Corporation for the Town Centre West could lead to regeneration and improvements across the rest of Stockport Town Centre as a whole
• Whether or not respondents felt that the proposed boundary of the Mayoral Development Corporation was appropriate
• Whether people thought the name ‘Stockport Town Centre West Mayoral Development Corporation’ is an appropriate name for this MDC.
• Whether people thought that the Mayoral Development Corporation should not have any planning functions in relation to granting discretionary rate relief.

We did a number of things during the consultation to help to promote it and make sure that the right people had the opportunity to contribute. This included –

• Letters to 530 local residents and businesses in the area
• Promotion of the consultation through Greater Manchester Combined Authorities communication networks; monthly newsletter to over 4,000 local residents, groups and organisations and social media posts.
• Promotion of the consultation on Stockport Council’s website and social media
• Specific invites to respond to key consultees including MPs across Greater Manchester, Homes England, Environment Agency, Historic England, Network Rail, and Highways England

The consultation received 205 responses, 88.73% of which came from Stockport residents.  11 organisations responded to the consultation representing a variety of sectors and interests including the voluntary sector. 

The overall consultation response to the proposed MDC was very positive.  78% of people either agreed or strongly agreed that the MDC was the best way to drive forward long term regeneration and 81% agreed that the MDC would support and improve Stockport town centre as a whole.   

60% of respondents agreed that the proposed boundary for the Mayoral Development Corporation was appropriate and 47% agreed or strongly agreed with our proposal for planning powers and powers over discretionary business rate relief to remain with Stockport Council.  Only 21% of respondents wanted to see planning and business rates powers granted to the MDC and but 36 comments from respondents argued that our proposals should go further, particularly in terms of the area the proposed MDC should cover.

The consultation responses were analysed and the overwhelmingly positive response informed the Mayor’s decision to proceed with the creation of a MDC in Stockport.  A report summarising the consultation exercise and result was submitted to Greater Manchester Combined Authority on March 29^th recommending that GMCA consider the proposed MDC.  No objections were received from the members of GMCA (which includes the Leader of Stockport Council) and the Mayor then notified the Secretary of State of his intention to proceed and asked Government to prepare the legislation required to formally create the MDC as an independent statutory organisation that will lead regeneration efforts.

In parallel with the formal legal process to create the MDC, Stockport Council (as the Local Planning Authority for the Mayoral Development area) is working up a Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) which will set out in detail how we think the area could be transformed over the long term to become Greater Manchester’s newest, greenest, and coolest affordable urban neighbourhood.  The regeneration framework is currently being finalised and will be published for public consultation over the summer to ensure that all stakeholders in the area have the opportunity to see, comment on, and influence the vision and the type of development that comes forward in the area.