ISSUE FOURTEEN SUMMER 2007 PUBLISHED BY THE MERSEY BASIN CAMPAIGN WWW.MERSEYBASIN.ORG.UK WALKING ON WATER Celebrate summer with the region’s top waterside rambles. WESTWARD HO! Antony Wilson on Liverpool, its music and its river. THE LIFE AQUATIC All aboard our international fl oating homes. SourceNW is the magazine of the Mersey Basin Campaign. The campaign works towards better water quality and sustainable waterside regeneration for the rivers and waterways of England’s Northwest. www.merseybasin.org.uk CONTENTS Has business Features Regulars fi nally seen the 4 REGIONAL ROUND UP green light? 12 WALKING ON WATER News on the environment, water and regeneration. It starts to Dust off your boots, grab your binoculars, look that way slap on the sunscreen and head out on 8 BAZAAR when no less our fabulous waterside walks. a retailing institution than Marks A lucky dip of people, places, facts and fi gures from around the region; plus Love and Hate. & Spencer publicly commits 16 WESTWARD HO! itself to ambitious reductions in Manchester music legend Antony Wilson 10 CASE NOTES CO2 emissions. explains why Liverpool changed the music Innovative local projects that are transforming The company is a regional as world forever, in the second instalment of the environment of the Northwest. well as a national treasure – it articles drawn from the upcoming book started trading in Manchester Mersey: the river that changed the world. 20 SPOTLIGHT in 1894. But when it comes to The Co-operative Group’s chief executive Martin Beaumont things green and ethical, another 22 THE LIFE AQUATIC talks about business, ethics and the environment. Manchester-based national retailer As the recent World Canals Conference has been doing it better for longer. 21 BUSINESS visited the Northwest for the fi rst time, In this issue of Source NW we Volunteering is good for business – and worth boating enthusiasts from around the world talk business with the impressive giving staff time off for – writes Jo Birtwistle. tell us why they love their unique lifestyle. Martin Beaumont, chief executive of the Co-operative Group. 26 ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMPION Meanwhile, another regional Kate Fox swoops in on Sarah Williams, one of the RSPB staff keeping an eye on Manchester’s peregrine falcons. business giant, Peel Holdings, has joined the Northwest Development 27 SHARP END Agency to back research into Want to be greener and more effi cient at work? renewable energy on the River Then stay at home, says Emma Jones. Mersey. The name behind mega- developments like the Trafford Centre, Peel is not one to throw away good money on wishful thinking. And in June, the barometer of the region’s economy, Northwest Business Insider magazine, produced its fi rst ever ‘green’ issue. Conversely, green avenger Jonathon Porritt, one-time scourge of big business, last year produced 12 16 22 a new book in which he argues that far from being the destroyer of the Subscriptions: Fouzia Bhatti, 0161 242 8200 Website: www.merseybasin.org.uk planet, business is its last, best hope. [email protected] Design: Hemisphere, Manchester Are we witnessing a historic Contributors: Edwin Colyer, Kate Fox, Mark Hillsdon, Ushma Mistry, Print: Gyroscope, Manchester convergence? I think so. Is the job Ciara Leeming, Colin Shelbourn, Louise Tickle, Antony Wilson. SourceNW is published quarterly by the Mersey Basin Campaign. done? It’s barely even started. Photography: David Oates, Mike Frisbee, Terry Mealey. The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Address: Mersey Basin Campaign, Fourways House, publishers. Comments, letters and corrections are welcomed and should be Matthew Sutcliffe, editor 57 Hilton Street, Manchester M1 2EJ addressed to the editor. SourceNW is printed on 100% post-consumer waste [email protected] recycled paper using vegetable-based inks. SourceNW is sponsored by Mersey Basin Campaign corporate sponsors include REGIONAL ROUND-UP Branching out Woodland scheme to transform derelict land wins major new funding. At 8,420 hectares, the Northwest has more derelict Park Business Park and add value to the local The Newland sites are selected brownfi eld land than any other English region. That’s an Housing Marketing Renewal area. to have the maximum benefi t, not area roughly the size of Preston, or 24 per cent of all the Bidston Moss has also been transformed only providing recreational space brownfi eld land in the country. as part of the Newlands scheme. More than for local communities, but also Now a major programme to transform almost 1,500 £2.7 million has gone into the revamp of the enhancing the appearance of hectares of the region’s most scarred landscapes into Wirral site, with the pathways, boardwalks and the main transport corridors into community woodlands has won additional funding of even the soil which covers the site all coming the region, with woodlands used £36 million from the Northwest Regional Development from recycled materials. to screen off eyesores and Agency, bringing the total to £59 million. The new money will Long term maintenance of the Newlands industrial plants. allow the programme to expand across the entire region. sites will be taken on by the Forestry As Newlands expands to Commission. As well as more brownfi eld land cover the whole Northwest, one The Northwest also has than anywhere else in England, the Northwest site already set to benefi t is the also has one of the lowest rates of woodland Brockholes Wetland Nature Reserve one of the lowest rates of cover in country. in Lancashire. Located next to the Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the M6, Brockholes was created when woodland cover in country. Northwest Regional Development Agency, said: gravel was extracted to make “When Newlands was launched we envisaged the motorway. The 172 hectare Newlands (New Economic Environments through that it would become one of the top land site includes ancient woodland, Woodlands) was launched with £23 million by John regeneration schemes, using rejuvenated ponds, lakes, reed beds and fl ower- Prescott in 2003 and has focused on fi ve brownfi eld woodland as a basis for change where rich grasslands. sites in the Mersey belt area between Manchester and previously sites had become neglected. A series of guided walks this Liverpool. Work on two sites is already complete. “Four years on and the programme has summer will let local people get Moston Vale in Harpurhey, Manchester (an drawn praise from central government for a fi rst look at the site, which is area in the top fi ve per cent of the Index of Multiple the way that new opportunities have been owned and run by the Lancashire Deprivation), received £1.7 million in 2005. The former presented, how new uses have endured over Wildlife Trust. landfi ll site now boasts woodland areas, sports facilities time and the quality of the landscape that has and extensive pathways illuminated by solar powered been created. MORE INFORMATION fl oodlights. The goal is to help attract signifi cant new “We are providing a benchmark for carefully www.englishpartnerships.co.uk investment to the area, enhance the adjacent Central planned, intelligence-led land regeneration.” www.lancswt.org.uk SOUND BITES Royal Institute of British Architects awards. Its fl ats. At its heart, an eco-park will provide a penthouses are expected to be the most expensive substantial wildlife habitat, increasing the properties in the city. Now the building stands a chance number of species in the area. Pedestrian High energy. The decommissioning of Sellafi eld nuclear power of competing for the highly prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize. and cycle routes will connect the development plant has prompted an energetic response from the West Cumbria to Manchester city centre. The scheme was Strategic Partnership, which has come up with proposals to create Click for a car share. New social networking websites announced by New East Manchester, developers Britain’s fi rst ‘energy coast’. Around 8,000 of the 12,000 jobs at are springing up everywhere, but here’s one with an New City Vision and architects MBLA. Sellafi eld are expected to be lost by 2015. In July the partnership environmental twist. www.isanyonegoingto.com puts presented its master plan to then prime minister Tony Blair and other travellers in touch with one another, facilitating car Goyt bridge a go-er. Plans for a new top government ministers. Included in the plan to transform west sharing and reducing the number of single occupancy car bridge across the Goyt Valley in Stockport Cumbria into a world class centre for excellence in energy and journeys we take. The site is already motoring ahead, with have been short listed in a national environmental technologies is a national academy for nuclear skills. 6,000 travellers signed up and an average of 20 matches competition for Big Lottery funding, and will made every day in its fi rst three months. face a public vote on a live ITV1 show later A sense of Unity. A revolutionary new building in Liverpool has this year. The bridge would create a traffi c won a top award for its consideration towards the environment, just Eco East Manchester. More than 400 new eco-homes free route between Romiley, Offerton and months after being opened. The £80 million Unity building, situated are to be built beside the Ashton Canal in Clayton, East Stockport town centre, and link into existing in Princes Dock, combines high environmental standards with unique Manchester. The development will include two, three and foot and cycle routes in the area. The bid architecture and was named one of three Northwest winners in the four-bedroomed houses as well as two and three-bed joins a collective of 79 community-based 4 REGIONAL ROUND-UP Electric current Mersey could supply power to a quarter of a million homes.