We piloted three mini-projects that gave us a chance to trial community-sourced ideas.
We worked with a local primary school, residential streets and businesses, to find ways to reduce our reliance on car use and make it easier to get about using sustainable ways to travel.
School
Barlow Hall Primary School
Barlow Hall Primary School
We’re working with Barlow Hall Primary School to encourage more families to walk, cycle or scoot the school run.
One of our partners, Sustrans, is running activities both inside and outside the classroom to help pupils see their local area from a new perspective and learn about the benefits of getting to school actively – both for their health and for the environment.
Together, we’re planning an ‘Our Streets Chorlton’ week of action for pupils, parents and staff in June.
Some of the activities planned are:
· A Big Street Survey with the children of Barlow Hall Primary School
· The Big Pedal – a fun challenge for the whole school community
· Co-design workshops to look at potential solutions for the street outside the school
· Car-free days to raise awareness of air pollution at the school gate
Connecting Chorlton Schools Together
We also want to support other schools in the area (both primary and secondary) to look at how to implement measures to reduce ‘the school run’ by car.
Our project coordinators will work to help facilitate wider action by connecting the school network.
Residential
Would You like To be Involved?
We are actively seeking ideas and input from local residents in Chorlton to co-develop a mini project that we can deliver this Summer. More information to follow and if you have any suggestions, we want you to get in touch with us.
Business
Would You Like To Be Involved?
We are actively seeking ideas and input from the community of Chorlton to co-develop a mini-project that we can deliver this Summer with the trading community of Chorlton. More information to follow and if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear from you.
Join the Forum
We host a monthly Chorlton Climate Action Forum. It’s currently chaired by one of our six local councillors.
We talk about this project as well as other ideas and other things going on we can help connect up.
We welcome everyone to the forum and are keen to grow this space to include a wide variety of people from all parts of Chorlton’s community.
Sign up to our mailing list to make sure you’re informed of the next Forum meet-up.
Become a Champion
We know there are lots of community-minded people in Chorlton doing so many great things already.
One of the things we can help with is to spread local knowledge about what is going on and who else is doing what and where around Chorlton.
What Is An Our Streets Chorlton Champion?
We can play a part in helping connect people and existing projects and passions together and highlight the good work that groups and individuals are doing on a grassroots, voluntary basis.
One idea that came from initial workshops here is for us to help grow a community of climate friends, or champions – be it Data Champions, Green Champions, Climate Action Champions.
We want to be able support people to do that in the longer term, with things like collaborative workshops, access to funding and equipment resources, staff support, networks and community knowledge, regional knowledge, bid writing support etc…
For those who are already active in the community, we can be a place to strengthen ties and amplify efforts. And for those who want to start, we can help support you and link you up to others!
School Champions And Data Champions
Primarily our focus at the start of this project will be to work on two areas: supporting the school community to connect together, and building up a network of data collection volunteers, led by Open Data Manchester.
Champions will work with together and with us, to share ideas including via our forum or communications channels, and join others to develop informal teams to support action – because it’s easier together!
We’d like to co-develop the concept of Our Streets Champions for longer-term benefit, where local people lead on areas that their spark interest.
So we will be finding ways throughout the year to offer access to skills development and learning opportunities, to help build strength and resilience in our community.
If you’re keen on being a champion – or are already! – get in touch with us.
Climate Action Toolkit
We have created this space to share information all about climate change and ways to support climate action locally.
We’ll use this space to update you with useful documents, links to trusted resources and locally relevant initiatives and data from our project and from elsewhere.
We know everyone is on a different journey to understanding the issues surrounding global warming and climate change.
We want to make sure there is useful information that can help people to proactively support the climate change challenge. Please get in touch if there’s anything you think should be included.
Here are some trusted resources that explain climate change and the impacts it is having on the planet.
Here you’ll find relevant research and data about Chorlton and the wider Manchester area.
Here is where you’ll find open data we collect and reports we collate through the course of the Our Streets Chorlton project.
We will use a digital engagement platform called Commonplace to ask important questions.
Commonplace will help us reach more people and help us understand how to help decrease carbon emissions by enabling Chorlton people to reduce local and short car journeys.
