One of Manchester’s most iconic charities is helping to fund a newly-launched competition to transform the city’s unused areas into community green spaces.
Groundwork Greater Manchester – the local branch of a collection of charities working to transform lives in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities – has announced the launch of its ‘Eco-Streets Competition‘ this month, which is providing communities in the region with the chance to each win £6,000 of funding.
The competition funds will go towards transforming unused areas into community green spaces.
Groundwork Greater Manchester is known for successfully working to create a greener and more resilient city region, with stronger, healthier communities, responsible businesses and enhanced prospects for all local people.
The initiative sets out to achieve this by providing high-quality services that put “communities and the environment at the forefront”, by specialising in community engagement, landscape design and build, training and coaching for employment, early intervention to support health and wellbeing, and safe and sustainable business support.
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And now, thanks to funding from the We Love MCR Charity, the Eco-Streets Competition is able to support a further two communities from within the borough of Manchester.
This generous donation will bring more ideas to life and will equip communities with the skills to design, install and maintain natural features to create communal spaces which benefit people, all whilst tackling climate change.
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Speaking on the charity’s donation to the competition, Councillor Tommy Judge – Lord Mayor of Manchester and Chair of We Love MCR Charity – said: “Our aim is to improve lives and communities in Manchester.
“It’s our privilege to help to turn disused spaces into places for neighbours to use together”.
Keen to get involved? Know a community that could benefit from funding?
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Applications for Groundwork Greater Manchester’s Eco-Streets Competition are now open to community groups or groups of residents consisting of at least three people from different households.
Transformable spaces could include alleyways or ‘ginnels’, small streets, courtyards, disused allotments, or abandoned park areas.
The deadline for applications is Wednesday 21st April at 5pm.
Winners will be announced towards the end of May 2021, and you can find more information and get your entries in via the Groundwork Greater Manchester website here.
NHS to begin offering new one-minute jab to women with ‘aggressive’ form of cancer
Emily Sergeant
The NHS is set to begin offering new immunotherapy for hundreds of women with aggressive cervical cancer across the country.
Pembrolizumab – which experts have described as being able to ‘take the handbrake off’ the body’s immune system to target cancer – will now be presented as a new treatment option for women in England with locally-advanced cervical cancer, which means the cancer has grown beyond the cervix to regions such as the pelvic wall, but not yet spread further around the body.
Trials found that adding pembrolizumab to standard chemoradiotherapy helped keep cancer ‘at bay’ for longer, and improved survival rates overall.
Two years after starting the treatment, nearly seven in 10 patients (68%) were still living without their cancer progressing, compared with 57% for those receiving chemoradiotherapy alone, according to NHS figures.
The trial also found that 82.6% of patients were still alive three years after treatment with pembrolizumab and chemoradiotherapy, compared with 74.8% with chemoradiotherapy alone.
Hundreds of women with aggressive cervical cancer are to be offered a new immunotherapy treatment.
It marks one of the biggest improvements in treatment for the disease in years, and could help more women survive and stay cancer-free in the long term.
The drug is either given every three or siz weeks via an infusion, or as a ‘one-minute’ injection, alongside chemoradiotherapy.
The NHS estimates around 550 patients in England will be eligible for the treatment – which has been approved this week by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – over the next two years.
Patients will now receive fast-tracked access, funded by NHS England’s Cancer Drugs Fund.
“This is great news for women facing a diagnosis of aggressive cervical cancer, and represents one of the biggest improvements in treatment for this disease in recent years,” commented Professor Peter Johnson, who is the NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer.
“Combining this immunotherapy with existing treatment has had very positive effect for patients in trials, helping the body’s immune system to target cancer more effectively.
“We’re delighted it will be available for patients on the NHS as it could help hundreds more women survive and stay cancer-free in the long-term.”
Featured Image – NappyStudio (via Unsplash)
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Andy Burnham wants to bring the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to Westminster
Emily Sergeant
Andy Burnham has set out his vision for the country if he is to become Prime Minister.
In case you need brining up to speed first, after it was announced earlier this month that Andy Burnham had clinched the victory in the crucial Makerfield by-election, winning 24,927 votes (54.8% vote share) and a majority of 9,231, he then went onto announce his intention to run for Labour Party leader, and therefore Prime Minister, after Keir Starmer confirmed he would be stepping down.
And this week, Mr Burnham has now delivered his first speech as part of his ongoing campaign, addressing how he plans to give the country a ‘new direction’.
Burnham says that he wants to bring the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to Westminster.
A lot has been discussed and reported on when it comes to Burnham’s intentions to create a so-called Number 10 North here in Manchester, but what exactly does it mean to take the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to the capital?
“The Greater Manchester way is based on strong partnership between all sectors: public, private, community, voluntary, academic, faith, and our trade unions,” Burnham said in his speech.
He continued: “When I started as Mayor in 2017, we set about building a new approach, a new politics based on the exact opposite of the Westminster approach.
“Place-first, not party-first. Problem-solving, not point-scoring. Long-term, not short-term.
“A decade on, it’s incredible how much we’ve been able to achieve by working together instead of fighting against one another.”
Burnham said he feels the truth is that the country spends ‘too much time arguing and not enough time doing’ and that for Britain to get back where it ‘should be’, his Government would ask everyone to ‘face the same way’ and then ‘pull in that same direction together’.
He declared that No 10 North will be the ‘nerve centre’ for a rewired Britain.
“It will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK,” he concluded. “It will coordinate all parts of Government, at national and local level, to agree a long-term economic strategy and help all places set new growth ambitions.”
Emily Sergeant -
14th April 2021 
