In Greater Manchester, we have a much higher number of people that are in contact with mental health services than many other parts of the country.Yet research into mental health has also not always focused on the issues that are relevant or important to local people.
This is why Health Innovation Manchester (HInM) and the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GM HSCP) want to work together with residents to make sure research focuses on what matters to local people.
Have your say on the mental health research priorities in Greater Manchester by completing this short survey: Click here
A consultation on the proposed bus franchising scheme for Greater Manchester is currently taking place.
It’s your chance to help shape the way bus services are run in the city region.
The proposal would place buses under Greater Manchester’s control, which would allow decisions about fares, timetables and routes to be made centrally – much like in London.
Three-out-of-four public transport journeys in Greater Manchester are made by bus, so we’d appreciate it if you took the time to share your views.
An improved and more widely used bus service would have a positive impact on health – fewer cars being used would result in less congestion and less air pollution.
If you live or work in Manchester, we are interested in hearing about your experiences of using local pharmacies. Your views will help shape the way services are being delivered in the future. Complete the 2019 pharmacy needs assessment online; it will take approximately ten minutes
Over the Counter Medicines
People in Manchester are being asked to give their views on the recommendations by NHS England to change how some medicines are prescribed.
On average the NHS spends around £569 million a year on prescriptions for medicines that you can buy yourself from a pharmacy or supermarket without needing a prescription from a doctor. For example, pain killers like paracetamol.
NHS England have created new guidance to stop doctors giving prescriptions for medicines for 33 small illnesses. Please complete this survey so that we can understand how these changes will effect Manchester’s patients, public and local communities.
Many thanks to Mick for organising the work from theISG construction company who have been supporting our project.
The team have knocked down the redundant chimney above the kitchen so that the work can commence…wet rot caused a few problems – but moving forward we are working with local building teams to get on with the work!
Many thanks to the team from Hyde Demolition who removed the chimney
Crescent Roofing who have patched up the roof ready for the next stage
Timberwise – roofing experts who came along to check out the roof for any issues
We are well on our way to realising our dream for our community kitchen!
We have now secured grants for a new energy efficient boiler from the Manchester City Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund…
and a new commercial cooker thanks to a grant from the Manchester Airport Community Trust Fund!
We have received a fantastic donation of ‘pre-loved’ stainless steel kitchen equipment and an offer to carry out some of our building work – from ISG – a dynamic construction company currently working in schools across Greater Manchester…
The Whiz project young people who are working towards their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award have recorded interviews with building users to find out their thoughts about the current facilities and the benefits of a new kitchen.
Listen to some of the interviews here:
Please Help!
We are struggling to feed and support our hungry community.
Our kitchen is a shambles and weve had to suspend lots of our vital cooking activities!
Food has always been a very important aspect of our work in terms of bringing people together, cook and eat: we have produced cookery guides and recipe books: our under 12 cookery class appeared on Ready Steady Cook!
We love Whalley Range and talked to residents about what they want – and this is what they said:
With a fully accessible professional kitchen we know we could meet these priorities – and more!
Since 1998 we have been based at the JNR8 Youth & Community Centre – the leased community rooms of
Manley Park Church – providing a range of inclusive projects for our richly diverse community.
There are 2 main charitable organisations based here.
Whalley Range Community Forum (WRCF) sources funding and facilitates daytime activities for the community and a weekly social and cooking group for people experiencing mental ill health.
Whalley Range Youth Opportunities Association (WRYOA) runs an evening Youth Club and holiday play schemes.
The Church has made major improvements over the past years: a new hall floor, energy efficient boiler and new double glazed windows and doors. WRCF has sourced funding for furniture, laptops and storage for the many groups who provide activities/classes.
We have decided to all come together to fundraise for a new professional, accessible kitchen to improve health & wellbeing. We named our project: Generate our Kitchen – as our building – JNR8 – is pronounced Generate!
With one part-time member of staff and a voluntary committee for WRCF and WRYOA – along with fantastic teams of volunteers and sessional youth workers – we are the only local centre serving the community with activities for all ages and cultures, providing crisis support and celebrating the area by bringing people together to improve mental and physical health and wellbeing and raising aspirations.
Based on consultations at our events we aim to:
Help reduce isolation by providing social groups,
Encourage people to engage with others: Coffee mornings, Afternoon Tea, Support groups
Improve employability and confidence/self-esteem building
Provide ESOL support with English speaking and writing
Provide basic and improvers computer skills with internet access
Run Work clubs and Computer classes
Provide Youth provision and Play schemes including Duke of Edinburgh Award, Girls Night
Promote Healthy eating Health & Wellbeing and Fitness classes
Reduce the stigma around mental ill health
Provide crisis support including Hate Crime reporting centre and Foodbank voucher distribution
Thai Boxing
Tai Chi
Women Health
Age-friendly
Child Friendly
Hate Crime Awareness and International Women Day events
Debates
Book and film launches
Babies & toddlers groups
Meetings
Advice sessions
Something for the youngest to the oldest, the Celebrate festival at our community centre – along with a wide range of other activities for everyone of all ages in our richly diverse community!
We love living in Whalley Range and as a Community Forum we have talked to residents about what they want!
Cookery lessons
Meal budgeting advice
Catering courses
Cook & Taste sessions
Community Meals
Healthy meal ideas
Cheap nutritious meal plans
Heritage food courses
Intergenerational cooking
Learning about vitamins & food sources
Healthy nutritious meals for one
Family cooking sessions
A fully accessible professional kitchen
Practical ESOL cookery sessions
Production of a tried & tested cook book And much more!
The JNR8 Youth & Community Centre is the base for the Whalley Range Community Forum, Whalley Range Youth Opportunities Association Whiz Youth Project, Celebrate, Age-friendly Whalley Range & Chorlton and Whalley Range Mental Health & Wellbeing.
We lease the building from Manley Park Methodist Church from Monday to Friday providing a range of classes, events and activities including an evening week-day youth club and holiday play for children.
On Friday evenings the volunteer-led wellbeing group Time to Change meet up offering support and removing the stigma around mental ill health by running a social group with pool, music, Tai Chi, bike repairs and to prepare, cook and eat a meal together.
The Church provides regular fundraising coffee mornings and soup lunches for the community and they let the building out on Saturday evenings to Youth on Solid Ground for their weekly youth club.
Our groups love to cook and want to promote and share cooking and eating together to reduce isolation, improve skills and employability and to improve their health. We could provide so much more if our currently inadequate and practically unusable kitchen was updated and fit for purpose!
Representatives of the groups who share the building are applying for funding under the banner
Generate our Kitchen
Please could you help us by completing our survey to support our request for funding?
The survey is anonymous but you can add your details if you are interested in getting involved. Visit the Age-friendly and well-being marquee to read more and to collect a hard copy of the survey.
The JNR8 (pronounced ‘Generate) Youth & Community Centre is the weekly base for the Whalley Range Community Forum, Whalley Range Youth Opportunities Association (WRYOA) Whiz Youth Project, Celebrate, Age-friendly Whalley Range & Chorlton and Whalley Range Mental Health & Wellbeing.
The JNR8 centre is a fantastic community resource – and we run a wide range of activities during the week for all ages, including ESOL, fitness, confidence building and social and self-help groups for people to come together to reduce isolation/encourage participation and friendships.
Cookery has always been a big part of our community engagement at JNR8 (our under 12 group even featured on Ready Steady Cook!) and we have a long history of providing community meals and food projects including the Food 4 Us cookery toolkit, Heritage cookery projects and intergenerational recipe sharing.
We are currently fundraising to improve our kitchen – as many of our cookery and nutrition classes have had to be put on hold as the kitchen is not fit for purpose.
Our exciting plan is to access funding to turn our current inadequate facilities into a professional kitchen so we can resume all the regular classes – and provide so much more!
We run a work club under the banner Generating Opportunities: a professional kitchen will enable us to provide catering, cooking and nutrition classes to improve skills and employability and projects that use cookery to improve English
In addition we want to resume our shared community meals – such as the successful Come 4 Tea, Festive Feasts and share recipes from around the world.
The Building is lovely – fantastic multi-use hall, storage for our projects, a chill out room, an IT room for computer beginners and improvers, a classroom for learning, teaching, presenting, planning and meeting.
Now look at our existing kitchen…
And look at some of the fantastic projects that go on here:
At the beginning of 2016, the Age-friendly Manchester Older People Board were discussing a draft of the Age-friendly Manchester Team Action Plan for 2016 – 2017.
As part of this discussion, the idea of an Age-friendly street came up. In particular, the Board were interested to see if a participatory project could be established to test out what this concept may be. It was agreed that the Age-friendly Manchester Team would explore this further, talk to possible partners and develop a piece of work across 2016. It was also agreed that an initial focus could be on Whalley Range
Author: Wendy Cocks Acknowledgements: Thank you to members of Manchester Age Friendly Design Group for their helpful suggestions for additional references and to Newcastle University for their photograph of the Age Friendly seating they developed with Newcastle Elders.
For older activists, local authority councillors and officers interested in how their street looks or those involved in
redesigning or redeveloping streets in their community.
The 21st century witnessed a momentous transition in modern urbanism with 2008 marking the year when more than 50% of the world population became urban.
Simultaneously, globally improving health, nutrition and medicine have resulted in population ageing significantly affecting contemporary conurbations.
The Age-friendly Manchester programme aims to improve the quality of life for older people in Manchester and make the city a better place to grow old.
In 2010, Manchester became the first UK city to join the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Network of age-friendly cities.
This membership recognised the work that had been happening in the city since 2002 as part of the Valuing Older People (VOP) programme.
Since 2005, work in Manchester has included an urban design element and in 2012, the Age-Friendly Manchester team established an Age-friendly Design Group.
This goes alongside partnerships with the Manchester School of Architecture and Manchester School of Art.
The WHO produced an Age-friendly City Guide, which has a focus on urban design, based on the model of an ideal city for older people.
It has a universal checklist of features that should produce an age-friendly environment. This guide highlighted public seating as a necessary age-friendly feature. Various academic and policy publications have since reinforced this observation, often with a focus on design.
Although crucial, this type of practical guidance carries an inherent risk in that a preoccupation with generating actionable results excludes the equally important, less obvious and more complex, relational dimensions amidst design, people and place (Handler, 2014).
Here is the route of the proposed 85A which we are aiming to get Stagecoach to trial. This is not a replacement for the 16 bus which has now stopped running. We are hoping for a half hour service that will:
Make it easier to get to Withington Road shops including St Margaret School, the medical centre, laundrette, dentists, Mosque and the fabulous Med Cafe.
Mean you can catch a bus from Withington Road to Chorlton, Hulme Asda, Oxford Road and the city centre.
And,
The traders will benefit through increased business and their staff can get to/from work more easily.
It will be easier to nip in for last minute shopping on the way home.
Increased passive surveillance by passengers queuing and travelling on the bus will mean a safer shopping environment.
Stagecoach are interested in the idea. They are supporting improvements to Withington Road and have donated £500. Plus, the bus stops are already there so no serious investment needed. But, they do need see that there is a demand.
If frequent buses along Withington Road would make your life easier then please complete this very quick survey so we can put a strong business case to Stagecoach and make it happen!
Volunteer needed:
Withington Road ShopWatch will be getting going during July for a 6 month trial. This will bring together traders/businesses, the police and local residents groups to make Withington Road shops and the surrounding area safer. We are looking for a volunteer to be the scheme coordinator.This will not be an onerous task, as the frequency of incidents is fairly low. It will be the first time our local shops have worked together in a common interest.
Ideally you will live locally, be a regular visitor to the shopping area and interested in getting this scheme up and running.
We’ll be using the Littoralis DISC system as used in the city centre. Littoralis are waiving their usual set up fee as they are keen to test out their system in a smaller shopping environment like ours and we have agreed they can use our experience as a case study..
The Withington Road Survey results pull no punches.
They demonstrate both a need and a desire for change. 239 people responded…
…over half volunteered to help deliver improvements!
There are over 1200 comments, gripes, suggestions and ideas. The results clearly identify what needs tackling and how they should be improved.
Tell us what you think about Withington Road Shops and you could win a prize
Take the survey at www.withingtonroad.org/survey
Withington Road First Steps is bringing together shoppers, traders, local residents and the council.
Our goal: – To make our local shopping area…
“a safe, attractive and thriving high street where people want to shop, work, live, access services, trade and come together.
You could win a meal for 2, a car valet or shopping vouchers…
So far around 150 people have given their thoughts and ideas. Everyone was impressed with the model made by Class 3J of St Mary’s Primary School.
Many people wanted to see better use of the wider pavement areas, with good quality and attractive seating and planting mentioned a lot. Removing street clutter (redundant signposts etc.) and taking care of existing planted areas would help.
By far the most expressed wish for shopping was for a decent bakery. Opticians, traditional fish and chips, independent greengrocers and a butchers were also in demand. The idea of regular street markets was popular with farmers, crafts and street food markets suggested.
A lot of people miss the No. 16 bus and a popular suggestion was to divert some No 85’s to become 85A’s.
There was lots of support for the Save Nello James campaign, matched by complaints about the state of the building and grounds.
There was a lot of concern about the difficulty of crossing the road at the northern end (towards Tescos)of the shopping area. Parking on the pavements, and on double yellow lines was a cause of annoyance. The pavement between Nello James Centre and May Road needs resurfacing and the hedge cutting back.
Better street cleaning, including along the side roads, and overflowing bins was a concern for many. The fly tipping hotspots were also identified a lot. There were also complaints about the back alley which exits on to May Road, the 2 short ginnels on the main shopping parade and Tesco’s waste facilities.
Anti-social behaviour, the drinking area and begging caused concern for some, and 2 people mentioned prostitution around Carlton Road.
Tell us what you think at www.withingtonroad.org/survey
Meeting: Tuesday 25th August
While it was the Whalley Rangers who applied for the First Steps Funding, it was the concerns and observations of local residents that resulted in our proposal being successful…
Withington Road First Steps is about getting residents, traders and shoppers talking about the Withington Road Shopping Area. Its about finding out what we like and hate, about our ideas and aspirations, and developing a shared vision for what this local centre could be.
Start any discussion about Withington Road and invariably opinions are divided. Many dislike the area to the extent they will not use it. People often complain about street cleanliness, anti-social behaviour, business practises, the impact on local residential areas. This is the first time everyone will be asked to give their views with the aim of making Withington Road somewhere everyone feels welcome.
Business owners and traders will be asked about what affects them and their ideas for a better trading environment
Pupils from St. Mary Primary School have made a model of the street which you can use to flag the issues you think are important. Your ideas for making things better can also be identified and shared
And an online survey will collect the views from as many local residents, shop workers and shoppers as possible
At Manchester Royal Infirmary we are committed to ensuring we provide the best possible service to you. We appreciate that when you attend the outpatient department, you may not always have the opportunity to tell us how things have been for you. We want to work with you to design services that give you the best possible experience. We are keen to undertake some filmed interviews to understand what really matters to our patients – if you are willing and interested in being involved, please contact Sarah Watson on 0161 701 8115.
On Tuesday 26th April between 1pm and 3pm, Manchester Royal Infirmary is holding an event in the main Outpatient area, for all patients, carers and our teams. This event is part of an on-going project called Experience Based Design which uses patient and staff experiences to ensure hospital services are at their best. During the event, we would love you to offer any feedback you have based on your experience here as well as help us shape improvements we could make in the future. We will have a short video to show you what other patients and staff have said about their experience as well as displays and posters to share ideas. Our staff here will be available to talk to you about the hospital, your experience and suggestions.
This is a real opportunity to get involved with the team here to shape the services we provide and we would be so proud if you could help, given your recent visit to us. So that we can confirm numbers for the event, I would be grateful if you could contact Sarah Watson on 0161 701 8115 to confirm your attendance.
If you were one of the tens of thousands reached by our consultation on how to make Manchester into the place youd want to live, work, play and do business in 2025, thank you for being part of such a huge, inspiring response.The strategy is the culmination of that response. People’s commitment to the city, and their desire to see its future success, shine through it, and it a credit to all who contributed including:
Manchester residents themselves, in their thousands
the city army of volunteers (our city has around 100,000) from tiny clubs to business-scale operations, and community activists
a wide non-resident public – some of our city biggest fans – who work in the city or visit to enjoy our varied culture and leisure
business and civic leaders from the city and the city region who added their valuable insights, revealing the extent of their own crucial part in delivering Manchester success.
Responses from across the city were many and varied, but a few themes came through again and again. People of Manchester share the desire to see the city do well, to see Manchester use and value its green spaces, to have a clean city with one of the best public transport systems in the world, to preserve its historic buildings and support those in need.
We are currently gathering views to influence and shape a strategy for Manchester’s parks for the next 10 years.
We’d like to engage as many residents as possible to get involved and complete our survey manchester.gov.uk/parksurvey.
The survey closes on 31 May 2016
I’d be really grateful if you would help us spread the word via your contacts.
I’ve put together a toolkit to help communicate with residents which includes:
a briefing note with information about the consultation
a poster
some copy that could be used in newsletters or posted websites etc
social media messages
a few images to use on social media
I hope this is useful and thank you in advance for your support.
If you have any queries or would like any further information please contact:
Sarah Hawkins
Neighbourhood Officer
Public Realm
The Neighbourhoods Service
Growth and Neighbourhoods
Manchester City Council
Hammerstone Road Depot
Gorton
Manchester
M18 8EQ
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