As our company is growing, we are getting to rub shoulders with some new and interesting people.
I recently attended a CONSTRUCT event in Manchester where Tom Stannard, the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council and Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester City Council, spoke.
Over the course of the morning, both Bev and Tom made repeated commitments to the communities of Manchester, whose focus was clearly attuned to how the built environment needs to be considered in terms of how it can contribute to both business and personal growth and stability.
While politically cautious, both Bev and Tom suggested reasons to be optimistic as we look into Greater Manchester’s future and remarked that the cities that Manchester used to look to for inspiration and guidance, Barcelona, Lyon and Toronto, for example, were now looking to share ideas as equals.
Gently interviewed by Simon Bedford of Bedford Advisory, the speakers talked about using community consultation to generate opportunity and both the public and private sectors working together to make the best use of our available resources.
Both speakers reiterated the city's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and explained how the city is experienced by its residents and visitors is created in the first instance by the built environment and future developments around the city will be bearing this very much in mind.
Personally, I found the event extremely refreshing in terms of its lack of agenda, by which I mean, it concentrated on the main thing, how the future of the built environment will be increasingly aligned to its direct benefit to the people in terms of value, whether it be reduced energy usage or faster and easier access to its main thoroughfares.
Thanks very much for the invite Lucy from Luma Marketing.