Today in nine photos. Manchester to Liverpool and back again for #LPC25.

‘What people most want are places they can connect with others.’ And basics like public toilets, benches, more spaces for young people. This is what we hear all the time. People are longing for welcoming spaces & places for human connection, health and hope. This is at the heart of #GMLiveWell

Ministers are drawing up plans to give mayors significant new powers over hospitals and schools as part of a new wave of devolution that could change how public services are run in England.

A few highlights from last week: 💃🏻Rambertdance at The Lowry 🏡Speaking @NEA #warmhomes event 💥#PeoplesPowerhouse discussion 🎨 Creativehealth #LiveWell Roundtable 👩‍💼#UrbanistasNW Perimenopause event 🧐Inclusive research network 🚶🏾‍♀️#GMMoving Board meeting 🏆Awards event at British Muslim Heritage Centre

Some highlights this week: 💙Talking about GM’s prevention-first approach @TheKingsFund Conf 🚴‍♀️Cycling around London 🎂20th anniversary @transportwm ❤️@VCFSELeadersGM insights & action 💷Planning for GM Guaranteed Living Income & UBI pilots. 📕@sarasiobhan book launch & panel 🌱GM #CyanLines launched

For the next four weeks, we are lifting the 9.30am rule on older and disabled people’s bus passes. We hope it will help people over the summer as well as provide valuable data on whether we have the capacity and finances to make it permanent. Please help spread the word! 🙏🏻

The Transport Committee has a call for evidence on 'joined-up journeys: achieving and measuring transport integration'. Spread the word.

Our new GM Strategy is about people and enabling good lives for all. The 1st pledge is to ‘put equality goals at the heart of our plans, embedding inclusive practices across all public services.’ This week’s Tackling Inequality Board explored how we make that a reality. youtu.be/m3Iu3smH2Io

You can catch up on my conversation this week with Andy Jackson, Ben Glover and Saima Ashraf on what it truly means to put power in the hands of people and places, and how policy must shift to support this. Watch here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT_1... #CommunityPower #DoWith

No Place Like Home.🏡 A safe, decent, healthy home is essential for people to be able to get on in life. That’s why we’ve committed to a #HousingFirst approach in #GreaterManchester. As @andyburnham.bsky.social says in the foreword, when you set people up to succeed - they largely do.

Finally made it to Stockroom, #Stockport this week. What a wonderful, warm welcoming centre - for anybody & everybody - as it says on the door. A perfect space for this week’s VCFSE Forum exploring inclusive local economies & support to enable good lives for all #GMLiveWell. ♥️

Looking forward to this conversation next week.

Wow that was intense but we made it through! Well done #Lionesses

Well of course!! 😉✨ Has been a pleasure to share our learnings in #GreaterManchester to help shape the new national Civil Society Covenant - reshaping how government works with communities to tackle Britain’s biggest challenges.

"This is about rebalancing power and responsibility. Not the top-down approach of the state working alone. Not the transactional approach of markets left to their own devices. But a new way forward – where government and civil society work side by side to deliver real change"

How can we move from a rhetoric of localism to active community power? Join us and @localis.bsky.social for a webinar exploring the enablers and barriers to #CommunityPower in the UK. 🗓️ 22 July 👉 Register: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/dda32e... @evefrancisholt.bsky.social #DoWith

📢 Power to the People! I haven’t read in full yet but pleased to see that the Devolution Bill will: 🏛️Shift power out of Whitehall 👭Empower local & regional leaders 🏠Create a Community Right to Buy 🗺️Give communities say on planning ❤️Put local assets in local hands 🗳️Increase voting power

"For 100 years swimming was banned in the river because of the levels of water pollution that could make people ill...Ahead of last summer's Olympics more than €1.4bn (£1.2bn; $1.6bn) was invested into cleaning up the Seine."

Another action-packed week in #GreaterManchester 🚴‍♀️Rode to school with 200+ kids ♿️co-hosted MPs briefing 🌱met Welsh Future Generations team 🗣️spoke at Women’s Health & Community Wealth Summits 🎶enjoyed Sounds of the City & more—active travel, Coops, skills, play, youth voice & Great North. I ❤️ #TeamGM

Excellent analysis from @rosiebeacon.bsky.social on the 10yr Plan … the really genuinely radical announcement & it’s up & running is Greater Manchester as a Prevention demonstrator .. this is proper neighbourhood health .. vision & leadership from @mayorofgm.bsky.social @evefrancisholt.bsky.social 👏

Thank you to the wonderful folk at CLES for convening a brilliant array of changemakers & conversations for today’s #CommunityWealthBuilding Summit 2025. All united by a vision of fairer, more democratic local economies. #CWBSummit2025 #LocalEconomies #InclusiveEconomy

Spent this morning talking about Women's Health in #GreaterManchester & why we have to address inequalities in wealth & power. Good to share the work we are doing in GM to apply a gendered lens, close inequality gaps, track the data & lay building blocks for good lives for all.

Great fun at #WomensHealthGM today with @janemcdermott.bsky.social and @evefrancisholt.bsky.social discussing the GMCA's plans for women's health and @healthequitynorth.bsky.social Woman of the North report.

The truth about UK nuclear veterans has been 'covered up', Andy Burnham tells #Newsnight www.bbc.com/news/article...

The housing crisis is not just a numbers game. Our new photobook 'A home to die for?' draws attention to the terrible conditions that residents are facing in their homes, including collapsing staircases and ceilings, crumbling brick facades, poor air quality and severe damp issues.

The number of people in the UK living below the Happiness Poverty Line is rising (UK Wellbeing Report 2025). Applying a wellbeing lens to policy decisions on the built & natural environment is a vital step towards addressing societal challenges: www.tcpa.org.uk/areas-of-work/healthy-place-making/

Come join my team at GMCA. Are you passionate about the role of the VCFSE sector in shaping policy & practice to further equity & improve lives in Greater Manchester? Help deliver our GM goal of good lives for all in a thriving city region. 🌱 apply.greater.jobs/gmca/Job/Job...

Democracy needs an update. It was great to join today’s launch of the #v16 youth-led campaign for votes at 16. From Peterloo to the Pankhursts, #GreaterManchester has always been a birthplace for democracy & justice. Join the movement #votesat16🗳️ 👉 www.mylifemysay.org.uk/votesat16

Come join my team at GMCA. Are you passionate about the role of the VCFSE sector in shaping policy & practice to further equity & improve lives in Greater Manchester? Help deliver our GM goal of good lives for all in a thriving city region. 🌱 apply.greater.jobs/gmca/Job/Job...

Had a great day celebrating the contributions & culture of the Windrush generation in Alexandra park, Moss Side. Good to be joined by Seema Malhotra MP, Minister for Citizenship & Migration & Minister for Equalities. Thanks to CAHN for organising. #WindrushDay

Environmental sustainability is core to how we work, including planning and running our events. For #CleanAirDay, our staff champion for environmental #Sustainability shares how we put this into practice at our conference. Read and find ideas for your own events: 👉 buff.ly/S2ZKOHb #ActiveTravel

"What would it take to embed physical activity into a school day?" This bold question informed a new approach for over 50 schools in Greater Manchester. To wrap up #NSSW2025, explore the impact, insights and hopes from the Creating Active Schools (CAS) journey: buff.ly/BhJb2IP #YSTAlwaysActive

Working with volunteers in movement or physical activity? Join the next GM Moving Volunteering Community of Practice to connect, share & learn with others across GM. 🗓️ Tue 15 July, 9:30–12:45 St Thomas Centre, Manchester buff.ly/iThlLJW #Volunteering #ActiveLivesForAll

“We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us” Let Jo’s message of kindness, respect, and togetherness ring out across the world today. Her words and spirit have never been more true, important or needed. With love to all who miss her. ♥️

2nd week of HRT & I completed parkrun with a smile for 1st time in months. April ‘24 I was prepping for a half marathon then cocktail of #Covid & #perimenopause knocked me down & I’ve struggled to get back in my stride. Thanks to those who nudged me to see GP. Talk about it. #WomensHealth

#NHSConfedExpo is in #Manchester. Someone described it to me yesterday as the Glasto of heath & care. See you there? I’ll be the one in yellow wellies! 😉 Look forward to joining a great panel to discuss ‘Delivering change: lessons from reforming public services’. #nhsconfedexpo

One of today’s moments of joy.🐝 Celebrating the completion of the Chorlton cycleway, a 6.5km route safe from motor traffic. Together we are making good stuff happen in Greater Manchester. 🌱 For a thriving city region and good lives for all.

Was a joy to join 100 people today for a community bike ride in celebration of our 6km of cycle lanes between Chorlton & central Mcr. A great reminder of how joyful our journeys can be, with the right infrastructure and support, and whatever the weather! 🌦️🚴🏽‍♀️ #BeeNetwork #GMMoving 🐝

It will help deliver: 🐝 Eight rail lines and 64 stations into the capped system by 2028 🐝 A new tram line to Stockport 🐝 A new tram-train service connecting Bury, Heywood, Rochdale and Oldham 🐝 New interchanges for Leigh and Bury 🐝 A new tram stop for North Manchester

BIG news for the @BeeNetwork! The Government is backing it with £2.5 billion to become the UK’s first fully-integrated, all-electric public transport system by 2030. 🐝

"We are being lured into that most destructive of myths: that the essential human position is as an individual purchaser acquiring desirable goods – not a contributor to the building of a trustworthy network of relations, dependable enough to allow more people to become active&generous contributors"

The inaugural meeting of the Trades Union Congress was held #OTD 1868 at the Mechanics’ Institute in Manchester. It was convened by Manchester and Salford Trades Council, whose first secretary and president were enthusiastic Conservatives, though most union leaders were Liberal.

@evefrancisholt.bsky.social & Tabz O’Brien shared insights from GM's place-based approach to prevention. A core part of the Live Well movement is a network of welcoming centres offering integrated financial, employment, well-being, health & social support – and a chance to build social connection.

Energising day at #StrongerThings. Thanks New Local for bringing together so many people from UK community power movement! To include colleagues from #Oldham, #Wigan, #Trafford, #GreaterManchester. A joy to see people & share stage with Tabz, Andy & Shannon to talk about GM approach. #GMLiveWell ❤️✨

“Our super power is our care and love for each other. When we face the same direction and pull together, we can do marvellous things. “We have to remind ourselves as citizens and communities that we have power - protect that and give it the oxygen needed to grow.” 💬 @evefrancisholt.bsky.social

“Communities in and of themselves are about prevention. “For Live Well, the vision is to be community led, system enabled… sing with not to.” @greatermcr.bsky.social’s Tabz O’Brien on GMCA’s movement for community-led health. #StrongerThings

“We can’t separate power, wealth & health. Rather than just shifting power, we have to grow it. “Power is not finite - with the right ingredients it can grow exponentially. This is what we’ve seen in Greater Manchester.” @evefrancisholt.bsky.social on how place and power impact health outcomes

Looking back with fondness this #WorldBicycleDay to 2023 I met up with some other cycling enthusiasts-some of whom I'd only met through social media-for a lovely bike ride around sunny Manchester! @fatherhilarious.blog @davewalker.bsky.social @evefrancisholt.bsky.social @markhewerdine.bsky.social

Exploring New Frontiers in Citizen Participation in the Policy Cycle. New report from OECD.

FREE TO READ: Our interview with Andy Burnham (@andyburnham.bsky.social), in which the Greater Manchester Mayor talks about devolution, housing, the need for ideological confidence, and why Westminster should abolish the whiping system renewal.org.uk/articles/int...