Ensuring that everyone can breathe clean air is one of the most fundamental issues facing us today and an issue that we must all address, together.

Last year, we were the first Combined Authority in the country to declare a climate emergency. But we are not content to just talk about taking action; we’re already taking firm steps. Addressing poor air quality is a really important part of that and I have charged our newly established Climate Partnership to come up with a Climate Action Plan to draw up our region’s roadmap for tackling climate change.

During the first lockdown, we got a glimpse of what a greener future could look like. We all appreciated the reduction in traffic on our streets and the improved air quality that came with it, and we were reminded how valuable our green spaces are.

Our region has ambitious plans to become net zero carbon a whole decade before national targets and are already making progress through projects that replace polluting buses with greener hydrogen models, through retrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient and encouraging people to ditch their cars in favour of a 600km walking and cycling network we’re building.

Best of all, we’re developing plans to harness the power of the River Mersey, our region’s lifeblood for centuries, through a tidal scheme that has the potential to generate enough clean, predictable energy to power up to one million homes.