When Nadia Khan used to visit Manchester’s curry mile in the 1990s, the street was filled with families and felt completely safe. Travelling from Milton Keynes to see family and friends in the area, she would be excited to see the bustling street lined with stalls selling clothes and bric-a-brac.
“Now a woman can’t walk on these streets on her own at night without getting harassed,” she said. “It never used to be like that.”
Her complaints do not stop there. The number of people begging on the street and at traffic lights has increased significantly since she was young, she said, and drug dealers have begun operating in the neighbourhood.
She said: “There are beggars everywhere you look, rats in the takeaways and [nitrous oxide] canisters from people using them in cars.”
The city’s well-known curry mile is actually a half-mile stretch of restaurants and Asian sweet shops on Wilmslow Road, just south of the centre. It has been the pride of Manchester, developed in the 50s and 60s to serve south Asian migrants working in the textile industry.
But this piece of history could be at risk of disappearing. Business owners, too, are complaining about crime levels in a neighbourhood that has been left to become filthy while they struggle to survive financially in a cost of living crisis.
Ali Yassin, who has worked on the curry mile for 16 years and now owns Krunchy Fried Chicken there, said footfall on the street has dropped massively since before the pandemic.
“People used to be out four or five times a week,” he said. “Now it’s maybe just once.”
Ali Hassan, who is manager of Jafra restaurant and has worked in different places along this road for the past 10 years, agreed. The price of a drum of oil cost about £13 before the pandemic, he said. It peaked at £38 a few weeks ago, and now cost about £32.
“Flour has also more than doubled,” he went on. “We’re struggling to pay the bills. The electric has gone from £800 or £900 a month before the pandemic to £4,000 now.
“From next year our business rates will be £33,000 a year. And we can’t get employees. It’s a struggle to find experienced staff, especially Europeans. It used to be easy to get staff – Italians, Spanish, Polish – but they’re not here any more. Experienced people from places like Syria come in asking for work, but they’re asylum seekers and we’re not allowed to employ them. It’s a shame because they’re hard workers and they know the job.”
During Ramadan, most Curry Mile restaurants were fully booked with families gathering for iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal. But at other times of the year, especially in the winter, the restaurants struggle to survive, and this Ramadan was quieter than normal, he said.
And he echoed Yassin in saying that regular customers had stopped coming so often, which has led to many restaurants on the street closing down.
Hassan said the road was now roamed by gangs of teenagers selling drugs. He had witnessed a number of serious crimes in recent weeks. He said: “I’ve reported three guys with knives on the street out here, five people with a car who smashed into that shop, some guys with knives who stole a guy’s bike and stabbed him. That’s why families stop coming.”
Abdullah Albaydar, manager of a takeaway called Al Jazeera, said he did not want to complain about the area but he did think there should be more police on the streets.
“We need more support to maintain the area, and more patrols,” he said, adding that he had not seen more officers on the beat, despite the council and police having both pledged more support after calls by businesses for extra patrols to make visitors feel safer.
Manchester council recently won £2.4m of funding from the Home Office’s Safer Streets Fund, which includes money for initiatives such as street lighting and home security, and businesses hope this will have a positive effect. The council has launched a project aimed at reducing crime in the wider Rusholme area.
Greater Manchester police said it is taking a “zero tolerance” approach to crime and has increased stop and search around the Curry Mile in a bid to catch drug dealers and crack down on antisocial behaviour.
The police also said they would hold regular meetings with residents and businesses, and would specifically tackle concerns raised by the community, though Albaydar said he had not heard about any meetings.
But it is not all bad, he said. “There are places that have been here a really long time. We’ve been here 30 years.”
Where the old restaurants had closed down, new ones are taking their place, he said. “Lots of places are still doing well. There are still places opening – big guys.”
He pointed across the road to a shuttered premises. “There’s an African restaurant opening there. Bad and good exists.”
