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Would you pay £200 to sit on the floor of a train outside a toilet? Probably not willingly, but that's what has happened to a number of Avanti customers according to city council leader Bev Craig. She's very unhappy about the rail operator being handed a six-month stay by the government - despite months of chaos.
We'll be discussing that story, as well as the latest on the search for Keith Bennet and the hospitality closures across Manchester, in today's newsletter.
Search for Keith 'will not be closed'
A new search for the body of Moors Murders victim Keith Bennett has been called off after officers spent a week at a site on Saddleworth Moor, but found nothing.
Police excavated an area near Dovestone Reservoir after they were shown a photograph taken at the site by author and amateur sleuth Russell Edwards. Mr Edwards had shown the image to other experts, who said it appeared to show part of a child's jaw bone.
It’s understood Mr Edwards did not see the jaw bone at the site but noticed it when analysing photographs taken during the dig. None of his team actually saw the apparent jaw bone in the soil - only on a photograph, M.E.N chief reporter Neal Keeling writes.
Greater Manchester Police commissioned independent forensic experts and anthropologists to scrutinise the photograph and decided it was enough evidence to warrant a search - which has since failed to find any 'visible evidence' of human remains.
Detective Chief Inspector Cheryl Hughes says Mr Edwards initially went to police after finding what he believed was a fruit stone, clothing material, hair and decaying body tissue at the site, and chemical soil samples that 'indicated the presence of human remains'.
Despite the dig being called off, DCI Hughes says the search for Keith, ‘will not be closed until we have found the answers his family have deserved for so many years’.
Keith’s brother, Alan, 65, this week praised the continued efforts of the police but expressed frustration that information supplied by Mr Edwards has come to nothing. He has spent more than 30 years trying to locate this brother’s remains and wrote dozens of letters to killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
Off the rails
"Not good enough," Manchester Council leader Bev Craig tweeted this morning - reacting to news that Avanti West Coast has been given until April 2023 to improve services.
"Time and time again Avanti have let passengers down, cost the taxpayer money and hampered the economy. The Government must take responsibility in restoring a stable, reliable and frequent service between Manchester and London," she said.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Craig said there have been 'so many’ examples of people finding seats have been triple booked. “People are paying £200/£300 to travel on trains in this country and are sitting on the floor of the toilet,” she said.
Avanti has been told to shape up by the new transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who has made a number of demands in a bid to improve the service between Manchester and London. “We need train services which are reliable and resilient to modern day life,” she said.
The company has been told to train new drivers, deliver a successful timetable recovery plan, reduce reliance on rest day working and extend booking options for passengers, making tickets available as early as possible.
As you know, Andy Burnham asked the government to strip the train company of its contract unless the axed services were reinstated soon. Today he said putting Avanti West Coast on notice marks 'a significant shift in tone' under the new Secretary of State. But he said the lack of an acceptable rescue plan from the company - and clear conditions from the Government - means very few people in Greater Manchester will support the extension. He wants day-to-day monitoring and week-to-week public reporting on performance.
Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, went further described Avanti as 'worse than dreadful' with a 'poor and unreliable service'. "Given their poor performance to date has been allowed without the blink of an eyelid from ministers, while Government hands them millions of pounds in subsidy to perform so badly, I have absolutely no confidence the latest warning will make a jot of difference," he told reporter Stephen Topping.
Last month, the company published a plan to reinstate some services on certain days from September 27. Timetables on other days were due to be boosted ‘as soon as possible’ ahead of another increase on December 11.
Avanti West Coast has maintained that strike action and staff shortages are to blame for the problems and has apologised for the ‘enormous frustration and inconvenience’.
I'm sure many of us will have first hand experience in seeing how things pan out over the next six months. Please address any complaints to the Department of Transport.
‘Please be kind’
Boujee is the latest casualty among Manchester’s hospitality industry. The all-pink ‘Instagrammable’ restaurant - which had a champagne room, selfie room and Barbie and Ken boxes - opened inside the former historic Freemasons Hall in May 2021.
Last month, The Real Housewives of Cheshire star Lystra Adams - one of the directors - announced that she had 'walked away' from the restaurant chain. This week a note reading 'closed, so sorry' was taped to the front door of Manchester city centre venue.
It’s a tough time for hospitality businesses as they deal with rising energy and food bills and inflation while still trying to recover following the pandemic. Just last month, one of the city’s pioneering vegan eateries closed suddenly. Bosses at V Rev - a fixture of the Northern Quarter for a decade - said lockdowns and restrictions brought the business to a point where it could not financially recover.
Earlier this week, Suburban Green, on Chorlton’s Beech Road, closed down after barely 18 months with owners citing post-pandemic difficulties.
With many places struggling to stay afloat, the owners of Malaysian-Filipino café Yes Lah, in Didsbury, asked customers to be kind online after receiving a negative review. “Please be kind, we are only trying our best and these reviews are unhelpful as we cannot do anything after it's written to rectify it. This is for hospitality in general and not just us.”
Despite these sad closures, there is some light at the end of the tunnel as a number of new venues prepare to open this autumn. They include a new pie shop, a Greek restaurant and a ramen bar.
What's On writer Ben Arnold talks you through the list here.
Meanwhile, craft beer brewers Pomona Island are set to open their own pub early next year. The award-winning brewery has been a fixture at Freight Island but they're moving on and creating a boozer called North Westward Ho, on Pall Mall, above Sam’s Chop House.
“We want the space to feel like a pub, not a bar and we want all the good things that come with that,” they say.
A 'sensitive renovation'
You know that bit of King Street West near the Greggs and Spar? You know the bit, near Crazy Pedros? Well it could soon be redeveloped as part of a £32m project if Property Alliance Group get their way.
They want to create a 13-storey building for office space and new retail units. The ‘sensitive renovation of the carriage works and inner courtyard’ is part of the planned scheme and the existing Reedham House building would be replaced.
Architect Jon Matthews says Reedham House was almost completely rebuilt in 1926 and then again following bomb damage in WW2 ‘meaning that it has very little heritage value’.
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Weather etc
- Saturday: Cloudy changing to sunny by late morning. 14C.
- Road closures A57 Snake Pass in both directions for roadworks between Ladybower Reservoir and Hurst Road until October 23.
- Trains: Limited services on most train operators due to strike action on Saturday October 8. Train drivers and Network Rail staff, including guards and signallers, are walking out for 24 hours.
- Trivia question: Which sitcom, created by Victoria Wood, is set in the canteen of HWD Components?
Manchester headlines
Prestwich: Disciplinary procedures have started involving staff at a mental health unit where patients were allegedly abused. More than 20 staff have been suspended from the Edenfield Centre, which is in the grounds of the former Prestwich Hospital in Bury. Police have launched a criminal investigation. More her e.
Markets: The Manchester Christmas Markets will take place from Thursday, November 10 until Thursday December 22, it has been announced. The festive ice rink at Cathedral Gardens, food and drink stalls and "Winter Gardens" on Piccadilly Gardens will all return.
Tax office: A Manchester city centre building used as HMRC's base is set to be knocked down to make way for new offices and apartments rising up to 45 storeys. Albert Bridge House, on Bridge Street, would be demolished under the plans for 367 apartments and a 19-storey office block revealed today (September 21). Built in the 1950s as a tax office, the 18-storey brutalist building is home to HMRC staff who are moving metres away to Salford's New Bailey this year. Developer Oval Real Estate says the soon-to-be empty building has 'come to the end of its logical lifespan', but offers a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity'. More here.
The Library Theatre
Remember the Library Theatre? I enjoyed many an afternoon there in the 1990s, as I’m sure many of you did.
Now Manchester Council has unveiled a plaque at Central Library to commemorate the much-revered theatre. It occupied the basement of Central Library for over 60 years until its closure in 2010.
Former theatre director Roger Haines said: “I look back with huge gratitude to the Library Theatre Company and the unfettered support it received from the Council - it was a wonderful family, and one that gave me opportunities that I would not have had elsewhere.
“The joy I got from working there, and learning there, was paramount.”
Worth a read
“Laura Eaves always knew she wanted to work with the dead. She set her sights on becoming a funeral embalmer when she finished school - but was warned the job was ‘too dark’ for a young woman,” writes Paige Oldfield.
She has spoken to Laura about her career path that started when her grandmother died on her wedding day. “The funeral directors at the time were fantastic in speeding up the process of organising the funeral so my husband and I could attend and bid our farewell before flying back to China as a newly-wed couple.
"Their professionalism meant so much to me, I knew I had to change my career and follow my dream,” she says.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. I'll be away next week so I'm leaving you in the extremely capable hands of Damon Wilkinson.
If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk.
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The answer to today's trivia question is: Dinnerladies
