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Hello,
Beetham Tower is not happy. Once the tallest building in Manchester and the biggest outside of London, it was overtaken by Deansgate South Tower a few years ago. And Beetham’s 554-ft height now looks set to be dwarfed again as Renaker Build unveil plans for the Great Jackson Street area.
Plot D - as it’s rather unimaginatively being called - will be the city’s first 70-storey tower, standing at 698 ft.
“NEW ENEMY. BEETHAM FIGHT INTO RUBBLE. GRAAAAGH,” responded Angry Beetham - a Twitter account which claims to speak as an anthropomorphised version of Beetham Tower.
The Great Jackson Street area is already home to Deansgate Square, where the massive 656 feet-tall South Tower stands. Plot D will stand at 71 storeys encompassing 642 apartments, a top-floor restaurant, sky pool, yoga studio, co-working spaces and gym.
Place North West reports that Plot D will be 698 feet tall, overtaking the South Tower.
Meanwhile, four new towers known as ‘Crown Street Phase Three’ will be 47 or 51 storeys tall.
It’s sometimes hard to keep track of the many developments popping up around Manchester city centre. And if you’re anything like me you may often find yourself walking around town, staring up and wondering ‘what the hell is that, now?’.
But at almost twice the size of the CIS building - once the tallest in Manchester - Plot D will certainly make an impression.
Inspired by one of our most historic buildings
The eye-catching stepped design of a new residential block on Deansgate certainly looks like an improvement on the concrete carbuncle that previously adorned the site.
And though the style looks bright and modern, a quick look at the planning statement for the site shows designers have taken inspiration from one of Manchester’s oldest buildings.
Metal panels which will form the facade will reference the Collyhurst sandstone used to construct the nearby Grade I listed Manchester Cathedral. It will be embossed in a ‘hit & miss’ arrangement with an ‘Ogee arch’ that will reference the tracery of the cathedral windows, the plans state.
The building - yet to be officially named - will form part of an ongoing multimillion pound scheme to revamp the former Renaissance Hotel. The ‘eyesore’ Brutalist building is being redeveloped into a ‘part-office, part-hotel, and part-residential complex’. The Treehouse Hotel - the tall building in the below picture - is due to open this year with a recruitment drive ongoing.
As Dianne Bourne wrote recently, the hotel entrance will open onto the River Irwell, with a riverside terrace bar and quirky sheds which will form part of its rooftop bar venue ‘The Nest’.
An all-star foodie line-up will curate the two brand new restaurants. Chef Mary-Ellen McTague - the former chef of Heston Blumenthal’s three Michelin-starred Fat Duck - will take over the ground-floor restaurant with plans for an sustainable, ‘zero waste’ all-day menu. While Sam Grainger, the young chef behind Belzan and Madre in Liverpool, will be in charge of the 14th-floor restaurant, which will focus on a pan-Asian concept.
Planners have now given the go-ahead to the office complex plans, with work due to begin in March, as Ethan Davies reports. The glass block on the right of the picture above will form the offices and the pink, stepped building to the rear will be the residential block with 300 apartments - some of which will include terraces and Juliet balconies.
‘Don't tell me Brexit has not decimated this country’
"Our plan for growth is necessitated, energised and made possible by Brexit,” enthused Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Friday, as he outlined his plan to use Brexit as the 'catalyst' for Britain’s future economic growth.
It’s not a sentiment Mariella Gabbutt agrees with. Speaking to reporter Damon Wilkinson at Openshaw's New Smithfield Market, she says Brexit has been ‘totally devastating’ for her family’s wholesale fish and meat supplier J+B Wilde.
"The cost of everything we import has gone up by at least 25 per cent, minimum,” she says. "I have been doing this a long time and I have never known anything put so much pressure on the industry.”
Mariella says she has seen hundreds of restaurants come and go over the years, but has never seen so many closing as are currently. "We have had to pull credit, we've just stopped doing it, because we are terrified of businesses shutting down and leaving us out of pocket,” she says.
Her firm used to import clams and oysters from France, but have stopped as the cost of each delivery has gone up by more than £100. Ducks, which she buys from France and Poland, have doubled in price.
In January last year, two truckloads of fresh fish from Turkey were sent back from the border because of a minor error in the paperwork. It meant around £200,000 of seafood went to waste.
"It used to take a couple of weeks to get your order, now it's six to eight weeks," she says. "We can't get lorry drivers, fruit pickers, restaurants can't get waiters or washer-uppers, the NHS has a massive shortage of nurses.
"Don't tell me that Brexit has not decimated this country. This country will not recover from Brexit for at least 25 years.”
Money for the grassroots music ecosystem
Manchester’s biggest new music venue is yet to open its doors - but campaigners already say it should contribute to ‘the grassroots music ecosystem’.
Music Venue Trust - which represents almost 1,000 UK local music venues - has written to Andy Burnham, Manchester Council and all Manchester MPs asking that Co-op Live Arena pledges a percentage of every ticket it sells to struggling venues.
Chief executive Mark Davyd wants all new arenas opening in the UK to contribute and says: “We cannot go on building more and more arenas with no plan of how to fill the stages they create in five, ten or twenty years’ time and without these new facilities playing their part in helping protect the grassroots eco-system.”
MVT says the number of live music performances at grassroots music venues has fallen by almost 17 per cent since 2019, while audience numbers have dropped by 11 per cent.
They attribute this to significant cutbacks made by venues in order to continue operating solvently. A report by the group found the average grassroots music venue capacity was 308, of which 40 per cent was utilised per event last year.
MVT is also calling for a review of VAT on venue ticket sales and a review of ‘excessive and anti-competitive’ business rates.
Co-Op Live say they previously reached out to MVT and are currently awaiting a meeting to discuss collaboration.
Mark Donnelly, COO of Oak View Group International said: “We are committed to giving back to the local community, having pledged £1m annually to the Co-op Foundation, and working towards Manchester City Council’s target of net zero carbon by 2038. This ethos extends further into the grassroots sector, working alongside Manchester’s vibrant Night & Day Café to host our recent countdown event.”
'Asking For It'
TV star Emily Atack has opened up about the explicit pictures and messages she is sent every day - as figures show thousands of abusive messages were sent to people in Greater Manchester last year.
In her documentary ‘Asking For It’, The Inbetweeners star talks about the offensive and threatening messages she receives over social media - which have included naked photographs and even rape threats. The show will explore why she and others are harassed online and will see Emily confront men who harass her.
It comes as Home Office figures show Emily is far from alone, with many people in Greater Manchester on the receiving end of similar abusive and explicit messages.
Data journalist Richard Ault has found that Greater Manchester Police recorded 22,017 crimes of sending ‘malicious communications’ during the year ending September 2022. That is the equivalent of 60 crimes per day.
These are cases where someone has sent an email, a social media post, or any other form of communication that is indecent, grossly offensive, threatening, or contains information that is false or believed to be false.
In Greater Manchester, crimes of sending malicious communications have increased by 13 per cent - from 19,548 in the year ending September 2021 - and have rocketed by 73 per cent since 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, when there were 12,709 of these crimes.
Walkout Wednesday
Teachers, university staff, train drivers, civil servants, bus drivers and security guards will all strike on Wednesday in what is set to be the biggest day of industrial action in more than a decade.
Teachers in England and Wales who are members of the National Education Union will take part in walkouts on Wednesday which threaten disruption to more than 23,000 schools.
The action could see more than 100,000 teachers go on strike. It’s the first of seven days of action planned by the NEU in February and March.
Many classrooms in Greater Manchester are set to be empty on the day of the strike.
Dan, a 34-year-old history teacher in Salford, says many teachers he knows have looked at taking jobs abroad. He told the Mirror: "Teachers don’t want to be doing this. But if we don’t force action the system will be in crisis in the next five to 10 years. At present you have people solely educated by cover teachers because of the staffing crisis.
“I know staff who were amazing and they’ve gone over to the Middle East. It gets to the point where some think, ‘It’s not worth it, the stress, the hours and the pay’.”
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Weather etc
Temperatures: Overcast. 9C.
Road closures: M56 Eastbound exit slip road to the A34 closed due to roadworks at A34 Kingsway until February 5.
One lane closed due to carriageway repairs on M56 in both directions between J7 A556 Chester Road (Bowdon) and J5 (Manchester Airport) until February 18.
Trivia question: Johnny Marr contributed to two songs on the 2008 album Out of Control by which girl group?
Manchester headlines
Boiling Point: The BBC has announced Boiling Point, a new five-part television series based on the hit movie of the same name, will film in Manchester. Boiling Point starred This Is England and Boardwalk Empire actor Stephen Graham as Andy Jones, a head chef who has to wrangle together his team on the restaurant’s busiest day of the year. The 2021 film - which was filmed in one continuous shot - was critically acclaimed and received four BAFTA nominations, including Outstanding British Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Graham. BBC greenlit a series sequel to Boiling Point in October last year, which is set six months after the events of the film. The BBC announced that filming on the TV show began on Monday in Manchester. More here.
Improved: A children's nursery on the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Oxford Road campus has turned its Ofsted rating around in a matter of months. First Steps Day Nursery was rated Inadequate in a report published last year, but the government watchdog now says children receive 'high-quality care and education'. Earlier this month, the government inspectors updated the nursery’s rating to Good after finding significant improvements. More here.
Mozarmy: Fans of Morrissey and The Smiths from all around the world are set to descend on Manchester for the tenth annual Mozarmy festival. The weekender will happen on April 28, and is reputedly ‘one of the biggest fan gatherings of its kind in the world’. Tickets for the events are on sale, with a host of talks, Q&A sessions and parties happening over the weekend. Visitors are expected from as far afield as Texas, Indonesia and Japan. More here.
- Boy racers: A new 20mph zone is to be introduced in Alderley Edge to clamp down on 'boy racers' speeding through the streets. The measures are to be introduced to improve pedestrian safety and tackle ongoing traffic concerns. Residents in Alderley Edge and nearby Wilmslow have suffered problems in recent months, particularly with 'boy racers' and supercars revving engines, prompting specialist noise-activated cameras to be introduced to kerb the noise and fine those responsible. Extensive new traffic calming measures are now set to be introduced, with developments to begin taking place in Alderley Edge to create a 20mph zone to 'force drivers to control their speed'. More here.
Nirvana in Manchester
This brilliant picture of Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic, of Nirvana, was taken by photographer Richard Davis at Manchester Polytechnic back in 1989.
Richard’s 'In The City' exhibition spans more than 35 years and features images from gigs, the Hulme of the 1980s and more recent portraits taken under the Mancunian Way, celebrating diversity in the City.
The photographer’s talk about the exhibition, taking place tomorrow, is sold out - but you can still see his pictures on display at Central Library until April 2.
Worth a read
Greater Manchester’s low unemployment rate leaves out a 'hidden army' of hundreds of thousands of working-aged people who are neither in work nor looking for a job due for reasons outside their control, a report by a leading think-tank says today.
Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons has been looking at the latest Centre for Cities research which states that Manchester's official unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent more than triples to 17 per cent when those classed as 'involuntarily economically inactive' are included in the figures.
You can read more about it all here.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. 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: Girls Aloud
