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Hello,
If you’ve powered down Market Street recently (and honestly, what other way is there to negotiate it) you’ll have seen the shabby state of the old Debenhams building. Although it’s looking far better than it was back in January when graffiti and smashed windows led the council to warn development could be stalled unless it was tidied up.
The Rylands building was once the smartest looking shop on the high street and it still retains the bones of a beautiful building with its Art Deco facade. I’ve certainly got fond memories of times spent in Debenhams - from the peaceful top floor cafe to the Christmas displays, it was a part of Manchester’s makeup for so long.
Now, developer AM Alpha has released pictures of how the 1930s Grade-II listed building will appear once transformed, and it looks pretty smart.
One of the aspects that caught my eye was the huge atrium. There are also plans for a rooftop extension which will expand the building by four floors and will accommodate office space and a ‘winter garden’, according to the Max Fordham site.
As James Holt writes, the former department store has been empty since Debenhams went into administration in December 2020. It was later bought by fashion giant Boohoo but all its stores were closed.
Global real-estate investment firm AM Alpha is leading the £68.5m redevelopment with the upper floors transformed into office space and a shopping arcade on the ground floor. Work has already begun with a completion date of early 2025 mooted.
‘PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SINGING ALONG’
There’s an interesting rule at The Palace Theatre musical production of The Bodyguard - no singing.
Dianne Bourne, who went to review the show last night, was warned she and the rest of the audience would not be allowed to sing during the show.
Keen to blast out And I Will Always Love You at top volume, Dianne was a bit put out. And she was even more surprised when she spotted ushers holding aloft signs with bold print stating: "PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SINGING ALONG. Thank you."
The instruction apparently follows ‘anti-social behaviour’ from previous audiences on the tour which has been enough to put the stars off their performances. Fair enough I guess. I mean, you are supposed to project in the thee-ay-tra, but that applies to the actors, not the audience.
Despite the stern warning, Dianne reports that the show - starring Pussycat Doll Melody Thornton in the Whitney Houston role - was enjoyable, aside from a few technical glitches.
And it turns out the crowd did get to sing along to a Whitney medley in the end. Dianne writes: “Everyone poured out onto the streets of Manchester with a smile on their face. And a coachload of ladies (literally a coachload, they were waiting for their coach) decide to take matters vocally into their own hands. They start belting out a capella versions of all the anthems we've just heard played inside.
“The ballad of Whitney rings out on Whitworth Street. You may stop us singing in the theatre, The Bodyguard producers. But you shall never stop us caterwauling on the streets.”
Hundreds facing uncertainty
Afghan refugees in Manchester are facing uncertainty as the hotels where they are being housed are set to close.
There are 740 refugees who have been living in the city of Manchester alone since fleeing the Taliban's takeover of the country nearly two years ago. The government last week announced that refugees who arrived under the Afghan Resettlement Programme will no longer be allowed to live in hotels. Veterans minister Johnny Mercer said the £1m daily cost of housing around 8,000 Afghan refugees across the country - half of them children - is unsustainable.
As Joseph Timan reports, all Afghan refugees still living in hotels - including three in Manchester which are accommodating a mix of families and individuals - will be written to at the end of April and given 'at least three months' notice' to leave. The government has announced a £35m package of 'new funding' to support those affected, while also expanding the Local Authority Housing Fund by £250m to help councils source homes for Afghan refugees in 'bridging accommodation'.
But it’s feared some could end up homeless. Manchester Council's deputy leader Joanna Midgley says the authority has been ‘proud to help support people fleeing from the horrors and trauma of the war’.
“These people have been living in hotels for far too long due to government delays in finding suitable move on accommodation,” she says. "The sudden and unexpected announcement to close the Afghan Bridging Hotels from June is another example of this government's inept handling of the resettlement scheme and the asylum system more widely.”
Coun Midgley says the next step must be fully funded and resourced to ensure nobody ‘ends up homeless as a result’.
Councils spent £1.1m on Levelling Up bids
Data journalist David Dubas-Fisher has done a lot of Freedom of Information requests in his time, but particularly this last month. He’s discovered that town halls across the country have forked out millions on consultants to help try and obtain Levelling Up funding. In fact, as my colleague Rob Parsons revealed last week, the total amount of public money spent was £23.4m.
As Rob wrote in his Northern Agenda newsletter, the investigation ‘lays bare the absurdity of the country's 'begging bowl' funding culture as local authorities spend as much as £1.3m each on outside experts to improve their bids for regeneration cash’. He also reveals that £2.69m was spent on ‘doomed’ round two bids which were never going to succeed due to councils having already received money in round one.
Here in Greater Manchester, local authorities paid out £1.1 million on consultants. The successful allocations brought in almost £60m for the region in January. Wigan and Oldham councils both received £20m from the government for the restoration of Haigh Hall and to create a 'Green Technology and Innovation Network' respectively. Trafford also received £18.3m allocated to the redevelopment of Partington Sports Village.
And, in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's Spring budget in mid-March, an influx of money breathed life back into bids that lost out on the first allocation of funding in January. Salford City Council was given a contribution of £5.4m for its plans to redevelop Eccles town centre, Tameside got £19.9m to spend on their levelling up projects to redevelop Stalybridge and Denton town centres and Wigan was awarded £6.6m to help rejuvenate Ashton town centre.
The biggest winner in Greater Manchester was Stockport, who were told they would get £20m for a new community hub with a pool, library, gym, community space and play park in Marple. In his Spring budget to the House of Commons, Mr Hunt also included Oldham and Rochdale in the £400m funding pot designated for 'levelling up partnerships'.
You can read more about the details here.
'We’re in 2023 - that's madness'
There are some shocking differences in life expectancy in Greater Manchester depending on your postcode. As we mentioned last week, children born in some areas are predicted to live ten years longer than in others.
And babies born in the Moses Gate area of Farnworth, in Bolton, are expected to live to just 75 on average, meaning it has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the country.
Paige Oldfield has been speaking to residents in the town, including one mum who described the statistic as ‘madness’.
“I’m a bit shocked to be fair,” Nick Baynham told Paige, as he walked his dog through the suburb. “I expected people to live longer than that, to about 90 or something. That’s bad. But it’s people not having the best path in life, especially around here,” he said.
You can read more about that story here.
On shift with the knife crime cops
Some say there is a knife crime 'pandemic' in Greater Manchester and while incidents fell by 4 per cent in the 12 months to January, tackling this often devastating crime remains a priority for Greater Manchester Police.
Stephen Topping spent the day on patrol with officers working on operations aimed at reducing violence. He witnessed four arrests and a knife being taken off the streets.
On the road with PCs Ainsley John and Ben Cartledge, Stephen watched a 14-year-old boy with a lock knife being detained. “There's a culture of knife crime at the minute where everyone thinks everyone is in possession, so I'll go out with one. It's about letting people understand there's a consequence for that,” PC John says.
He admits stop and search has been controversial, with recent figures revealing black people were nearly four times as likely to be stopped and searched in Greater Manchester than white people. Asian people were 1.7 times more likely.
“I'm happy to take all the criticism, because it is controversial to an extent, stop and search, with the racial element and the profiling,” PC John says. “But at the end of the day we're getting positive results, we're engaging with the people that are going out with weapons. Everyone we stop-search, I say they're more than welcome to keep a record. All stop searches are meant to be bodycammed unless it's a covert operation, and if they want to complain we're very transparent, we're very open and I would encourage everyone to do so if they feel strongly enough.”
Inspector John Ezard says knife crime is complex and not something police can ‘arrest their way out of’. Instead GMP needs communities to speak to young people about weapons.
“It can ruin multiple lives around you, so it's about making it such a taboo subject - a bit like drink-driving,” the inspector says. “I'd like to think that in this day and age, in a pub there'd be numerous people stopping you, trying to take the keys out of your hand and we need the same approach with weapons.”
You can read the full piece here.
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Weather etc
- Wednesday: Cloudy changing to light rain by late morning. 9C.
- Road closures: A662 Pollard Street Westbound, New Islington, closed due to roadworks from Pollard Street to A665 Great Ancoats Street. Until April 13.
- A5186 Langworthy Road Northbound, Salford, closed due to roadworks from A576 Eccles Old Road to Charles Street. Until April 9.
- Trivia question: Which director made Looking for Eric - the 2009 film about a depressed postman's conversations with Eric Cantona?
Manchester headlines
Explosion: A worker was injured after a reported explosion at a high-rise tower currently being built in Manchester city centre this morning. Emergency crews were called to Albion Street, off Whitworth Street, at around 9am. It’s understood construction staff were working with concrete in flooring space on one of the Viadux Tower’s higher floors when the explosion happened. Greater Manchester Police said one worker was injured but their injuries are not thought to be 'life-changing'. More here.
Scandal: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has described the Rochdale child grooming scandal as 'one of the greatest failures of our society'. A nine-strong gang of Asian men were convicted of sex offences against girls in 2012. For two years from early 2008, girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs and gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis, where cash was paid to abuse them. Police said as many as 47 girls were groomed. It took the courage of a former health worker in Rochdale who catalogued the abuse over years and blew the whistle, together with detective turned campaigner Maggie Oliver, who resigned from the force over the issue, for the full picture to emerge. While launching a 'grooming gangs taskforce' in the town yesterday, Mr Sunak promised tougher sentences and new support for local forces to protect children from abuse. You can read his full comments here.
Tiny toiletries: London City Airport has today become the first UK hub to ‘end the tyranny of tiny toiletries’ by scrapping the 100ml limit on liquids, pastes and gels in hand baggage. And Manchester is soon to follow. The government announced in December that it had set a deadline of June 2024 for UK airports to install new security technology, meaning passengers will be able to bring containers carrying up to two litres of liquid in their hand luggage. The technology is being gradually rolled out at airports across the UK, including Manchester Airport, which is finalising its programme for completing the upgrades.
Deep concern: Business leaders have called for ‘decisive action’ over TransPennine Express. The Manchester-based bosses say they have ‘deep concern’ over the rail operator’s ‘ongoing, unacceptable performance and the impact it is having on the region's economy’. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper, the 12-strong group said TPE's operations are ‘not even approaching an adequate service’. TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast have faced calls for their contracts to be axed due to their performance. TPE's contract expires at the end of May and the Department for Transport is examining the details of a recovery plan the company submitted in January after ministers deemed its performance was unacceptable. More here.
Worth a read
It was a moment many hoped would never come, but on Friday night the curtains at Oldham Coliseum fell for a final time. Jenna Campbell was there to witness the historic moment and reports there were plenty of tears during the emotional farewell.
“We are not leaving like this,” said artistic director Chris Lawson, as he struggled to hold back tears. “In a minute we will fill this room with applause.”
Going out on ‘its own terms’ after losing its £1.8m government subsidy, the Fairbottom Street theatre, which helped launch the careers of some of the UK's best-known actors and performers, was determined to go out with a bang.
So bosses put on Encore, a compilation of script-in-hand performances by over 20 actors from 11 Coliseum productions, comedians, and some very special guests.
Noise poured from the theatre ahead of curtain call, as actors packed out every room available to rehearse. Some had days to refine, others just hours, and Christopher Eccleston - who took to the stage alongside Maxine Peake to perform a scene from an adaptation of Ken Loach's award-winning film I, Daniel Blake - had ‘just seven minutes’ such was the last-minute nature of proceedings.
You can read all the details 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: Ken Loach.
