Imagine not feeling comfortable in your own skin for as long as you can remember. The toll on your mental and physical health of a life peppered with bullying and snide remarks due to you not fitting in to the gender stereotypes. You reach a decision to transition, and are filled with the hope of […]
Can the Homes Act fix slum conditions in the private rented sector?
You move into the only place you could afford in your area. The wallpaper is hanging and bubbling off and there are large areas of mould mottling the walls, like the house has caught some kind of disease. The doors and windows are draughty and there are mouse droppings all over the kitchen. Welcome to […]
‘Critical for a liveable, prosperous and sustainable city’: Manchester City Council leader weighs in on bus reform
As public support grows for bus regulation in Greater Manchester, campaigners from Better Buses for Greater Manchester this week have been taking local council leaders for a ride… on a bus. Throughout Better Buses Action Week local residents have been inviting council leaders onto their commutes to convince them to support bus regulation and to […]
DJ moonlights as Metro Mayor
Last Wednesday night DJ Andy Burnham treated constituents to an in-depth journey of his musical back-catalogue, spinning sweet plates of plastic in the Chorlton venue Electrik. Burnham’s artistic journey to the lofty heights of a desk at the back of a bar has been a long and arduous one, especially since his occasional wanderings into […]
Bus franchising: a route to cleaner air for Greater Manchester
“Levels of air pollution in Greater Manchester(GM) are lethal and illegal”, states a new analysis by King’s College London, estimating that 1.6 million life years will be lost in GM in the next century due to poisonous air. The equivalent is reducing the life expectancy of all current residents by six months. A recent World […]
Low income families in Manchester face a £1,000 ‘poverty premium’
Low income families in Greater Manchester could be paying over £1000 a year more for goods and services such as energy, credit and insurance compared to those on middle and higher incomes, according to new research by Greater Manchester Poverty Action. This higher cost for poor people is known as the ‘poverty premium’, where low […]
‘Honk if you hate moor fires’: Manchester residents want clean pensions
On Friday afternoon local residents demonstrated outside the Greater Manchester Pension Fund’s annual general meeting in Tameside demanding the fund divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies. Organised by Fossil Free Greater Manchester, a coalition of organisations and individuals, the protesters presented remnants from the recent moorland fires on Saddleworth Moor and Winter Hill to […]
How austerity is killing legal aid and restricting access to justice
We often see law as the means of pursing justice in cases of criminal action, the violence of an assault or the calculated theft of property. But it also concerns what we consider daily issues, our right to welfare while unemployed, to have a safe roof over our head and the right to live in […]