One company registered in the British Virgin Islands tax haven owns property in Manchester with a value of around £27 million. The company name is Wisdom Max Group Limited, but who is the ultimate owner of this company and how did they make their money? These are questions that commonly go unanswered due to the […]
Dramatic rise in tax haven companies owning property in Manchester mimics the city’s growing skyline
Property in Manchester is not only reaching for the sky: its ownership is extending across the globe. With investors keen to cash in on the lucrative high rise luxury housing boom in Manchester city centre, the number of properties owned by companies registered overseas has risen by 8.8% in just eight months. Tower blocks are […]
Manchester’s first Mindful Art Centre opens in Levenshulme
Manchester’s first Mindful Art Centre is launching in Levenshulme Old Library on 27 April, 4pm-9pm. Local social enterprise The Owl and The Coconut are behind the centre, which opens with a community crowd-sourced exhibition and offers of free places on their Mindfulness and Mindful Art courses. The ‘Levy Life’ exhibition, a partnership between Levenshulme Old […]
Endemic avoidance of payments to councils by property developers revealed, while affordable housing is sacrificed for profit
A comprehensive report on the huge sums of money fuelling the housing development boom in the city centre has revealed the scale of non-payment of development funding to the council: only 8% of housing development in Manchester City Centre included in the study had any Section 106 agreement at all. The lack of money collected […]
Andy Burnham to hear of tenants’ struggles at Manchester Renters’ Forum
The ever increasing number of renters fed up with poor housing conditions, rising rents and bad landlords will have a chance to vent their frustrations at a Manchester Renters Forum on the 1 March. Two people with the power to influence the housing situation – Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Paul Dennett, City […]
Why is the Labour Party falling out over Haringey?
Haringey council leader Claire Kober announced she would stand down last week, following an intervention by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) into the dispute within the Haringey Labour party over a controversial regeneration plan with Lendlease, a private developer with a dubious history. Kober was determined to press ahead with a plan that had been […]
‘Be the change you wish to see’ – Manchester’s squatters are doing just that
The idea that ownership breeds value is essentially true. However, it is not true in the Thatcherite sense, where ownership is the means to the end of an individualistic anti-society. It is true if you develop an area which’s express purpose is to be the collective property of those who inhabit it or utilise it, […]
Refugee tells of the silent genocide consuming the Congo
Barly Koyangbwa speaks powerfully of the horrors engulfing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an interview with RAPAR, the Manchester charity fighting for human rights. It is a harrowing tale covering systematic mass rape, burned villages, ethnic cleansing, state sponsored terrorism and corporate greed stalking hand in hand with government corruption. You may be […]
Austerity: the false economy increasing homelessness (part two)
Second article in ‘The Meteor Explores: Homelessness in Manchester‘ series. Part one of this story can be viewed here: The safety net of the ‘cradle to grave’ welfare state, implemented by Atlee’s government after the Second World War, is becoming increasingly threadbare due to the economic and humanitarian degradations of austerity. Increasing numbers in the […]
Manchester’s property investment boom funded through tax dodging offshore companies and unethical international investment
Towering apartment blocks going up all over Manchester and Salford are evidence of a property investment boom underway in the midst of a housing crisis for many. Research has revealed that this boom is fueled by foreign investment capital channeled through layers of offshore holding companies that allow the lucky few involved to avoid paying […]