The latest estimates are that 620,000 people in Greater Manchester are living in poverty, and struggle to put food on the table. Of those, around 200,000 are children experiencing food poverty. £30 billion per year has been cut from welfare budgets since 2010. By 2020, Local councils will have lost 60% of central government funding […]
‘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 […]
10 reasons why the bus companies’ partnership proposals will not ‘revolutionise’ our buses: we need regulation
Why do passengers and staff want a regulated network when £100 million has been offered for the alternative – partnerships? The fact that bus companies are suddenly offering a £100 million partnership package as an alternative to regulation shows just how great re-regulation of our buses is, and how much bus companies will do to […]
Is Burnham’s A Bed Every Night scheme enough?
On the first day in his role as mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Andy Burnham pledged 15% of his £110,00 salary (£16,500) to his newly created Mayor’s homelessness fund. He had soared to victory in the election with 63% of the vote on the back of a pledge to end rough sleeping in Greater […]
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 […]
Greater Manchester’s social and solidarity economy revealed
Transform GM – an action research project looking to understand, map and promote ‘alternative’ economic activity in Greater Manchester (GM) – have just launched a new website mapping the social and solidarity economy (SSE). The SSE is made up of initiatives which prioritise other values over the economic bottom line and, unlike many charities, are […]
Developers are turning our heritage into profit, and we’re paying them for the pleasure of it
Flats at Crusader Works, one of the largest surviving textile mills and new luxury property venture by Capital & Centric where one bedroom apartments are going for heady sums upwards of £189,000, are on sale again. Since the project began the MEN has released a slew of articles gushing about how the development, on Chapeltown […]
Manchester is putting Housing First – and the results look good
This article is part of ‘The Meteor Explores: Homelessness in Manchester‘ series. Decadence, procrastination and occasional nudity. It would be tricky to explain some of our private domestic activities to an imagined third-party observer, but anarchic indulgence is for many the wholly necessary backend to the economically functional front which the aforementioned observer would probably wish […]
European Women Celebrated by Manchester Charity
Contributions made to the Greater Manchester community by European expat women will be celebrated at a glitzy awards ceremony in Castlefield next Monday 29 January. Europia Women’s Awards is an initiative designed to focus on the many successes and achievements of these women, and also to underline the significance and benefits of their presence. The […]
Greater Manchester councils accused of ‘fuelling the fire’ of climate change
Greater Manchester’s local authority pension fund is ‘Fuelling the Fire’ of global climate change by heavily investing in the fossil fuel industry, claims a consortium of environmental campaigners. Describing the GM fund as being “the dirtiest in the UK” due to the £1.8 billion invested in “climate wrecking companies”, which is over 10% of its […]