Andrea Sandor explores how community-led developments are putting democracy at the heart of the planning process.
Guest article first published in Red Pepper.
Q & A with teacher and union organiser Vik Chechi-Ribiero
Vik Chechi-Ribeiro is a science teacher at a Manchester academy and candidate for the National Education Union’s Executive. The union represents over 450,000 teachers and education staff in the UK. Nick Prescott speaks with him about exams, community organising, and the future of education. The highest growth of COVID-19 cases has been within the North […]
Housing campaigners call university’s treatment of students ‘abhorrent’ and state solidarity with occupying students
Open letter criticises the University of Manchester for its treatment of students involved in an occupation of student residences and a rent strike.
An offer to meet some of the students demands by the university have been rejected by the student activists, who have vowed to continue the protest until demands are met.
Co-living: a new housing model in a broken system
After several months of rejection huge co-living developments are now coming to Manchester. Is it a new form of community living or another extractive product in the city’s ongoing property boom?
With strong links to the city’s financialised student housing sector, is this the type of housing we should be building during Covid-19 and the ongoing housing crisis?
‘We’re a community of ghosts’ – older renters in Hulme speak out
The number of people over the age of 55 living in rented accommodation is increasing. The Meteor visits Hopton Court, a social housing block in Hulme, and speaks with older renters about the challenges and uncertainty they face.
Define Affordable
How arbitrary definitions and a focus on ‘headline figures’ are exacerbating the housing crisis.
Social housing is key to alleviating the housing crisis, so why are we not building it?
National statistics show that across GM as social housing has fallen, housing waiting lists and temporary accommodation has risen. Mayor of Salford Paul Dennett and author of “Safe as Houses” Stuart Hodkinson give their views on the state of social housing and what needs to be done to improve it. It was the crises of […]
No affordable housing in four high rise developments, with 4,755 bed spaces, being decided on by reinstated Planning Committee
Manchester City Council’s full Planning Committee returns and four huge developments are on the table. Co-living towers, some of which breach national guidelines on livable space and two 51 storey skyscrapers with no affordable housing, are to be decided on. Manchester City Council’s Planning Committee sits again on 30 July tasked with signing off on […]
Manchester’s New Ruins, Ten Years On
Ten years after publishing A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, author Owen Hatherley reflects on the past decade of neoliberal development in Manchester and its impact on the city. Last weekend, a few items down on the headlines, below the pandemic and the protests and curfews in the US, was a story […]
Learning from housing histories: why we need to requisition property to address the pandemic
The UK Government’s commitment to upholding individualised private property during the global Coronavirus pandemic is matched only by their wilful ignorance of historical responses to crises. By Samuel Burgum of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield At the time of writing, they are ignoring modest calls by organisations such as Streets Kitchen to buy up hotel […]