Local campaigners are joining forces to protest Manchester City Council’s plans to build a five-year, temporary 440 space car park on the former Central Retail Park in Ancoats, as well as the Great Ancoats Street Improvement Scheme, which removes cycle lanes. A protest was held on Thursday by the Northern Quarter residents and cycling campaigners […]
Hulme residents organise to save Rockdove Gardens
Residents of Hulme’s Bentley House estate – popularly known as the Redbricks – are organising to halt the destruction of a much-loved community garden. The current plans will see 24 trees cut down and a new pedestrian pathway running along the back of then exposed flats. The estate, on the edge of Mancunian Way, is […]
Podcast Review of One at HOME Manchester
“Nasi is on a ladder. Heʼs not coming down any time soon”. As we file into the theatre Nasi is there in front of us, standing high up on the very tall ladder. His demeanor is casual and relaxed but unconvincing. This tense sight amplified by the sense that we had intruded midway through a […]
It’s time for Manchester Museum to decolonise
Imagine that news emerged of 18,000 undiscovered historical artefacts relating to Manchester were illegally taken out the country by a museum in North Africa. We can only think what the response in the city would be in such circumstances. Political leaders would demand the return of the stolen goods, public protests would break out and […]
Food Poverty Action Plan aims to tackle hidden crisis in GM
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 […]
Show your face and go home: asylum seekers and migrants forced to travel from Stoke to Salford for two-minute appointments
People living in Stoke-on-Trent with pending asylum and immigration claims have been told by the Home Office that they have to report at Dallas Court in Salford – an 80 to 90-mile round trip. Over 80,000 people per year have to report at their local Home Office reporting centre or a police station. In the […]