The Mancunian Way: Red or Blue? It’s about more than rivalry

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Here’s the Mancunian Way for today:

Hello,

United or City? Growing up in Manchester, you had to pick a football team – it was the law. In south Manchester, where I lived as a kid, most of my nearby mates were Reds, while those who lived in the east and north of the city tended to be Blues. But researchers say the regional divide goes far beyond just football rivalry.

In fact children being born and brought up near the Etihad face among the worst health prospects in the country. While those born in United’s backyard are 50 per cent less likely to grow up impoverished.

Graphic by Marianna Longo

So what’s behind it? Health Equity North has created a league table ranking children’s health in the locations of the 20 men’s Premier League teams. They used indicators such as poverty, obesity, infant mortality rate and life expectancy at birth.

In a blog post ^[2] they report that children are ‘50 per cent less likely to grow up in poverty (22.3 per cent) on the red side of Greater Manchester than on the blue side (44.7 per cent) – only a couple of miles down the road’.

Health reporter Helena Vesty has been looking at the research ^[3], which is based on public health information from the clubs’ local authority areas. The top half of the league table – showing the best performing areas when it comes to children’s health – is largely dominated by southern clubs. But it’s topped by Manchester United which has some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester.

In Trafford, where the club is based, just 22.3 per cent of children aged 0-15 years are living in households with below 60 per cent median income after housing costs. In Manchester, where the Etihad is situated, that figure is 44.7 per cent.

“Manchester City did ‘the treble’ last year, yet we show that children being born and brought up near the Etihad face among the worst prospects in the league,” says Dr Luke Munford, a Health Economist from the University of Manchester and co-author of the research.

“These inequalities that exist within a relatively close geographic space highlight the size of the challenges faced. To keep the Premier League’s reputation as the best, we need to improve the outcomes of children and reduce inequalities.”

The academics recommend increasing child benefit, the child element of universal credit, suspending the two-child limit and expanding provision of free-school meals in order to level the playing field.

Build it up, knock it down

The news this week that parts of HS2 are deemed ‘unachievable’^[4] by the official infrastructure watchdog will perhaps come as no surprise to some. After all, the vast project has become something of a white elephant.

Despite the ‘red’ rating given to plans for the construction of the first two phases, preparations for HS2 are ongoing. And they mean one school in south Manchester, due to open next month, is already at risk of partial demolition.

The Manchester Islamic Grammar School for Girls will be moving to Didsbury in September. But the project to bring high-speed trains to the city ^[5] now involves knocking down part of the school’s new site at the former Fielden Park college campus.

Manchester Islamic Grammar School for Girls in Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury (Image: MEN)

Plans for a ventilation shaft at the former Hollies Convent School site feature an access road which passes through the Muslim girls’ school’s new home. The ventilation shaft would regulate air quality and temperature in the HS2 tunnels below it. A ‘sizeable’ structure would also be built on the land above it, as Joseph Timan reports ^[6].

The team behind HS2 say they chose this location before the Manchester Islamic Educational Trust announced its plans to use the land as a school. But the trust says its future is now under threat.

“The Fielden Park Campus is our new home and we do not have any fall-back position,” a spokesperson said. “This will gravely limit the choice of parents within the community to send their children to an Islamic faith School.”

Creating a ventilation shaft in Didsbury would also involve demolishing the former West Didsbury Sure Start centre which is located on the school’s new site. Lib Dem councillors have urged Manchester council to formally oppose the location of the ventilation shaft.

Pat Bartoli, director of city centre growth and infrastructure at the town hall, says the council will be opposing the new location and submitting a new petition about the latest proposal to Parliament this month

An HS2 spokesperson said they are engaging with Manchester Islamic Education Trust to better understand their plans for the site.

Devolution in action

As part of Greater Manchester’s ‘Trailblazer’ deal, the government agreed to give the region more say over local rail services.

Andy Burnham asked for full control of local train stations, arguing there has been a lack of investment in the city centre’s ‘dangerous’ and ’embarrassing’ stations. He argued that local leaders would make better use of the land in and around stations, suggesting flats and offices could be built to ‘maximise their value’.

Now, as Paul Britton reports ^[7], Transport for Greater Manchester and Network Rail announced a new partnership to deliver a 12-month ‘joint vision’ for Manchester and Salford’s central train stations. It aims to make Greater Manchester better connected and establish future regeneration opportunities at train stations.

The plans will affect six stations – Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria, Manchester Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central and Salford Crescent.

Transport commissioner Vernon Everitt says it is vital railway stations evolve as the Bee Network is delivered. “This new partnership signifies our joint commitment alongside Manchester and Salford districts to delivering a modernised railway that puts passengers and local communities at its heart,” he said.

Jewish man told ‘go back to the gas chambers’

The shocking cases of antisemitism detailed by the Community Security Trust each year are never easy to read about. But this case, reported by Paul Britton,^[8] is particularly grim.

According to the charity, a Jewish man competing in the Great Manchester Run was abused by a racist who shouted ‘go back to the gas chambers’. The yob – a complete stranger to him – was later jailed for eight weeks.

The CST has revealed a sickening surge in antisemitism in Greater Manchester in its latest report. Gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Manchester were desecrated, windows smashed and benches moved in April. The charity also revealed an image of a far-right sticker featuring a Swastika reported to have been found in Salford.

The Trust recorded 803 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2023, the sixth-highest total reported in the first six months of any year. Some 132 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Greater Manchester between January and June 2023, representing an increase of 29 per cent year-on-year.

UK figures reveal that incidents of anti-Jewish hate online have risen by more than a third. Noting that there was no ‘single trigger event prompting a spike in 2023’, the charity says the consistently high volume of monthly reported incidents ‘is now typical of the levels recorded in the UK, levels that were unprecedented prior to 2017’.

In a statement, the CST board of deputies said: “It is profoundly concerning that the CST Anti-Semitic Incidents Report for the first half of 2023 presents a new norm where more than 100 incidents of anti-Jewish hate were recorded in every month. In particular, the increase in online hate via Twitter is alarming but entirely unsurprising, given the significant policy shifts under its new ownership.”

Changing the face of the town centre

Bolton town centre could soon look very different as work on a £35m regeneration project begins.

Bolton leaders want more people to live in the town centre to shift focus from retail, Chris Gee reports ^[9]. As such, the Central Street Project aims to create 167 new rental homes – apartments and townhouses – with rooftop terraces and gardens.

The proposals for the site on land between Deansgate and the River Croal, in Bolton (Image: Placefirst)

The project has now entered a key phase, with the site fully prepared and foundations now being installed by build-to-rent developer Placefirst. Work has also started to create new public space along the River Croal.

Bolton Council leader Nick Peel says the way people shop has changed so leaders want to offer a ‘wider variety of reasons’ for people to live in and visit Bolton. “Alongside our growing cultural offer, modern urban neighbourhoods like this will help us create a vibrant town centre where people want to live, tourists want to visit, students want to study, and businesses want to invest,” he said.

World leading research and discovery

(Image: BDP)

This is how the new laboratory building at Manchester Science Park will look on completion. The £60 million project will begin later this summer and will add 131,000 sq ft of labs space to the park, as Ethan Davies reports.^[10]^[11]

Currently, the site between Greenheys Lane and Pencroft Way is home to the Greenheys building, two terraced houses, a University furniture store and a car park. Once complete, Greenheys will house firms that specialise in diagnostics, genomics, biotech, and precision medicine.

UK Biobank will be the anchor tenant and will use the building as its headquarters.

“We are very excited to see a company like UK Biobank occupying a significant part of the space and we know that it, and other life science organisations, will be able to use this fantastic building as it is meant to be used – for world leading research and discovery,” Gary Wilde, architect director from developers BDP, said.

At the pictures

Caroline Aherne at Cine City, in Withington, in 1996 (Image: Manchester Evening News)

I love this old picture of Caroline Aherne eating popcorn outside Withington’s Cine City back in 1996. It reminds me of the halcyon days of local cinemas and being told to jog on when I tried to get in to see The Blair Witch Project. Quite rightly, I was a child and would have been scarred for life.

Nostalgia writer Lee Grimsditch has been looking through the archives to find the Greater Manchester movie theatres of the ’80s and ’90s that are now sadly lost to time. You can see the images here.^[12]

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Weather etc

Temperatures: Light rain changing to overcast by late morning. 19C.

Road closures: A57 Eccles New Road, Weaste, westbound closed due to Metrolink works from James Corbett Road to A5185 Stott Lane. Until Sept 25.

A667 Stoneclough Road, Kearsley, in both directions closed due to roadworks between Brook Street and Quarry Road. Until Oct 1.

Birchfields Road, Levenshulme, northbound closed due to one-way system and roadworks from Moseley Road (Levenshulme) to Dickenson Road (Longsight). Until Aug 4.

Trivia question: Which famous author studied at Xaverian College, in Rusholme?

Manchester headlines

On the brink: High street retailer Wilko is on the brink of collapse with thousands of jobs put at risk. The household and garden retailer said it had filed a ‘notice of intention’ to appoint administrators after failing to find enough investment, the Mirror reports.^[14] Around 12,000 people are employed by the chain in 400 stores. In a statement from CEO Mark Jackson today, the chain confirmed that the retailer was struggling to find a buyer which provided the ‘necessary liquidity’ in the time it has available given the’ ‘mounting cash pressures’ it was facing. He added that the retailer, which has been a staple of the British high street for over 90 years, had no other choice.

Chippy: A new chip shop has opened its doors on the approach Piccadilly Station ^[15]. The Chip Shop has taken up a vacant unit on the strip and will be serving up favourites late into the night. “We saw this as a great opportunity to have a traditional fish and chip shop on one of Manchester’s busiest routes. It’s what the Manchester Piccadilly area is lacking at the moment, so we aim to fill that gap,” a spokesperson said.

Mr Tambourine Man: Noel Gallagher referred to his brother Liam as the ‘tambourine player’ in Oasis ^[16] who was ‘a bit of a loose cannon’ during an interview on Radio X. Noel, who now fronts Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, spoke about the last days of Oasis on The Evening Show with Dan O’Connell. Asked if he ever gets nervous before a gig, he said: “Never, and it really f****** annoys people as well. Towards the end of Oasis you were always stepping into the unknown because the tambourine player was a bit of a loose cannon and it was like, ‘well is this gig gonna finish?’. Now you put a band together and all the people around you, you know, it’s cool, I don’t get nervous at all.”

Late night: A US cookie brand which will deliver warm cookies across the city until 3am ^[17] is heading to Manchester. Insomnia Cookies already has 200 locations in the States and Manchester will be its first here as it expands into the UK. They will be opening on Cross Street, next door to the Royal Exchange, and another site on University Green. And while you’ll be able to pick up cookies and shakes from the stores themselves, the late-night delivery service will be its USP.

Worth a read

The case of PC Dean Birkhead raises serious questions about the line between officers’ personal and professional lives. And about what happens when the system considers someone a victim – but they don’t agree.

The officer was hauled in front of a misconduct panel earlier this year after engaging in a relationship with an alleged victim of domestic violence. Though PC Birkhead found himself fighting for his job, he was ultimately allowed to keep it when the woman told the hearing that there was ‘no question of him stepping over the mark or being involved in something I didn’t want to’. The couple have gone on to make a life together.

The officer’s barrister, Ben Summers, told the hearing: “At the end of the day what has this officer done – fallen in love with someone he shouldn’t have done and failed to do the right thing? But otherwise an excellent officer who well serves the public has been held to account.”

Chief reporter Neal Keeling has been looking at the case in detail. You can read his fascinating feature here.^[18]

That’s all for today

Thanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email [email protected]^[19].

If you have enjoyed this newsletter today, why not tell a friend how to sign up ^[20]?

The answer to today’s trivia question is: Anthony Burgess.

References

^{^} right here (mancunianway.co.uk)
^{^} In a blog post (www.healthequitynorth.co.uk)
^{^} has been looking at the research (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} deemed ‘unachievable’ (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} high-speed trains to the city (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} as Joseph Timan reports (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} Paul Britton reports (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} But this case, reported by Paul Britton, (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} Chris Gee reports (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} later this summe (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} as Ethan Davies reports. (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} You can see the images here. (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} clicking on this link (data.reachplc.com)
^{^} the Mirror reports. (www.mirror.co.uk)
^{^} on the approach Piccadilly Station (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} referred to his brother Liam as the ‘tambourine player’ in Oasis (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} will deliver warm cookies across the city until 3am (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} You can read his fascinating feature here. (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} [email protected] (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
^{^} sign up (mancunianway.co.uk)