Yahoo News The Mancunian Way: Crane your neck
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For more than 40 years the CIS Tower stood in glorious isolation as Manchester’s tallest building. But in the last five years alone 10 skyscrapers have been built that dwarf the Co-op’s modernist masterpiece.
And with the city’s high-rise mania showing no sign of slowing down any time soon, developers are at it again. In today’s Mancunian Way we’ll take a look at plans for a new 76 storey tower block in the heart of the city which, if approved, will become not only the tallest in Manchester, but also among the tallest residential buildings in Europe.
Elsewhere we’ll hear the tragic tale of Charlie Millers, a 17-year-old trans boy from Stretford who died after he was found unresponsive in his room in a mental health unit, as his mum calls for an inquiry into the NHS trust charged with his care.
We’ll also get the latest from Co-op Live as the fall-out from the disastrous opening week continues, and we’ll visit a hidden gem Filipino cafe tucked away in a Victorian market hall.
Reach for the skies
Manchester’s skyline looks set to expand ever upwards with a bid to build the latest, and tallest, of a cluster of skyscrapers unveiled in the last decade. Salboy, the developer co-owned by Betfred's Fred Done, has revealed plans for a new 241m tower off Great Bridgewater Street, near Deansgate.
It would house almost 800 one and two-bedroom apartments and include a smaller, 23-storey block of apartments, which the developer says would include 133 'affordable' one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments - plus a two-storey commercial building.
Salboy's Simon Ismail has previously said it was going to be ‘the landmark of Manchester’, adding: "We purposefully wanted to go for the tallest residential building in Europe... it's a flagship building.” Stephen Topping has more here…
‘I will fight for justice’
Charlie Millers' mum has vowed to continue her 'fight for justice' - and has called for a public inquiry into an NHS trust - after an inquest jury concluded he did not intend to take his own life and identified failings in his care. The teenage trans boy from Stretford, died five days after being found unresponsive in his room on mental health unit Junction 17, at the site of the former Prestwich Hospital, run by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH) late in the evening of December 2, 2020.
Yesterday an inquest jury said a lack of one-to-one, constant nursing care likely 'contributed to his death'. Jurors determined Trafford council services did not communicate with each other effectively enough and did not provide Charlie's mum the 'practical support' she needed as his mental health worsened, without enough help in the community.
The senior coroner who presided over the inquest, Joanne Kearsley, told jurors she would write to the Home Office, the Department for Health and Social care and agencies in Greater Manchester for their responses to the case, adding: "If there is going to be effective learning from these deaths, it must be done quickly."
Following the hearing, Charlie's mother Samantha told the Manchester Evening News: "I am shocked... in fact, beyond shocked. I will continue to push in every possible direction. I will look into the possibility of taking legal action against the trust and I want Greater Manchester Police to re-open their inquiry.
“Given the fact there were three deaths of young people in nine months at the same site, we need to call for a public inquiry." Neal Keeling has more here
Co-op Live fallout continues
It’s been a rough week for those in charge of Manchester’s new £365m arena Co-op Live. And the fall-out from the botched opening continues to rumble on.
Today it was announced that the venue will not open this weekend - with The Black Keys and next week's Peter Kay's gigs rescheduled. The arena was due to open on Saturday evening with The Black Keys performing, however the gig has now been moved to Wednesday, May 15.
It comes after the original opening on Tuesday was postponed at the last minute. Now, the two Peter Kay gigs will take place on Thursday, 23 May and Friday, 24 May, while the first gig at the 23,500 venue will be A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie on Wednesday, May 1.
And last night, Co-op Live's general manager, Gary Roden, spectacularly quit after 12 months in the job. On top of the disastrous opening, Mr Roden also faced scorn for comments he made to the BBC about grassroots music venues that sparked fury among music fans in Manchester and beyond.
He described plans for for a £1 levy on arena tickets, to go towards grassroots music venues as 'too simplistic', and suggested that some venues are poorly run. More here
The waiting game
Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, Among Us and Minecraft. They’re among the ways gamers can while away the hours while they wait for a flight at Manchester Airport’s new video arcade.
In what’s described as the first of its kind in a UK airport, Gaming Point in Terminal 1 also includes a Nintendo Switch, Formula 1 simulator and a virtual reality headset. Tourism writer Liv Clarke went along to check it out
Just the fillip
It’s a quiet afternoon inside Ashton Market Hall. A handful of shoppers meander around the stalls picking up pies, sausages and oven bottom muffins.
But in the far corner of the inside market things are a bit more bustling.
Flanked by Persian Meals on one side and Nat’s Bombay Kitchen on the other, sits Tarp’s Filipino Fusion Food, a family run restaurant that’s won Ashton’s Independent Food Award two years running.
Weather etc
Weekend: It looks set to be a dry and fairly mild weekend, with sunny intervals on both Saturday and Sunday and temperatures reaching highs of 11C.
Roadworks: Ashton Old Road in Abbey Hey is closed in both directions due to gas main work between Fairfield Road and Erin Street until 11pm on Sunday.
Manchester headlines
Failings: Multiple failures by police, probation services and an NHS trust allowed a convicted rapist to enrol at a college where he befriended a vulnerable young woman he later murdered, an inquest has found. Simon Goold, 52, was jailed for life after he raped then strangled to death Elizabeth McCann, 26, a fellow student at the Health and Wellbeing college in Ashton-under-Lyne. Read more
Virus warning: A Greater Manchester hospital has issued an urgent warning to visitors after a norovirus outbreak on the site. Six wards at Royal Bolton Hospital are affected by the outbreak of the stomach bug, which causes vomiting and diarrhoea. More here
Shooting: Police are investigating a shooting at a chippy in Oldham. No-one was injured after shots were fired at Glodwick Chippy at around 5.30pm on Thursday, but windows appear to have been smashed.
Worth a read
You’ll have no doubt seen the posters advertising David Hoyle’s exhibition at Aviva Studios plastered around town. The avant garde artist, actor, singer, comedian, performer, and everything else in-between is halfway through a landmark career retrospective at the venue.
In a wide-ranging interview with Adam Maidment the 61-year-old sat down to discuss the influence of his childhood in Blackpool, cancel culture, poverty, mental illness and homophobia.
