The council overpaid by £7 million for it, now work might soon begin

Dear readers — we hope you all had a delightful Valentine’s weekend. We spent ours how the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers (and also lovers) would have intended: speaking to key sources at the University of Greater Manchester as part of our ongoing investigation. 

Over the weekend, Mollie revealed that the University of Greater Manchester (née Bolton) did not in fact part ways with Joseph Wheeler — the marketing man who is accused of poisoning the University’s internal culture — like it told us it had this time last week. As it happens, his company is still contracted with the university and staff have told us he continues to discuss ongoing projects and boast that last week’s announcement was a ruse to get us off the story. “It doesn’t change anything”, he told colleagues. As you’ll see below, that has worked really well:

‘He must resign as a matter of urgency’: Panic and porkies from a university in meltdown

What is the University of Greater Manchester trying to hide?

The MillMollie Simpson

We have continued our reporting and found more disturbing practices at the university which we will be publishing pieces about later this week. If you have anything you’d like to contribute, email Mollie. And, if you’re a free reader and you want to support the kind of journalism that has a real impact on Greater Manchester’s institutions, take out a subscription below.

In the meantime, onward with today’s briefing, which includes the latest on the biggest land acquisition in the history of Manchester City Centre, a new police operation in Salford, more drama out of the “Trigger me Timbers” scandal in Tameside and all the best things to read about and do in Manchester. Enjoy.

Gaming through the decades from the Atari 2600 to Virtual Reality

From our sponsor: In half a lifetime, gaming has changed beyond recognition, from retro classics like Pong and Pac Man to the hyperrealistic visuals of today. You can sample the full sweep at the Science and Industry Museum’s Power Up. With over 150 consoles and hundreds of games, dive into a world of nostalgia with a Nintendo DS, go really old school with a Commodore 64 or try your hand at virtual reality gaming. 

Plus, if you have children, it’s the perfect way to get them along to the museum over half-term, and maybe give them a taste of their own medicine on the trusty PS1 you were once so good at...

To book your ticket, click here.

This week’s weather

Our local weatherman Martin Miles says “I come with good news (kind of),” — we can expect it to be slightly less cold this week, but still pretty changeable.

Tuesday ⛅ Dry and feeling a little milder with sunny spells. Max 8°c.

Wednesday 🌦️ Mild with bright spells but also showers at times. Max 9°c.

Thursday 🌦️ Windy and very mild with sunshine and a few heavy showers. Max 14°c.

Friday 🌦️ Windy with showery rain, although still feeling mild. Max 14°c.

Weekend 🌦️ Remaining mild, changeable & windy. 

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🏗️ On Thursday, Manchester City Council’s planning committee is expected to wave through long-awaited plans for a nine-storey tower for 7,000 civil servants on the site of the old Central Retail Park in Ancoats. It brings to a close what the MEN is calling an “eight-year Mancunian saga” over the land, which began in 2017 when the council bought the site for £37 million, its biggest acquisition and the biggest land purchase in the history of Manchester City Centre. What followed were public campaigns against a vain attempt by the council to turn it into a car park, then the council having to fence it off after it got turned into a skatepark, then more furore over how much of the site would be used for greenspace. But as exciting as all that is, what appears to have been forgotten is the most interesting part, which came before the land was acquired. Last April, it was reported by Green Street, a property news site, that the council did not get a formal valuation of the land and massively overpaid, with a previous bidder set to buy the plot for £7 million less. What’s more, the only advice the council did seek was from Jonathan Bernstein, a property consultant and son of former council CEO Sir Howard Bernstein. Even that informal report found the site to be worth between £25 and £30 million. But, the report went on to say that a price of £35 million was already negotiated and drawn up by the council. However, as Green Street wrote at the time “how these heads of terms were negotiated remains unclear.”

🗳️ Last week Oldham Council voted to leave Greater Manchester’s joint housing plan, Places for Everyone, much to Andy Burnham’s chagrin. The borough’s Liberal Democrat group, which has led the campaign to leave Places for Everyone, says that it is too “developer-led”, builds on too much greenbelt, and doesn’t put the interest of local people first by building adequate affordable housing. Andy Burnham said these councillors attempting to “rip everything up” was not in the best interest of the borough, but the leave vote nicked it: 31 to 29. If opposing councillors are successful, this will be the second time a Greater Manchester borough has managed to leave a joint housing plan for the city. Stockport’s Lib Dem council voted to leave the plan in 2022. The difference with Oldham is that it has already signed up for Places for Everyone. As we reported back in November, the legality of doing that then leaving is under question. “I think it’s probably unlawful”, Paul Smith, managing director of The Strategic Land Group, a planning consultancy, told us at the time. For more insight on Places for Everyone, it just so happens we published a long read on it recently: Places for Everyone proposes building on Greater Manchester’s green belt. Could this be a good thing?

👮‍♂️ Greater Manchester Police has launched a new operation in Little Hulton, in Salford, ranging from seizing nuisance offroad bikes to tackling organised crime. It follows three men being sentenced for a shooting last May in the area. The Mill understands that Little Hulton currently has the highest “risk score” in the City of Salford, with rising rates of anti-social behaviour, knife offences — nearly 100 weapons have been seized through knife amnesties — and drug crimes.

Quick hits

💷 British universities are now spending £28 million a year on equality, diversity and inclusion, reports the Times. It works out about £168,000 per uni, which may sound like a lot, but let’s remember that the University of Greater Manchester has been spending £1.5 million a year employing Joseph Wheeler’s company. The University of Manchester has made it a key objective to offer “active bystander” training — which teaches people how and when to intervene in situations that perpetuate inequality — as well as unconscious bias training to all staff. It recently closed applications for an EDI business partner role paying up to £69,757 a year.

📱Vincent Ricci, a Tameside councillor who was suspended from the Labour Party last week for his membership to the infamous “Trigger me Timbers” group chat, has told the BBC he feels he has been “thrown under the bus”. Ricci says he condemned the messages in the chat and was actually removed from it after reporting its contents to the local Labour group in 2022. He believes he will be “completely exonerated”.

🚨 A man was found with stab wounds at Victoria tram stop last night, reports the MEN. The man, understood to be in his 20s, had suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital, where he remains. 

Home of the week

This Tudor-style 3-bed in Eccles is fit for a 16th century king and any number of ill-treated wives. £375,000.

Our favourite reads

‘I was always obsessed with death’: how Linder turned pornography and trauma into art — The Guardian

Now entering her seventh decade on this earth, artist (and ex-Manchester Polytechnic student) Linder Sterling talks to Alex Needham about punk, porn, and politics. She tells the Guardian that she was always inspired by record sleeves and book covers over fine art: “My family didn’t go to art galleries,” she says, “We might have sheltered in one in the rain.”

Morrissey is the villain we need. He’s trapped in his own creation — UnHerd

Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi takes a characteristically self-referential dive into why the world still needs our much-maligned Mancunian. “I don’t go to pop stars for politics,” he writes, “I go to them with heartbreak, and no one has done more for the broken-hearted than Morrissey.” Nevertheless, Morrissey’s politics account for a significant portion of the article. “It’s weird that the anti-establishment post-punk icon of Irish immigrant stock should move to LA forever, then become obsessed with how many Muslims there are in Bradford,” Saoudi writes.

Michelin star restaurants Manchester: The complex history between the food guide and the northern city — Squaremeal

Pete Dreyer takes us through a comprehensive history of Manchester’s Michelin stars and nods, starting with The French earning the city its first star in 1974. “Despite Manchester’s ever-expanding food scene, the guide has historically overlooked the city.” writes Dreyer. “So, what is the deal with Michelin and Manchester?” We don’t really find out in this article to be honest, but it does work up an appetite.

Our to do list

Tuesday

🍕Oxford Road pizzeria-slash-cultural-institution Sandbar will be running their monthly art and theory reading group. It starts at 6pm and ends at 8pm and we are reliably informed there will be “onwards mingle”. For more info, email arttheorygyreadinggroup@gmail.com.

🪩 DJs Rixy and Tom Ato will be bringing the Brazilian Funk and Northern Soul to XLR on Tuesday night. Tickets start at £3, and the event runs until 2am, so you might want to book Wednesday morning off work (or else get your excuses lined up).

Wednesday

🌷Anyone else notice a surge in crocuses rearing their promptly-trodden-on heads over the weekend? Well Heaton Park is playing host to the First Signs of Nature spring trail this week, assuring us all that winter is well and truly and finally on its way out. Thank God.

🩰 For a more pessimistic view of the natural world, Wednesday also marks the first night of Figures in Extinction — a study of the species and environments we have lost and our losing, through the medium of dance.

Thursday

🧶 If you already know your knits from your purls but your decreases leave something to be desired, then Manchester Wool and Yarn in Stockport are hosting a knitter’s improvement workshop. Bring your 4mm needles.

🐀 And now that you’re in Stockport anyway, it’s only a four minute walk to Rare Mags, where you can watch the 1999 Glaswegian classic Ratcatcher as part of ‘These Isles’, their programme celebrating films from Britain’s islands.

A quick note on our ‘to do’s’

⚠️ We always try and source as many of our recommendations as possible first-hand from local venues and various men-about-town. This week, two of our events were revealed to us by the good people at Murmur, who we met in a pub in Prestwich the other day. If you have any events you’d like to see listed in our recommendations, you can also run into us in pubs in Prestwich, or otherwise email ophira@millmediaco.uk.

Thanks to the Science and Industry Museum for sponsoring today’s briefing. To book a spot at the incredible Power Up exhibition, click here.