Dear readers — if you were driving down Whitworth Street on a Saturday night six years ago, you might have seen our now-staff writer Lucy arguing with the bouncers at Deansgate Locks.
In its heyday, the Locks, which sits below Deansgate-Castlefield's tram stop, was home to an abundance of nightclubs, and anyone who was anyone wanted to be seen inside its doors. Now, The Mill can reveal that every single venue will soon disappear from the once premier destination, leaving boarded-up units and abandoned furniture in its place. Following Ark's shock closure announcement on Sunday, Popworld was reported to be the last club standing, but we've found out that this isn't the case. What's caused the death of the Locks?
That's all in today's piece, but first your briefing, where we bring you updates on the former Greater Manchester mayor, and the new Greater Manchester mayor hopefuls.
👑 It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that Andy Burnham is hoping to be leader of the Labour Party, but yesterday he cemented that hope by nominating himself in the leadership contest. He posted a video on X of the update, reminding viewers that he’s “still the only candidate in the race”. It’s looking likely to stay that way, meaning Burnham would be declared leader at the end of next week, before becoming prime minister on 20 July. The former mayor said that it’s “all starting to feel very real” and captioned the video: “hopefully third time lucky” (Burnham ran for Labour’s leadership in 2010 and 2015). A few hours later, he'd received 322 nominations — just one less than the 323 needed before it's impossible for another rival to run against him.
📗 The Green Party’s Greater Manchester mayoral candidate, Geraldine Coggins, launched her manifesto today. At Niamos in Hulme, and alongside party leader Zack Polanski and Gorton and Denton MP Hannah Spencer, Coggins’ plans for the city region had one big focus: housing. Taking repeated swipes at Burnham’s record on building affordable homes, Coggins accused Labour of “putting up dodgy skyscrapers to enrich developers, not the ordinary people of Greater Manchester. The Green hopeful says she’d bring 20,000 “genuinely affordable homes” to Greater Manchester over the next decade and dedicate £10m in funding to investing in high streets; she says this would be achieved by working with councils and community groups to take over empty shops. Coggins also said she wanted to make bus travel free for under 22s — a pledge that featured in her Green Party mayoral candidate application, but one that she was coy about confirming with us till now. For more on Coggins, read our in-depth profile here.
📱 The Guardian has reported that Reform activists are being urged to switch their focus from the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election to Nigel Farage’s by-election in Clacton, where he’s currently only facing novelty candidate Count Binface (who describes himself as an “intergalactic space warrior”). A WhatsApp message shared with party members encouraged them to complete a volunteering form for the Clacton by-election, and read: “The message could not be more clear. We now need all of our fantastic activists, branch officers and councillors to come and help us in Clacton.” The Guardian reports that a Reform UK councillor called the move “desperate” and said that it implied the party didn’t think it could win the Greater Manchester mayoralty. However, a Reform source has messaged us to explain that this is “bollocks”. He added that while members are being advised to prepare for Clacton, “if anything, we are pushing the mayoral campaign harder internally”.
Goodbye Popworld!
When she was just 18 and still a fresher, Becky Devonshire-Pay remembers stumbling drunk into the smoking area of Ark. It was 2021, and having just necked back a tray of miscellaneous neon shots, she found her way out onto the lower terrace, looked over the canal and thought: “I am so cool. This is the coolest I’ll ever be.”
By second year, as is the natural evolution of a student’s nightlife, Becky and her mates wouldn’t be seen dead there.
For many Mancunians, myself included, Deansgate Locks is the very first place they ever go clubbing (a fact that may or may not correlate with the bouncers’ difficulty spotting a fake ID).
Even if you’ve never entered the once bustling venues beneath the railway arches of the former Manchester Central station, you know the type of place: a ‘chrome-and-carpet’ affair, with multiple floors, each blasting a different genre, and teenagers in heels drinking VKs.
But on Sunday, the MEN reported that Ark, one of the two remaining clubs on the Locks, would be shutting its doors because it was “no longer commercially viable”.
It was said that, as a result, Popworld — the shamelessly kitschy chain of UK nightclubs devoted to pop classics and garish, disco-style parties — would be the only venue still standing. But this is not the case.
The Mill found out that Popworld, which like Ark is owned by the pub conglomerate Stonegate, is closing too, for the same reason. The final night on the Locks is said to be next Saturday, before every club on the strip shuts its doors for good. What was once an epicentre of Mancunian nightlife will soon be little more than a dilapidated row of empty units.
How did we get here?
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