Manchester’s artists to get five thousand hours of studio space a year — all for free

Dear readers — welcome to the final week of a long January, today’s briefing features some good news about a lovely new artist space in the city: three railway arches on Whitworth Street West which have been transformed into a gallery and studio space. Plus, there’s a new pop-up social centre in Levenshulme, West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC win yet another battle against their scheming neighbours and a group of unhappy Stockport secondary school headteachers come together to complain about hapless bus drivers.

Catch up: Over the weekend, we published a long read by Ophira asking who Prestwich’s high street is really for — those who turn up every now and then via tram for a pizza at Rudy’s or the longtime residents who can still recall the “oddness” of a town that once seemed to have little except a psychiatric hospital and an arterial road. “You’d go round Prestwich and you’d see the patients walking around with tartan hats on,” recalled one resident, who pushed back on the high street’s faux-independent vibe.

Coming up: On Thursday, we have a blockbuster investigation into a Greater Manchester higher education institute where one key figure's xenophobic attitude is potentially damaging its attempts to appeal to international students. It's one of the biggest stories we're running this month and only paying subscribers will be able to access it — to avoid missing out, take out a paid subscription by clicking the button below.

Introducing: Manchester’s Building Society

2025 is a big year for Manchester: the city will be getting its very own building society. Manchester Building Society will provide mortgages, savings and financial advice for locals, by local experts. Their mission is to put financial services in the service of communities, and the first branch will be opening on King Street in the heart of Manchester in the summer. That’s just a first step: they ultimately plan branches across all ten of Greater Manchester’s boroughs. To get all the latest updates, sign up here — just scroll down to the bottom and pop in your e-mail.

This is a sponsored post from the Manchester Building Society

🌤️ This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌧️ Cloudy and breezy with intermittent rain. Max 7°C.

Wednesday 🌤️ Isolated showers at first then dry with increasing amounts of sunny spells. 7°C.

Thursday 🌤️ Dry and mostly sunny with light winds. 6°C.

Friday 🌦️ Breezy and mixed with bright spells and a few showers. 8°C.

Weekend ☁️ Cloudier with light rain at times, although feeling milder.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🪟 The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says it is convinced by Greater Manchester’s argument that it can achieve compliance with legal limits on toxic NO2 in the atmosphere without introducing a charging Clean Air Zone. Andy Burnham had argued that a combination of rolling out zero emission buses as part of the Bee Network, moving the taxi fleet to cleaner vehicles and introducing traffic calming measures would be enough to get the levels down. (For the uninitiated, in 2022, Andy Burnham abandoned the “polluter pays” principle of charging motor vehicles that pump toxic chemicals into our atmosphere, after massive public backlash.)

However, Greater Manchester is already behind — it was originally meant to bring air pollution within the limit by 2024, but that’s now been put back to 2026. And Cazz Ward of the active travel campaigning group Walk Ride GM says that while she supports the green promises of the Bee Network, she’s sceptical of the argument that we can reduce NO2 emissions without a charging Clean Air Zone, or more investment in active travel.

The decision, which rules out the possibility of Greater Manchester ever introducing charges for motorists, has been welcomed by Burnham, who said the Bee Network is already cleaning up our air and the decision has allowed the combined authority to “remove a big weight of worry off the shoulders of people who need to drive as part of their job”. But Ward says given that car ownership is still increasing in Greater Manchester, a 3.9% rise since 2021, and the fact that Greater Manchester consistently has the highest annual mean level of NO2 levels in the country, we should be considering further disincentives on cars. What are your thoughts on a charging Clean Air Zone? Let us know in the comments.

🎨 Three arches on Whitworth Street West have been transformed into an artist development hub and a public art gallery, thanks to a £3.7 million investment from Manchester City Council and HOME’s funders, donors and supporters. Artists and creative freelancers can benefit from 5,000 free hours of making, studio and development space each year, and HOME says it is particularly focussed on offering this opportunity to artists from groups currently underrepresented in the industry. If this sounds like you and you’d like to apply, just enquire with the team via this email address. Passersby can expect to see regular exhibitions and installations, beginning with a stained-glass exhibition by local artists Omid Asad and Sophie Mahon, followed by work from sculptor Maisie Pritchard. The middle arch has been named in honour of Sir Bob Scott, an arts administrator who led the efforts to find a new venue for the theatre company 69 Theatre, which would eventually become the Royal Exchange, and opened up two shuttered grand Victorian theatres, the Palace and the Opera House. 

🚌 Joe Barker, headteacher at Marple Hall School, says he continues to be disappointed by the Bee Network, which recently took over the school bus routes. Buses have been late, not turned up at all, gone the wrong way and there are even reports that a pupil had to direct a hapless and lost driver who didn’t know where to go. Barker says he’s met with other secondary school headteachers from across the borough who expressed similar frustrations and intend to make representations to TfGM as a group. We’re told that the school bus contract has been awarded to Salford-based drivers who are forced to navigate traffic-clogged Manchester to get to Marple, which may explain why bus drivers are often late and don’t know the routes. Know more about this story? Get in touch.

⚽ West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC is facing more complaints from its neighbours, this time over the club wanting to hang on to its food and drink provision, which residents say is creating offensive odours. Back in January 2023, Mollie wrote about why the community-oriented club was facing neighbourhood tension due to gaining a bigger fanbase, embroiling it in a neighbourhood war that included tense meetings and accusations of fans being “yobbos”. When it comes to this latest outrage, there’s good news for fans who enjoy a half-time cup of tea, but less good news for those who are fed up with a successful local football club on their doorstep: Manchester City councillors unanimously threw their support behind West Didsbury and Chorlton, voting to extend the club’s tea bar until 2030.

Quick hits

📚 It’s Holocaust Memorial Day today. Marianne, born in Berlin in 1924, recently shared her life story with The Fed, a Jewish charity based in Prestwich that documents and publishes the experiences of Holocaust survivors and refugees in the North West. “I have to give and one of the things I can give is my personal experience,” she told the BBC. “People tell me that meeting somebody who was there seems to make an impression, and as long as I can do that, I will.”

🏊 Grab your bikinis and swimming trunks: Manchester City Council’s executive committee has given the green light for a major regeneration project in Holt Town that will see 4,500 homes, 15 acres of green space and a lido built in the east Manchester neighbourhood.

🏛️ Oldham Council is advertising for a new chief executive, with council leader Arooj Shah saying “I can’t promise it will be easy, but I can promise it will be incredibly rewarding.”

👮 Sara Kachach, a former drug and alcohol recovery practitioner at Strangeways, has been jailed for two years for smuggling drugs into the prison.

🍔 Almost Famous, a Northern Quarter institution well known for its sweet cocktails and greasy double cheeseburgers, has announced all its sites have closed with immediate effect.

Home of the week 

£475,000 gets you this five-bed terrace, right by the River Irwell in Higher Broughton. Judging from the photos it’s the perfect house for a gardening fan after a challenge.

Our favourite reads

How a Singaporean millennial got rich on the UK property market — The Times

This piece about Germaine Chow, a former airline stewardess turned millionaire and “darling of Tatler Asia”, gives some insight into how foreign investors are banking Manchester flats. Chow owns 500 apartments in Manchester — in high-end developments like Deansgate Square and Vista River Gardens — via her investment firm Crestbrick. Renaker, Manchester’s most prominent developer, many of whose developments are part-funded by loans from Greater Manchester Combined Authority, often visit sales-conferences in Singapore to market their homes. Chow herself has met privately with Manchester MP Lucy Powell, and recently donated £10,000 to Andy Burnham’s charity. She helps middle-class families in Singapore invest in UK property that they’ll get big returns on. “They’d say, ‘What is Birmingham?’ and, ‘What is Manchester?’” Chow told the Times. “People only know the football clubs. But they are great, clean cities with an art scene, and people need to know.” 

‘Our industry should be appalled’: Brassic creator laments lack of working class people in TV and film — The Guardian

Danny Brocklehurst, the creator of hit comedy Brassic — following a group of petty criminals in fictional town based around Greater Manchester — tells the Guardian: “I think our industry should be collectively appalled that only 9% of people who work in it would declare themselves as coming from a working class background.” Brocklehurst says financial restraints, imposter syndrome and a lack of encouragement is keeping working class people out of the industry. We published a piece last year looking at a similar situation in Manchester’s theatres: ‘Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem?’

After 859 years, the future of the Bullring’s markets is hanging in the balance — The Dispatch

We enjoyed this piece by our sister title in Birmingham, The Dispatch, about the city’s historic Bullring markets. Operating since 1166, the markets face closure as “Birmingham seeks, once again, to regenerate itself”, writes Samuel McIlhagga. The markets have split opinions over the years, with some calling them “unmissable” and other making comparisons with a “Wuhan wet market”. “Just being in there I caught some shit,” one visiting US rapper said. McIlhagga digs into the market’s past and possible futures; whether traders will get the replacement building promised, or if it’ll be a case of plucky, mostly working class businesses being cleared away by “hostile developers and a negligent council”.

Our to do list

Tuesday

🎤 Clubhouse Comedy MCR will be putting on their free weekly comedy night, hosted by Joshua Brooks. The show begins at 8pm (though doors are at 7), and £3 assures you a seat far away from the front line (we’re not sure if that’s a joke or not).

🧪 Mancunian theatre company Switch_MCR are bringing their new play Bad Science to HOME. The satire follows three authoritarian politicians turned pseudo-psychologists, as they invent a new psychiatric diagnosis in order to control the masses. Tickets cost £12 and can be purchased here.

Wednesday

🍵ISCA Wines on Stockport Road will be home to a combined kombucha fermentation masterclass and supper this Wednesday. The event includes a brief history of kombucha brewing and methods, then the opportunity to brew your own kombucha to take home with you. Tickets, which cost £65.71, also include a welcome drink and a four course dinner from chef Issy Jenkins.

🎸 Manchester-based industrial and shoegaze band Cinder are taking to the stage at Night & Day cafe. They will be performing alongside similarly Mancunian group Just Rattled, and advance tickets cost £12.

Thursday

🏛️ Thursday marks the opening night for a new exhibition at Manchester’s Imperial War Museum. Chila Welcomes You is a brand new commission from Punjabi-Liverpudlian artist Chila Kumari Sing Burman, which offers a personal perspective on Indian migration to Britain after the Second World War. This event is free to attend.

🪡 Bookbinder Barry Clark will be giving a talk at the Portico Library on the legacy of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in Manchester. The event runs from 6 to 7pm, and costs £7.21 to attend.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Manchester Building Society. Find out more about Manchester’s very own mutual here.