A failed company and leaking homes - what went wrong for a fancy apartment block in New Islington?
Plus: who made the decision to cover up Piccadilly Gardens?
Dear Millers — today’s piece is about Mansion House, a very big, very fancy block of apartments in modish New Islington. The development was meant to revolutionise city centre living, for those with £300,000 or so to spare. But The Mill has heard that some residents in the development are living in conditions that don’t exactly match that price tag.
On top of that, we’ve got our usual, all-encompassing round up of today’s headlines, plus a great list of things to do over the Halloween weekend, including pumpkin picking at Dunham Massey.
This edition of The Mill is written for our members but regular readers are also being sent the first part of the email in the hope that they might be moved to support us financially. This is what The Mill relies on — we’re entirely funded by subscriptions. Join us as a paid member today to get the full story below and all our members-only journalism.
But, before we start: are you going to find the stories in today’s edition a bit downbeat and bleak? Sure. Is Manchester City Council getting an easy ride? Absolutely not. But if you’re feeling bereft of feel good content, we published a lovely piece by Mollie on Diwali celebrations in Manchester, alongside an uplifting piece about the reopening of Wythenshawe Hall, which you can enjoy here.
Your Mill briefing
Regular readers will know about our long-running campaign (Mills passim) to find out why a massive chunk of Piccadilly Gardens has been closed off to create a private (and exceptionally ugly) “events space”. We’re used to public spaces in Manchester being turned over to random leisure activities, but the striking thing about the carbuncle squatting on the gardens is its longevity — it has now been there for almost a year, and for the vast majority of that time (around 97% of the time, we estimated in May) it has been closed. Last week, councillor Pat Karney told us on Twitter that it was "all temporary and will go in the New Year". But this week, the council said the platform is to remain in place "through 2023" and said, "there is a rolling contract and there isn't a specified end date". How lucrative is that contract, you may ask? So far, not very. Profits earned from the events space will be split 50:50 with a company called T3 Events, but "The return is based on the on the project in full. It's still ongoing." Gallingly, it sounds like the platform was built with taxpayers’ money via the national Covid Recovery Fund, meaning we’re paying for the sight of Heras fencing and rusting shipping containers both with our money and our eyes.
Why does it matter? We think that if the council is going to hand over a major public space to a private contractor, it should be able to explain who made that decision and make them available for interviews. For months, we’ve been asking who signed off on the plan, and the council refuses to tell us. “The decision for the event space hasn't been taken by a single person,” we were told in May, and they said the same this week. It doesn’t appear to have been discussed at a council meeting, and all we can find is a report to the executive late last year which says “Consideration is being given” to keeping the installation in place. A Freedom of Information request we submitted to find out more was rejected earlier this year for being “too general”, so we’ve done another one this week. One of our jobs is to make public authorities answerable to the public, and in this instance, the council is refusing to answer. “That platform is Manchester City Council in a nutshell,” as one reader put it on Twitter. Another tweeted: “Contemptuous. Treating the public like mugs.” What do you think? Let us know.
Our Monday briefing on attempts to pedestrianise the city centre has sparked an interesting debate in the comments and on Twitter. One member wrote in expressing frustration at design mistakes “and missed opportunities happening again and again, not least Gt Ancoats St, Thomas St, Stevenson Sq, Deansgate etc,” and wrote: “The most annoying part of this is that Manchester is home to some of the most innovative designers, and engineers in this area who are delivering best of class schemes all over the country.” (We’ll speak to some of those designers in the coming weeks). “Hmm, so for the first time in ages I disagree with a Mill report,” tweeted Vaughan Allen, pointing out that — among other things — we hadn’t given enough consideration to public transport. “This is the heart of the Deansgate issue at the moment,” he added. “Do we want buses? Presumably yes. So we need some access to traffic. Taxis? probably also yes.” Joshi spoke about the story on BBC Radio Manchester this morning, and we’re keen to cover it more, so please do get in touch, tagging @manchestermill on Twitter or leaving a comment (members only).
A student has died after being stabbed in the early hours of yesterday morning. Luke O’Connor, 19, was found by police on Wilmslow Road, near the University of Manchester's residential campus in Fallowfield. It is understood that he was stabbed while walking home from a party, and police believe he did not know his attacker. Greater Manchester Police have launched a murder investigation and are "working round the clock and carrying out extensive enquiries to establish the full circumstances", says Det Supt Neil Jones.
Night & Day Café, which has been open on Oldham Street for the past 30 years, is at risk of closing after breaching a noise abatement order issued by the council. The live-music venue's owners will appear in court next month, after residents in a neighbouring property complained about the noise. "We are of the understanding now that there is only a single complainant", Night & Day said in an Instagram post. The owners have said it would be impossible for them to operate under the abatement order without ruining their business: "It's just so unfair. We believe that the fault lies squarely with Manchester City Council."
Manchester Airport's summer of delays, cancelled flights and general chaos has seen it ranked the worst airport in the country. You'll no doubt remember the constant stories covering giant queues and staff shortages, plus the journalists catching flights to Dublin to see how bad it really was (then, hilariously, getting through without any issue). The airport’s three terminals were rated the worst in a recent passenger survey, with Terminal 3 — served by RyanAir — ranked the worst in the country.
Members of the Rochdale grooming gang have lost an appeal against their deportation after seven years of legal battles. Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf were convicted of multiple sex offences in 2012, and were told they'd be sent back to Pakistan after their release. This is the second appeal against their deportation they have lost.
A failed company and leaking homes - what went wrong for a fancy apartment block in New Islington?
By Jack Dulhanty
If you have sat in Flawd, the organic wine bar and restaurant that recently scored a gushing review from the Sunday Times, then you have sat in Mansion House. The white apartment building with boxy black balconies and quirky slanting roofs poking out of the top towers over the narrow boats in New Islington Marina and was sold to buyers as a pioneering architectural development — built according to “modular principles” (manufactured elsewhere and assembled on site).
“Mansion House offers something so different from the stereotypical box flat,” said Ryan and Rachel, a twentysomething couple in a paid-for “advertorial” in the MEN. "We fell in love with the exposed wooden walls and beautiful uninterrupted views from the balcony,” they were quoted saying. The advertorial, published in summer 2020, was paid for by the longtime Manchester developer Urban Splash, which has been heavily involved in Ancoats and New Islington for years, and also by its subsidiary “House by Urban Splash”, set up to specialise in modular buildings, including 17 modular townhouses on Pierce Street as well as Mansion House.
As the MEN piece explained:
Part of House by Urban Splash's innovative range of modular build homes, there are nine layouts to choose from with either one or two bedrooms - plus every single apartment includes a big balcony overlooking the city and Marina.
Each piece of Mansion House is made to order off-site in factory conditions, then transported to site to be assembled.
At the time, one of House by Urban Splash’s co-founders compared the Mansion House flats — lined with eco-friendly cross-laminated timber — to Bauhaus-designed Alpine chalets. Prices for two-bed flats started at £320,000, but the company said it was offering buyers “something genuinely new”.
But novelty isn’t always pleasant. Not long ago, The Mill got an email from one of the pioneers of modular living in New Islington, and they weren’t getting in touch to praise the exposed wooden walls or the uninterrupted views. “I moved into the new ‘House by Urban Splash’ Mansion House development at New Islington just over a year ago and the experience has been absolutely shocking,” they began.
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