The Warehouse Project used to be Manchester’s priciest night out. Not anymore

Dear readers — welcome back to another Monday briefing, we hope you’ve all been enjoying the sun. Our weekend read, addressing the debate over the cleanliness of the city centre, had loads of you getting involved in the comments section. It’s always great to see a lively debate below our pieces, so thanks as ever to everyone for sharing their views and if you haven’t already — do dive in.

One Mill reader was keen to point out that we should be sharing the blame as a city (or rather, a nation): “Most other European cities are clean. Streets are swept, watered, bins emptied, walkabout-chuckabout eating and drinking just not part of the culture. This is a British sickness of which we should be ashamed.” John also thought we could take a few cues from our more civically proud European counterparts: “In Barcelona or Bilbao you’re woken up by the cleaning every morning, washing the tiles and business owners taking pride outside their spaces but after a few sunny days Stevenson Sq is a sticky, stained mess.” 

Anne, meanwhile, had some robust advice for how litterbugs might best be dealt with. “A short while ago I was so enraged by a group of lads who I saw throwing their fast food leftovers out of their car whilst parked in a supermarket car park I scooped it all up, it was loosely in paper, and threw it back in the lap of the thrower whose window was still down.”

And a quick note on our audio revolution. Lots and lots of you have been listening to our new run of audio versions of our articles and we’ve had some lovely feedback too. We’ve been recording some new pieces, plus a bunch of favourites from the archives, like Jack’s piece about bike shops for delivery riders. Today we’ve got a piece for you from early this year: Ophira’s article on Frank Evans, AKA the Salford Matador, a man who traded Seedley for Seville, and the butcher shop for the bull ring. You can listen to it below.

☀️ This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌤️ Dry with long spells of sunshine. Breezy. 23°C.

Wednesday ☀️ Sunny, warm and dry with mostly light winds. 23°C.

Thursday ☀️ Dry and sunny but feeling a little cooler due to a northeasterly breeze. 22°C.

Friday ☀️ Warmer again with sunshine and dry conditions. 24°C.

Weekend ☀️ Remaining dry and settled with lots of sunshine and warm temperatures, which will peak in the low twenties.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🎵 The Warehouse Project set the standard for extremely expensive clubbing — £45 tickets, £6 for a Red Stripe, £10 for a double — but according to Reddit, the Progress Centre, a dance nightclub in an old office block in Ardwick, is vying to take the crown for Manchester’s most pricey night out. In a lengthy Reddit post, the club is accused of the somewhat nebulous crimes of “bad vibes”, charging for water and turning away customers who arrive a few minutes past the event’s stated last entry time. Anyone wondering who’s behind the Progress Centre might be interested to hear that two old friends of The Mill, the millennial property bros David Searle and Guy Horne, have recently had, and likely still have, an interest in the building. As a reminder, Horne and Searle once tripled their money on a property in Harpurhey in a single day, buying a semi-detached house in a depressed part of the city for £575,000 and then selling for £1.8 million less than 24 hours later in a deal that Manchester City Council described publicly as ‘market manipulation’. Bad vibes, indeed.

📚 In Ardwick, those who visit the local branch of Manchester Central Foodbank each week for their essential sanitary items, fresh fruit and vegetables and tinned goods can now also pick up a free book, thanks to Bookbanks. Emily Rhodes, the charity’s founder, says she initiated the project out of a desire to make visiting foodbanks a “positive experience” where people could interact with each other, share book recommendations and build community. “Anybody who has ever been in a book club knows that conversations that begin with books never end with books,” she says. Dozens of books arrived at the Ardwick site last week, a launch that Rhodes says was nothing short of euphoric, recalling an international relations graduate picking up a book about Gaza and confiding in a volunteer that when he was forced to abandon his home country, he left behind a collection of over 300 books. “You could instantly see that these people were opening up and sharing something about themselves,” Rhodes says. Bookbanks need regular donations of good quality books to sustain their mission — if you’d like to help out, get in touch here.

🏛️ The GMCA has refused our Freedom of Information request asking how much public money it has awarded the University of Greater Manchester, formerly the University of Bolton, claiming that releasing this information “would damage relations” with the university. In February, we published a series of investigations into racist bullying and shady financial dealings at the university which led to MPs raising the matter in parliament. As a GMCA document said in July 2024: “Around £0.5m capital will be allocated to the University of Bolton to fit out the centre for advanced manufacturing”, plus £0.1m “to support the University of Bolton to hire and onboard staff”. The combined authority has declined to reveal how much of this funding has been transferred to the university at present.

🎶 The Manchester Digital Music Archive, an excellent resource of concert posters, gig tickets and photos from legendary nights out in Manchester, is looking to build its archives of the city’s forgotten nightclubs and concert venues. “Manchester is great at talking about its history, but personally I don't think Manchester's good at documenting its history,” says Karen Gabay, one of the website’s volunteers, highlighting that documenting the old nightclubs and music venues in the city have made her feel closer to where she lives. If you ever visited the beat nightclubs of Manchester in the 1960s, the funk, soul and blues concerts in Rusholme and Moss Side or have an alternative view on Manchester’s music history, head to their website to upload your photos or leave a comment.

📃 Manchester City Council failed an adopted child with special education needs, who moved in with a new family in Manchester in November 2023 and was left without education for four months, according to a local government ombudsman. A council spokesperson said “We accept the decision against the council” and that they will “use this case as an opportunity to improve our service”.

Quick hits

🧑‍⚖️ A coroner has ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions contributed to the death of Kristie Hunt, 31, after incorrectly informing her she owed money due to an overpayment of her Employment Support Allowance and issuing a civil penalty charge against her. Hunt took an overdose in November 2023, and died at Stepping Hill Hospital three days later. 

🎶 Swinton Sounds, a three day music festival from the team behind the excellent Sounds from the Other City, is back from Friday 30 May to Sunday 1 June. More here.

📱 Elsie Blundell, MP for Heywood and Middleton, says vandals have damaged the mast at the top of Warwick Mill so badly that “the entire town is at risk of being disconnected and losing mobile signal”.

👟 And a big coup for the city: Puma is relocating its head office from London to Manchester, signing for a 20,000 sq ft workspace in the Circle Square development.

👮 Nine GMP officers face a gross misconduct hearing, after an internal investigation found that an officer in the Bury district was subject to racist remarks by colleagues.

💉 Researchers at the University of Manchester are planning a clinical trial to see if weight-loss jabs could reverse a projected rise in obesity-related cancers.

Home of the week

If you’re a sucker for a house with a name instead of a number, Polefield House might be the home for you — a little white three-bed from 1852, tucked just off Rochdale Road in Charlestown. £300,000.

Our favourite reads

Hamlet Hail to the Thief review – study of righteous anger links Shakespeare to Radiohead — The Guardian

It’s been anything but plain sailing over at Aviva Studios since the venue launched almost two years ago. Indeed, we were among the sceptics at the outset (read Sophie’s piece — It’s vast, it’s beautiful — but does anyone know what Manchester’s £210m venue is actually for? — from the time for a recap). But, according to the reviews, their latest show, an ambitious mashup of Shakepeare’s Hamlet and Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief, things might be turning around. According to The Guardian, the production, put together with the aid of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, is worth “the hype”. If you’ve seen the show we’d love to hear your views below — we’ll have our own piece about it out on Wednesday. 

The Glazers in 2025 – Their Manchester United roles, Ratcliffe relationship and what happens next — The New York Times

A deeply-researched piece on the role of the Glazers, Man United’s universally beloved owners, 20 years on from their takeover of the club. It’s a great read for any United fans who need to be brought down a peg or two on the back of the club’s superb recent league form (The Mill office has a United-supporting majority, so we’re allowed to make these jokes). The piece explores how, despite the fact petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now “running everything” on the surface, and despite the years of protests and angry banners, the American family still wields “ample influence” at Old Trafford. 

Our to do list

Tuesday

🪡 For the sewers, knitters, crocheters, fine-lace-makers, and hand-embroiderers, the MCR Sew Social is coming to Ducie Street tomorrow at 5.30pm.

🔎 Ten strangers, one island, nowhere to run… that’s the sort of thing to expect from Louise Minchin’s book launch over in Bramhall — celebrating the release of her new novel Isolation Island.

Wednesday

🚔 The Gary Clarke company are bringing their new show Detention to the Lowry: a dance and theatre performance exploring the impact of Section 28, a piece of legislation brought in in the late '80s that prohibited the promotion of homosexuality.

🧅 And 33 Oldham Street are, as always, hosting their weekly Wednesday comedy improv night, hosted by Absolute Onions. Expect skeleton bones and the extensive backstories of karaoke classics.

Thursday

💗 The John Rylands Library is launching a new exhibition, ‘The Secret Public: LGBTQ Pop 1955 – 1985’, celebrating 30 years of LGBTQ pop and its cultural influence.

📽️ And Kinofilm – Manchester’s International Short Film Festival – will be screening their Made Up North programme, featuring short films from up and coming northern talent.

Got a To-Do you’d like us to list? Tell us about it here.