‘Unbelievable, revolting and extremely depressing’: Old Trafford has a rubbish problem

Dear readers — Old Trafford is full of tossers, apparently.

Let us explain. Obviously the people of Old Trafford are wonderful, likewise the Manchester United home support, but the neighbourhood is, according to its residents, battling an unfortunate scourge: fly-tipping. In the past few weeks we’ve been hearing stories of fly-tipped mattresses, toilet lids and even a boat (yes, really, a boat) in ginnels and alleyways of the area. The whole situation has been surmised in plain terms by one Mill reader as: “unbelievable, revolting and extremely depressing”. We decided to find out what’s going on.

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A sapling from the famously felled Sycamore Gap, which once stood next to Hadrian’s Gap in Northumberland, will be planted in Newton Heath, in celebration of the resident’s group Easy Come, Easy Grow. The tree was the subject of national scandal, outrage and mourning when Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers drove through a storm in the early hours of the morning to hack it down with a chainsaw. The sapling will be planted today at 1pm, one of 49 being planted to the 49-foot height of the parent tree. Local people are invited along!

Tragic news for fans of oddly charming if utterly dismal pubs named after bigoted 1970s comics: Bernard Manning's World Famous Embassy Club in Harpurhey is being demolished to make way for a health club. Manning, who was born in Ancoats, opened the club in 1959 and it was taken on by his son in 1999. Manchester City Council has now bought it, and its current owners will move out by the end of the month, after which the site will be transformed into one of the largest health centres in the country. Naturally, Ophira, who was at the Embassy Club only last December, has taken on the solemn task of eulogising the venue. If you have any memories or tales to share, we’d love to hear them. Email Ophira. 

The Mill was taking a springtime turn around Peter Street yesterday when it began to dawn just how much St Michael's — Gary Neville’s giant half-finished skyscraper on the site of the old police station — will change that section of town. With roughly 22 stories left to go, it already leaves Albert Square in its shadow, and will be another instance of Manchester’s contradictory architecture: red-brick mills and theatre halls backdropped by shimmering glass towers. Some love it, some hate it, you know the deal. But much of the pushback against St Michael’s was to do with how central it is, spurting out of what is essentially town’s old civic quarter while many of the other skyscrapers have kept to brownfield land on the inner ring road. We put it to our Instagram followers, and the responses were pretty uniform: “bag of shite,” “monstrosity”. What do you make of it?

‘Unbelievable, revolting and extremely depressing’: Old Trafford has a rubbish problem

The winter sun is gilding the rows of redbrick terraces. It must be the warmest day we’ve had so far this year, and every passer-by is smiling at me, the kind of smile usually reserved for familiar faces, even though I’m lurking in an alleyway. Here’s what’s around me: A sagging single mattress; strewn pieces of cardboard and plastic bags; a child’s wooden chair, positioned sideways; mountains upon mountains of stinking black and white bin bags. 

When Matthew Norman – a grey-bearded Old Trafford local of 25 years – emailed us about the “unbelievable, revolting and extremely depressing” degree of fly-tipping in the ginnels in his locality, this was exactly the sort of thing we had in mind. Toilet lids and mattress toppers. Small table units rotting in the rain, and the turntable plates that go in microwaves. We emailed back, semi-curious. How bad is it, really? How bad could it possibly be? Mat, in turn, sent us a picture of a flaking fly-tipped boat.