United We Stream, divided we fall: the GMCA still wants to wash its hands of its biggest fundraising initiative

Dear readers — last week The Mill turned five years old and the number of kind messages we received was almost overwhelming. Lucy Ramlochun said that reading The Mill was “the highlight of her day”, Anne thanked us for keeping her “connected to Manchester, the city of my youth” and said that she’d read every single story in the back-catalogue (can anyone else claim that?) and Ian said it was “amazing that such a small team could have such a big impact”. Josh, meanwhile said he would be leaving Manchester next week after moving here in 1961, but that reading The Mill means that “Manchester and the north will never be far away wherever I live”. 

Thanks also to those of you who joined us to celebrate in person on Thursday. We shared some insights into how our journalism comes together, Jack Walton enjoyed a few glasses of natural wine and plenty of readers passed us tips and good gossip that we’ll be following up on over the next few weeks. Most of all, it was wonderful to celebrate achieving this milestone with the people who made the whole thing possible: our readers. We hope you all stick around for our 10th birthday bash in 2030.

New £100k Community Fund launched for Greater Manchester

From today's sponsor: Charities and community organisations are being encouraged to apply for a huge new £100,000 fund to support great work in Greater Manchester. The fund is launched by Manchester Building Society in partnership with Forever Manchester, with £30,000 available now until the end of 2025 and the remaining funds being allocated over the next three years. Local groups can apply to the fund to help community projects of all types.

Andrew Haigh, CEO of Manchester Building Society, said: “You might be trying to transform a local neighbourhood, a charity supporting young people with CV and interview clinics, or a community group providing resources and equipment for those looking to develop their skills. If so, we want to hear from you!”

Sign up to hear from Forever Manchester when the next round of the fund opens here.

Catch up and coming up

• Our (sadly, former) editor June Thomas lamented the loss of the Lancashire dialect.
• We revealed that Sammy Shonn, owner of the Northern Quarter bar Sammy’s, is accused of sexual assault by three women.
• Ophira went on the North’s finest day out, a tour around the Lake District followed by a chippy tea at Olympus Fish and Chips in Bolton, and imagined what life would be like if she raised a family in Pakistan with tour guide and entrepreneur Tasos Pattichis.
• We celebrated our fifth birthday! Joshi reflected on how we’ve grown over the last half decade and we got a lot of very kind comments from readers.
• Coming up this week, we’ll finally be able to tell readers which University of Greater Manchester official was suspended alongside vice chancellor George Holmes and provost Zubair Hanslot.
• Plus, Ophira writes a dispatch from her night out with die-hard Morrissey fans, as the controversial Mancunian icon returns for a homecoming gig.
• And those of you who have been anxiously biting your nails for some analysis of the North’s rail infrastructure plans will be delighted to hear Jack Dulhanty is taking a look at the proposed Liverpool-Manchester railway line.

⛅️ This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌦️ Milder with some sunny spells after an overcast and damp start to the day. 17°C.

Wednesday 🌤️ Dry, warm and muggy with hazy spells of sunshine. 25°C.

Thursday 🌦️ Warm and muggy with heavy and thundery rain during the afternoon. 23°C.

Friday 🌦️ Warmer with hazy sunny spells during the morning. Increasing risk of heavy showers during the afternoon and evening. 26°C.

Weekend 🌦️ Remaining muggy and quite warm but with changeable weather. Highs in the low twenties.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🤑 Last week, Rachel Reeves announced plans to invest £15bn in transport infrastructure in the North and Midlands. Greater Manchester is in line for £2.5bn. Trams will form the “backbone” of the investment plans, according to the BBC, with some of Greater Manchester’s allocation funding the metrolink network’s expansion into Stockport. That has been a long time coming, with Andy Burnham saying the new funds will be “game-changing” in moving it forward. There will also be new tram stops in Manchester, Oldham and Bury. Bev Craig, Manchester City Council leader, said the investment was “better than we predicted and will make a real difference right across the city.” Burnham has also said the money will help to pay for 1,000 electric buses to bolster the Bee Network’s fleet. Amid the positives, some more sceptical commentators — among them, Politico’s London Playbook — have suggested Reeves’s investment is a way for the government to pump cash into areas that it fears could be swayed by the Reform. Not so, says Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, who was himself skeptical of this take when we put it to him last week. “I’m not sure these decisions are being made on that basis because the fruits of them are very long term,” he said. “They’re projects that have been batted about long before the Reform issue.” That the investment has been mostly allocated for those regions around the country that have elected mayors, Ford says it's more likely a sign that the combined authority model is working. “If one goal of devolution was giving regions figures who can punch above their weight in Whitehall, this is that”. Those looking to keep up with this northern transport investment bonanza should tune into this Wednesday’s spending review, where Reeves is expected to back a new rail line between Manchester and Liverpool. Got any thoughts or expertise on those plans? Email Jack.

💸 Last month, we published a piece about United We Stream, the pandemic-era fundraising initiative organised by the GMCA lauded as one of the crowning achievements of Andy Burnham and his former advisor Sacha Lord. We found that multiple charities waited months for the public donations they were pledged, struggling to help the homeless and vulnerable children in the meantime. Since then, we have sent more questions about that to the GMCA, but mysteries still abound. The authority said, again, “at no point did the GMCA receive, hold, or distribute any of the funding associated with United We Stream GM.” So, who was in charge? When we asked the Mayor’s Charity, which was partnered with United We Stream and a recipient of some of the funds it raised, it said “we were not involved in delivering those events, or responsible for distributing funds on their behalf.” We asked the GMCA specifically whether it could account for the money that Sacha Lord is apparently still owed after he made a private donation to Save The Children UK after hearing the charity still hadn’t received its money from United We Stream, but it didn’t answer.

⛺There are currently some 25 tents forming a new homeless encampment on Lincoln Square, after a previous encampment on Albert Square was moved on by police last week. The Albert Square encampment sprung up in February, when another encampment was moved from St Peter’s Square, after Manchester City Council received a possession order to evict it. Mill readers may be wondering what the solution to the city centre’s encampment problem is, seeing so far it just seems to get moved around. “We have tried different approaches to address this situation over time and continue to evolve our response,” the council told us. The encampments are made up of refugees who, the council says, were previously accommodated in other parts of the country and have since come to Manchester. Due to their unprocessed asylum claims they cannot access work — Jo Walby from the Mustard Tree charity recently told The Mill they are suffering “political poverty”. So why can’t Manchester accommodate them? It would be “unrealistic and unsustainable”, the council says. Temporary accommodation, already at capacity, is reserved for those classed as vulnerable. Those in the camps that do not fall under that category can only be offered advice on how to secure accommodation for themselves. To accommodate them en masse, the council says: “would also be counterproductive because it would only serve to keep attracting more people from around the country, perpetuating the problem.” It appears to create something of an impasse. When we asked the council if the plan is to just move the encampment on again, it said it is working with partners on its next steps. “Our position remains that camps such as the one on Albert Square benefit no one and are not a safe, sanitary or in any way suitable environment from which to access support.”

Quick hits

🏆 Next year’s Brit Awards will be held at Co-op Live. It will be the first time since the ceremony’s inception in 1977 that it will be held outside of London. Organisers said the move Manchester — thanks to its “vibrant cultural history” — “perfectly captures the spirit and energy” of the event.

😵‍💫 It has fallen to Bolton Council to decide whether a hypnotist can be allowed to perform three shows in the town. Under the Hypnotism Act 1952 (yes, that’s a thing), a council must authorise any act that might leave someone “susceptible to suggestion or direction”. Bolton allowed a hypnotist to perform in the town for the first time in 42 years last year, and it appears the spell is now truly broken.

🚨 A 14-year-old stabbed in Moston yesterday has been named. Tributes have been paid to Ibrahima Seck, who paramedics found with stab wounds on Nevin Road. Two boys — aged 14 and 16 — have been arrested on suspicion of murder. A 14-year-old girl and 37-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. 

Photo of the week

The Northern Quarter, 131 years ago. This is the corner of Thomas Street and High Street. Our guess is the photographer was standing outside what is now Wolf at The Door, a bar where you can dine on Korean fusion and bao buns. How things change! Many thanks to Brian Groom, a fastidious poster of historic photos of Manchester on X.

Home of the week

Seeing as we did a West Didsbury property last week, we’re here with an East Didsbury terraced house today. This three-storey three-bed is going for £460,000.

Our favourite reads

‘We tell stories in order to live, but also that the dead might live again’ — The Observer

Sarfraz Manzoor reflects on the real life moments that inspired him to write Blinded By The Light, a coming-of-age film about a British Pakistani teenager who adores Bruce Springsteen. While working at Granada TV in Manchester in 1995, Manzoor received a call: his father had a heart attack that would ultimately prove fatal. His death forced Manzoor to reckon with whether he truly knew his father: “Why spend time talking to your dad about his old stories when you could be going to clubs and gigs?” At the end of the film, as the lead character prepares to move to Manchester, his father tells him: “Tell your stories but don’t forget ours.”

The great Scouse pasty war — The Post

An excellent tale of two Northern pasty shops that asks why Greggs thrived and became the UK’s largest bakery chain while Sayers fell into obscurity. Sayers, a uniquely Scouse bakery that started in a Liverpool basement in 1912, opened its doors nearly 20 years before John Gregg founded a family bakery in Newcastle, but “costs cut themselves to death” and the business eventually went under, the same year that Greggs rebranded the other chains it had acquired over the years into Greggs and created a bakery empire. “The stage was set for national domination”.

Motorway icon turned buffet titan — Jay Rayner reviews the Royal Nawaab Pyramid — The Financial Times

Can someone please perform an urgent mental health check on the country’s best known restaurant critic, Jay Rayner? In his review of Stockport’s Royal Nawaab (Mill readers will be familiar with the place), which evidences either grand-scale financial corruption at the FT Magazine or else some kind of spectacular nervous breakdown, Rayner appears to pay the restaurant a series of compliments. Deep-fried masala marinated fish is apparently “especially good” while the restaurant at large offers a “classy rebuttal” to the allegation that buffets are inherently classless. Prepare the padded cell. Rayner is not a well man.

Our to do list

Tuesday

🎷 What’s better than listening to someone playing the sax? Listening to four people playing the sax. You can do just that at the Stoller Hall tomorrow for just £5 — that’s £1.25 per saxophonist.

🦋 And Natural Behaviour is coming to the Lowry: something “between a variety show and a biological essay”. The cast includes two moths, a blade of grass, post-apocalyptic cockroaches, and the dust in Quentin Crisp’s room.

Wednesday

🐉 Produced by Julie Hesmondhalgh, What Does it Take to Slay a Dragon is arriving at 53Two. Read our Q&A with the Corrie star about the play here.

👁️ And the International Anthony Burgess Foundation is putting on Sound Sculptures — a dynamic fusion of installation and live performance. Tickets are a tenner.

Thursday

🐦‍⬛ The Plaza – that’s Stockport’s ‘Super Theatre’ — will be screening Alfred Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece The Birds. Those with a fear of seagulls or corvids of any kind are discouraged from attending.

⚽ And Classic Football Shirts are putting on what they’ve described as “the Yaya Toure of quizzes” — make of that what you will.

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