By Sam Wheeler The decision by the planning committee last week to approve the Salboys development on Shudehill is incomprehensible. It must be fought. Last year Salboys, the construction arm of billionaire bookie Fred Done’s empire, put in a bid to build a 13 storey development in the Northern Quarter, one of the …
by Jon Silver (@InvisibleMapper) This week hugely problematic issues were revealed in a huge public-private partnership that aims to transform 155 hectares of urban land in Manchester, highlighting a city leadership determined to continue on with an increasingly broken urban development model despite growing public anger. Far East Consortium (FEC), an international real …
By Josie Hicklin Having recently finished the LPC Josie is a volunteer in the law centre’s housing department. She is also a yoga teacher exploring how to make yoga accessible to vulnerable and marginalised groups. Housing rights campaigners have been celebrating the long-awaited ban on lettings agents charging sky-high fees to tenants. The lettings …
By Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit, University of Salford When: 25 June 2019, 16:30-19:30 Where: University of Salford MediaCityUK campus (directions available here) Register for free attendance here Los Angeles may seem a long way from Manchester, but with a century of vibrant civil rights struggle on the one hand and an ever-evolving effort …
By Jenny Pickerell (@JennyPickerill) Professor of Environmental Geography, University of Sheffield, England j.m.pickerill@sheffield.ac.uk Eco-housing is often assumed to cost more to build than conventional housing. The main way in which eco-construction costs are reduced is through self-build, but this does not help most people. Instead there is a need to reconceive the costs of eco-building …
By College Bank Support Group (@save7sis) “A lot of residents are socially vulnerable and need people to speak up for them,” said one resident. “Unless someone stands up for this group of people, their lives are going to be totally destroyed.” Housing policy by consecutive Governments in the Noughties created Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs). …
By Manchester University Press As the tragedy of the Grenfell tower fire has slowly revealed a shadowy background of outsourcing, private finance initiatives and a council turning a blind eye to health and safety concerns, many questions need answers. Stuart Hodkinson has those answers. He has worked for the last decade with residents groups …
By ACORN Manchester (@AcornManchester) Co-operation Jackson is an unapologetically revolutionary project aiming to build the foundations for economic democracy and social liberation. Based in Mississippi’s state capital and with a history rooted in the civil rights struggles of the US South, the movement combines social enterprise with grassroots democracy and critical engagements with electoral …
By Desiree Fields (@fieldsdesiree) Financialisation is a term initially developed to capture the growing power of finance in the economy since the 1970s. The term refers to the way that capital accumulation increasingly happens not through industry—via producing and trading commodities, but through financial channels—via producing and trading financial instruments, the proliferation of debt, …