By Richard Goulding (@richmg_) Brett Christophers, Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?, Verso Books, October 2020. Brett Christophers is a political economist and economic geographer at Uppsala University, Sweden. A well-respected academic whose research explores money, finance, law and housing, he has gained wider recognition in recent years for his …
By Trees Not Cars (@TreesNotCars) On Thursday 17th October 2019, Manchester City Council’s planning committee voted through controversial plans to use a former retail park in Ancoats as a temporary 440-space car park for up to two years. They ignored 12,200 people who signed our petition to disagree (10,000 of these living in Greater …
By Greater Manchester Labour for a Green New Deal (@mcrLabGND) Storm Christoph showed that Manchester is susceptible to the adverse effects of extreme weather events, which are forecast to become more regular occurrences. Greater Manchester Labour for a Green New Deal argue that we must abandon the idea of developing on greenbelt, and …
By Lily Gordon Brown (@lilygbrown) The LS26 ‘Save Our Homes’ campaign recently received the devastating news that Pemberstone Ltd’s appeal was successful. Residents of the Oulton Estate now face the demolition of their homes in the name of developer profits. This is indicative of a far wider trend across the UK housing …
By Nick Bano (@NickBano) We republish Nick Bano's analysis of how Thatcher's legislation laid the groundwork for today's housing crisis, creating the 'rise' of the landlords, and how the contradictions of the system and the response of the organised renters movement may be ushering in the conditions for their 'fall'. It originally appeared on …
By Kerrie McGiveron (@kerriemcgiv) ‘There is no doubt that the Kirkby development will be a very attractive one, and the standards of designs, not only for the layout, but in the individual dwellings will be high.’[1] Ronald Bradbury, Architect and Director of Housing for Liverpool, 1953 ‘I wonder if they built these flats …
By Dillon Newton, Philip Brown, Leanne Monchuck Rachel Armitage Fifty years ago housing in the UK was fairly decent. Renewal initiatives had tackled some of the worst urban housing conditions and the need for secure, affordable homes was met by newly-built social housing and relatively low barriers to home-ownership. However, in present-day, housing in …
By the Manchester Local Plan Coalition Please read the letter below and this article in the Manchester Meteor. If you are as concerned as we are, please use this model letter to email your MP. This letter was sent to Andy Burnham and the leaders of the ten Greater Manchester Local Authorities on 7th January, 2021: …
By Lily Gordon Brown (@lilygbrown) Covid-19 has frequently been depicted by as a virus that “does not discriminate”. Epidemiologically speaking, this is correct. So long as it can find someone — anyone — to latch onto and thus spread, it will continue to live aggressively amongst us for the months ahead. However, looking at …
By Matthew Lee We republish in full Matthew Lee’s excellent essay on the unfolding confrontation between students and university management across the country. It was originally published by the 68 collective. We are in the midst of one of the largest student rebellions since the 1970s1. 200 students at the University of Manchester …
