As the autumn sun spills through Levenshulme Old Library's lofty windows, an empty room is set aside to provide a comfort that is in short supply - warmth.
Advertised as the 'Keep Warm Club', the room is unassuming but somehow soothing, with wooden tables and plastic chairs laid out alongside a flask of hot water and a tray of teabags and biscuits. Visitors here have no obligation, and are invited to help themselves to a hot drink, WiFi, and a warm place to sit, without having to speak to another soul.
The 'warm bank' is a scheme launched by the community arts centre just last week, as neighbourhood spaces try to think about how to best share their existing resources with the people around them, building manager Richard Hirst told the Manchester Evening News: "We have the heating on anyway when someone is in the building, so it made sense to invite people in here to use it."
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Richard tells us there hasn't been a huge amount of foot traffic yet - but he wanted the space to become available before the full reality of the harsh winter months kicks in. Right now, the 'Keep Warm Club' opens its doors on Mondays between 9.30am and 2.30pm, meaning those who have visited have tended to be middle-aged and those who work from home. But Richard says they are thinking about how to utilise the space outside of those hours to reach a wider group of people.
"At the moment, it's somewhere for parents to come after they have dropped their kids off from school so they can be warm for the whole school day, if they need it," he explained. "It's kind of structured around that".
But he knows that as the winter draws in, the evenings and nights will become colder, and with energy prices soaring, so many from all different parts of the community will struggle to heat their homes.
"I feel like there's some scope for doing things in the evening in the future," he said. "We're trying to think of different ways of welcoming people in and making them feel comfortable to come here."
When we visited this morning, the sharpness that often accompanies late autumn and winter was yet to set in. But the cold is creeping, and the comfort of a warm radiator and hot drink will soon be a basic essential that many are unable to afford.
Richard is only too aware of the stigma that some feel when using spaces like this one - but wants to reassure people that it is for everyone.
"People who have jobs aren't necessarily people who are not in need," he said. "If people are working from home and it's freezing, they can come and work here.
"There will be for a lot of people a stigma and a concern that they might be using a resource that isn't for them because they might think they're not poor enough or they're not struggling enough, or they might think they're able to just stretch to make ends meet.
"To them I've been saying - that's fair enough, but we're all living through a global crisis that seems to be particularly bad in this country. And the idea of just stretching to make ends meet is not something that you should have to think about.
"My concern is that there's going to be lots of people who are in very bad need of somewhere to be warm for a period of time, who will think that it's not here for them. It is."
While the warm bank has been quiet so far, Richard said he anticipates a bigger influx of people in the lead-up to and soon after Christmas. But for now, he wants to make sure they are reaching everyone in Levenshulme's financially and culturally diverse community - and ensuring that the space is accessible for them all.
"I can always find the space for people to come," Richard said. "It's not a finite resource. You won't be taking a resource away from anyone else by coming here.
"We've got the heating on, we've got the tea and coffee ready."
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