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Here's the Mancunian Way for today:
Hello,
I’m a bit of a sucker for those stories about up-and-coming property hotspots - but I’d never considered this one before.
This chap has pointed out what appear to be inflation-busting prices for food and drink advertised in Weatherfield. They include a £4 kebab meal deal and pie, chips and mushy peas for £2.60 at Roy’s Rolls.
“With these prices I'm giving some serious thought to moving to Coronation Street,” Darren Dutton tweeted.
And who could blame him?
On to the news.
In today’s newsletter we’re looking at how historic city centre railway arches are set to be transformed and the pioneering cancer treatment happening right here in Manchester.
A tech hub and a centre for creatives
Heritage railway arches in Manchester city centre are set to be transformed into a ‘creative talent development centre’.
Three arches close to the HOME arts venue will be converted for the £2.2million scheme - which will use cash from the government’s Levelling Up fund.
Operated by HOME, the centre will include affordable co-working areas, a free rehearsal space and creative skills training for young people.
Meanwhile, work is continuing to to transform the historic Upper and Lower Campfield Market buildings, on Liverpool Road, into a media and tech hub.
Manchester Council has entered into legal agreements with development partner Allied London - who will repair, refurbish and fit the Grade II-listed buildings into a new Campfield tech, media and creative industries hub.
Work will begin this year and is expected to be completed by spring 2024.
The scheme - which will use £17.5m of Levelling Up funding - is within the St. John’s area and will be operated by Allied’s All Work & Social.
Castlefield House, also owned by Allied, will be repositioned as part of the masterplan to provide complementary workspace for tech and media businesses.
Both Campfield and the project near HOME form the Culture In The City project, which was provided with government funding in autumn 2021.
The council says Campfield will attract and support start-up, recovery and scale-up businesses in the tech, innovation and media sectors, providing 1,600 jobs over 15 years and sustaining a further 2,400.
Council leader Bev Craig says Campfield will play a ‘dynamic part’ in Manchester’s future.
“Having a location in the heart of the city centre, as part of a cluster of similar businesses, will create an environment where tech, media and creative entrepreneurs – whether they are starting up or scaling up – can network and share inspiration,” she said.
“Manchester has always been a city of innovation and creativity. Campfield will help ensure it continues to be.”
Allied London chairman and chief executive, Michael Ingall, says the project is important to get two historic buildings back into a sustainable use and to further develop the tech, media and creative sectors in the heart of Manchester. He says the team has taken inspiration from similar developments in Brooklyn, Paris and Uruguay and ‘are confident of delivering a very impactful project for Manchester’.
Elusive, until now
Researchers have found a rare variant of a protein present in nearly all human cells that may hold the key to improving breast cancer treatment.
University of Manchester scientists have discovered that targeting RAC1B - a variant of the RAC1 protein - could be a potential way of improving treatment for the illness.
The team, led by Dr Ahmet Ucar, found that breast cancer stem cells - thought to cause resistance to treatment, recurrence and spread - rely on RAC1B. It therefore makes ‘an attractive target’ for future breast cancer treatments.
Dr Ucar hopes further research will help translate the findings into targeted therapies.
“Developing cancer stem cell treatments to target tumours at their root has been a research aim for more than 20 years, but until now has proven elusive,” he said.
An opportunity
Another person currently benefiting from pioneering breast cancer research is Kim Jones.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer after noticing painful twinges in her breast and has undergone chemotherapy, a mastectomy and lymph node removal.
But the 44-year-old has now been accepted to receive proton beam therapy for a pioneering new trial launched at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Hospitals, as Sophie Halle-Richards reports.
The PARABLE trial is the first of its kind that will investigate the benefits of proton beam therapy for breast cancer patients and will compare proton beam therapy and standard radiotherapy for patients who are at a greater risk of long-term health problems after treatment.
Kim was selected for the trial as she has a pre-existing issue with her heart and travelled from Cambridgeshire to The Christie for the treatment. Researchers hope the trial will allow doctors to deliver the required dose of radiotherapy while minimising the dose delivered to the heart.
Kim says: "When I was told that I'd been accepted onto the trial, I felt very lucky to have the opportunity to get this treatment. Clinical trials are incredibly important as they are the best way to evaluate which treatments work the best."
‘He’s mocking us’
Andrew Longmire - dubbed the Coronation Street rapist - has spent decades behind bars after carrying out a series of terrifying rapes.
He is due to be released from prison, but at least one of his victims says he should never be allowed out.
Chief reporter Neal Keeling has been speaking to those directly affected by Longmire’s horrific crimes. Among them is a woman raped by Longmire in 1987, who believes he changed his name to that of Coronation Street character to mock his 13 victims.
"He was called the Coronation Street rapist, and he has changed his name to Barlow. Who was the biggest name in Corrie - Ken Barlow. Also he was arrested in Barlow Street - it is his way of putting two fingers up to us,” she says.
Barlow, now 66, was dubbed 'The Coronation Street rapist' as most of the victims were attacked in their own terraced homes, in the north of England - the majority living in Greater Manchester. Two of the attacks took place in the street.
The latest victim to speak out says she is ‘horrified’ at the thought of her attacker being released. "We - the 13 of us - are serving the life sentences. He should never come out. He would come out to a world that he does not really know and that could send him over the edge,” she said.
Once branded Britain's most wanted man, Barlow has already spent time out of prison as he prepares for release. He was given multiple life sentences in October 1988 after being convicted of 11 rapes; three attempted rapes; indecent assault; and using a firearm to resist arrest.
His tariff was fixed at 20 years. In the decades that followed, Barlow was linked to more offending, as two previously unsolved cases were cracked and he was given two further life sentences in 2010 and 2017.
But the Parole Board has confirmed that he is due to be released this month - a decision described as a ‘perversion of justice’ by veteran Manchester MP, Graham Stringer.
Weather etc
- Friday: Clear changing to cloudy by late morning. 9C.
- Trains: No service on Transpennine Express at Manchester Piccadilly due to strike action on January 5.
- Only one train per hour runs 8.30am to 4.30pm on Avanti West Coast between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly due to strike action until January 7.
- Trams: Service only running between 7am and 6pm on Manchester Metrolink between Altrincham and Timperley due to strike action on the national rail network on January 6 and 7. This line shares track with the national rail network thus services are unable to operate.
- Trivia question: The River Irwell ends at Salford Quays, but where does it begin?
Manchester headlines
- Flames: A bus burst into flames on Ashley Road, in Hale village, moments after the driver and passengers had been evacuated. The drama happened at a bus stop at about 8.30am. Nobody was hurt. Pictures and video from the scene showed how plumes of black smoke billowed from the engine of the parked Mercedes before it burst into flames. More here.
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Jailed: A drugs gang funded their 'lavish lifestyles' by flooding Manchester’s streets with class A drugs. Five men have now been jailed for their part in the multi-million pound operation which sold huge amounts of cocaine, MDMA, cannabis and ketamine over a four-year period. The 'sophisticated' network - led by brothers Mohammed and Ebrahim Sadigh - distributed up to an estimate £10 million worth of illegal drugs before it was eventually brought down in December 2020. At Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday, Mohammed Sadigh, 30; Ebrahim Sadigh, 22; Hamza Azouz, 31; Illyas Abudaber, 23; and Hamam Alhamruni, 24, were locked up for a combined total of more than 40 years for their roles in the drugs ring. Full story here.
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Strike: Picket lines were up again at Piccadilly and Victoria train stations this morning as train drivers from the ASLEF union walked out in a row over pay. Just one in five trains are running in the UK today. Avanti West Coast, which runs services from Piccadilly to London Euston and Northern TransPennine Express have both seen drivers walk out.
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Protest: A group of Iranian activists who have spent the winter camped outside the Manchester Islamic Centre are going into their 30th day of protests. The campaigners allege the centre has a political link to the current heavily-criticised Iranian regime, although staff deny this. Some among the group are also on hunger strike and feel they have been ignored because they are not British. The activists say the sit-in, which started on December 6, was the ‘next step’ after their petition for the closure of the centre reached over 35,000 signatures with no response from government officials or bosses at the centre. More here.
Piggy back
It was NASA’s first orbiter, but it never made it into space. Space Shuttle Enterprise did however make the trip to Manchester.
Rolled out in 1976 and built for test flights, it now sits at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.
But Mancunians had a chance to see it flying over Britain during an international tour. Here you can see the shuttle piggy back on a NASA 747 Jumbo Jet, as it flies over Manchester Airport at 11am on June 7, 1983.
The craft swept in from Heard Green at 600ft, glided down the route of the runway and climbed up to 1,000 ft.
Worth a read
Artist Liam Spencer spent a year creating a glorious collection of watercolours, oil paintings, and ink drawings depicting the wildlife he saw along the River Irwell.
Working from its source on the moors above Bacup to its head at Salford Quays where it joins the Manchester Ship Canal, Liam has painted all kinds of wildlife and plants.
The artist is now due to show his work at The Whitaker, in Rawtenstall, and chief reporter Neal Keeling has been speaking to him about the exhibition.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk.
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The answer to today's trivia question is: Deerplay Moor, above Bacup, East Lancashire.
