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It’s one of Greater Manchester’s most unusual fixtures but Stockport Pyramid has been empty for more than five years.
It was originally intended as one of five pyramids making up a Stopfordian ‘Valley of the Kings’, but that vision evaporated when the original developer went bust. Some have even joked that the giant blue structure, which sits by the side of the M60 ring road, actually inspired the Egyptians in their own efforts.
The pyramid was used as a call centre by the Co-op, which had paid for its construction, before the company relocated to NOMA in Manchester city centre in 2018. It's been empty ever since.
Now, the owner of award-winning restaurant chain Royal Nawaab has confirmed talks over a deal with the owners of the structure are progressing. Mahboob Hussain told reporter Paul Britton the company wants the building to be 'it's next home in the North West' - talks are said to be at an 'advanced stage'.
The Nawaab restaurant and banqueting hall on Stockport Road in Levenshulme closed earlier this year and is now Merzee.
The Pyramid comprises of 86,000 square feet of office accommodation over five floors, with 426 on-site car parking spaces. In May 2019, news of its purchased by a Saudi Arabian investor was confirmed, with Eamar Developments (UK) buying the building from the Co-op Bank. It went on the market the summer before with an asking price of more than £4.5m.
Mr Hussain says he can’t say much aside from confirming talks are ongoing. "Our focus is on continually exploring exciting opportunities that align with our vision and values,” he said.
How are you pronouncing that?
Back in June we reported on how rail company Northern are making efforts to stop mis-pronouncing station names - Hall i' th' Wood, Altrincham and Horwich being some of the usual culprits.
Northern’s new on-board announcers Peter Corley and Laura Palmer promised to re-record any announcement which passengers believe 'doesn't respect local pronunciation'. And they’re doing just that with one Mancunian station. Ashburys has made the list for re-recording as it’s currently being pronounced without the 's' at the end.
Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said: “We manage 467 stations across our network and some of them are pronounced very differently to how they appear in writing.
“That said, some corrections are, quite rightly, a request that station names be announced in full rather than shortened versions that have been adopted over time.”
How to stop GPs leaving for Dubai
"We know we have a deflated and demoralised workforce, who are working harder than we've ever worked before, but we also know that the public are still not satisfied and the service is not meeting the general need.
“People are emigrating to Dubai, Qatar, New Zealand where the money is much better, the lifestyle is better and there's not as much demand or pressure,” says Dr Zahid Chauhan.
The Oldham GP says there is ‘excessive demand’ on those working in general practice currently and people leaving the service is ‘in the hands of the government and the policy-makers’.
"Every government says we want more GPs, more nurses, but they aren't willing to go beyond the headline and get down to the nitty gritty. It's not that we don't have the capacity to train more doctors, it's that we don't want to invest in the training,” he says.
As the NHS turns 75, reporter Damon Wilkinson spoke to a number of GPs across Greater Manchester to gauge opinion on the current state of the profession. With a shortage of more than 2,000 GPs in England alone and doctors quitting in unprecedented numbers, what does the future hold for general practice?
Dr Kamran Khan, a GP in Bolton, says demand is ‘through the roof’ which can be ‘incredibly frustrating’ for patients and staff. But he says enthusiasm for the NHS remains.
“There is an unstinting loyalty, but you cannot take that for granted. You can't continue to run on goodwill to keep going above and beyond," he says.
Dr Murugesan Raja, associate medical director for NHS Greater Manchester and a GP at Hawthorne Medical Centre in Fallowfield, says general practice is still ‘a wonderful place to work’ but has problems with workloads, training, retention and delays.
"There are much more lucrative offers to work in the Middle East, in Canada. They need more GPs and the pay and workload is much better. Family ties and being invested in the NHS probably keep people here, but you can't keep running on goodwill,” he says.
How buses could hold up CAZ decision
Hundreds of buses in Greater Manchester upgraded in a bid to bring down pollution might still not be meeting emissions standards, Joseph Timan reports.
The government is now reviewing whether retrofitting buses at a cost of up to £16,000 each has worked, causing further delays in the region's Clean Air Zone saga.
As of March, 1,153 of the 2,063 buses in Greater Manchester were retrofitted to meet emissions standards, costing £15m. But in April, the government paused funding for the clean-up scheme, revealing that some retrofitted buses were not cutting nitrogen dioxide emissions as much as expected. This puts Greater Manchester's plans to bring air pollution down below legal limits in doubt.
Local leaders have said work to clean up the bus fleet - which includes buying new electric buses - would be enough to improve air quality in line with the government's legal direction. However, the modelling behind these claims has now been called into question as many buses may not be meeting standards.
Transport bosses are waiting on the results of the retrofitting review so new modelling on the impact of charging certain vehicles is accurate. Councillors are due to discuss this on Thursday.
The Federation of Small Businesses has today warned that the latest development suggests the Government is preparing ‘to move the goalposts’ and further delay a clear way forward.
Robert Downes, FSB development manager for Greater Manchester, says it’s a reminder for many businesses that ‘the thorny issue of a charging CAZ has still not gone away’.
We have until 2026 to get to where we need to be on emissions targets, yet it now feels like we are back to square one again,” he said.
The latest news on bus emissions follows the claim that Greater Manchester is bottom of a ranking of European cities assessing cleaner green transport.
The Clean Cities Campaign - a European coalition of more than 80 organisations campaigning for zero-emission travel - compared 42 selected cities in Europe on a range of modes of transport including shared bikes and e-scooters, shared electric cars and zero-emission buses. The quantity and quality of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure currently available to the public was also considered.
Greater Manchester, according to the report, has 0.7 shared bikes or e-scooters per 1,000 people - ranking it second bottom of the 42 behind Edinburgh, which the study said had none. It didn't rank at all in terms of the number of shared electric cars per 1,000 of the population and has 35 electric or hydrogen-powered buses out of a total available of 2,141.
Butr transport chiefs here have questioned the methodology, saying they don't believe 'Greater Manchester is lagging behind everywhere else' and pointing out that Metrolink - the largest light rail system in the UK - wasn't considered at all.
You can read more about it here.
Strangeways here we come
Can they make Strangeways posh? That’s the question posed by reporter Paul Britton in this feature about the area surrounding the famous prison.
There are big plans to regenerate the area, and the Cambridge area of Salford, with homes, active travel, businesses, new green spaces - and the opening up of the River Irwell along one of its dankest and most hidden stretches.
But there’s a major obstacle in the way - the maze of counterfeit shops that populate the area and the criminality that surrounds them.
As Paul reports, Greater Manchester Police are six months into a three-year programme to rid the area of counterfeit traders. And both Manchester and Salford councils have joined forces to search for and commission a team of consultants to develop a masterplan for the area - which they describe as 'currently synonymous with crime and a poor quality local environment'.
HMP Manchester has also been identified as 'one of the biggest hurdles facing the area' and a 'barrier to growth'. Lobbying to close it will continue.
Ambitious for the area are grand and local leaders say the economic opportunities are ‘immense’.
You can read all about the plans for the area here.
'I’d love to build affordable housing all over GM’
Gary Neville says it's up to the government to deliver more affordable housing, as he pushes on with this £400m St Michael’s development.
He has addressed criticism that his company Relentless Developments has not included any affordable homes in the flagship city centre scheme in this interview with North West business editor Jon Robinson.
"It would annoy me if we weren't making a significant affordable housing contribution into the millions," he said. "We're making a huge affordable housing contribution on this site and to be fair we want to do it.
"What has always been levelled at me is 'how can you build a five-star hotel when we need affordable housing' as if I have the answer to the shortage. The real problem is the central government policies around affordable and social housing and not really creating the environment to build houses. They're not interested and they've not built enough houses.
"There are real issues in certain areas around land and construction costs making projects too expensive. I would love to build affordable housing all over the Greater Manchester boroughs.
"I accept that affordable housing is a problem and we need to work together to deliver that, but central government needs to bring us the answers. It's a local problem but it's mainly a central government problem.”
You can read the full interview here.
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Weather etc
Tuesday: Cloudy changing to light rain by late morning. 20C.
Road closures: M67 Eastbound entry slip road closed due to long-term roadworks at J2 A57 Hyde Road (Denton). Until December 1, 2025.
Trivia question: Which Greater Manchester football club are known as 'The Trotters'?
Manchester headlines
- Shopping: Rocker Alice Cooper made a surprise appearance at a shop in the Northern Quarter ahead of a huge gig in Manchester. He was spotted visiting Pop Boutique, on Oldham Street, before his appearance at the AO Arena as part of band Hollywood Vampires, alongside actor Johnny Depp, Aerosmith's Joe Perry, and musician Tommy Henriksen. Lucy Lloyd-Ruck was one of the lucky shoppers to get a selfie with the rock star after he was seen eying up a bomber jacket from the independent retailer. “I think it’s amazing that he was supporting an independent business too,” she said.
Dispersal order: A dispersal order has been put in place after a huge group of youths spilled out into the street in scenes of 'mayhem' in Rochdale. It was reported that a house party had 'got out of hand' before crowds of teenagers gathered on Charlton Street. Officers are said to have responded to multiple 999 calls from Castleton of the youths behaving antisocially in the area on Saturday evening. Officers attended to break up the huge crowds, with a dispersal order put in place for 48 hours, to give police extra powers to split up groups of two or more people if they believe their behaviour is causing a nuisance. More here.
Approved: A derelict pub that has become ‘an eyesore’ will be turned into 14 luxury apartments. The former Ups ‘n’ Downs establishment, in Stockport, has been left derelict in recent years. A proposal put forward by Uruk Properties Ltd is to demolish part of the building and replace it with a five-storey extension. Within 14 new 'luxury' one and two-bed apartments would be created. Stockport Council’s Planning Committee has approved the plans.
Night out: Two areas of Greater Manchester have been ranked among the top 10 best, and worst, for a night out in the country. A new survey conducted by Public First looked at the size of the night-time economy across more than 100 major towns and cities in England and Wales. It revealed there is a North-South divide and a contrast between wealthier and more deprived areas in terms of the quality of nightlife. Manchester was ranked the tenth best place in the country for a night out, along with Brighton in first place, Bath in second and York in third place. Scores were based on the number of restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs available - and what they have to offer. Just a couple of miles away, Salford, was ranked the fourth worst place for a night out, along with Slough in the South West and Basildon in Essex. Read more here.
Worth a read
“Brenda McElhatton pushes her trolley along the supermarket aisle and stops in front of a fridge. The branded butter she always buys her husband has gone up in price again. But housebound and living with dementia, it’s one of the few luxuries he gets to enjoy these days. Brenda reaches for a pack and gently places it among her items.
“It’s a sorry state of affairs known by most across the country right now. Brenda, from Farnworth, is one of many currently struggling with the cost of food and essentials. Scraping by on her pension, she’s even considered coming out of retirement and finding herself a job just to make ends meet."
Brenda is among shoppers who have been speaking to reporter Paige Oldfield about the cost of living crisis. “It’s hard,” she told Paige. “Will prices eventually go down? No. Not for a long while. Pensioners don’t get the extra cost of living payments. I still have the same bills to pay as everyone else. I still have to keep the house running.”
You can read the full piece here.
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: Bolton Wanderers
