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Here is today's Mancunian Way:
by BETH ABBIT - Thurs July 21, 2022
Hello,
Should children be kept out of school when pollution reaches a certain level? One mum, living with her nine-year-old daughter in polluted Longsight, certainly thinks so.
We’ll be discussing that story, looking at how skate parks can be friendlier for girls and delving into Stockport’s past in today’s newsletter.
School's out
Ruth Todhunter’s daughter Jess attends a school on Northmoor Road and suffers from breathing issues. She is worried about pollution levels outside the classroom so used a Zephyr Monitor to record nitrogen dioxide levels and found they regularly peaked as high as 300 ug/m3. EU law dictates that hourly spikes should not exceed 200 µg/m3 more than 18 times a year.
Ruth told environment reporter Charlotte Cox that pollution levels were worse in sunny weather. "This has long-term effects on our lungs and can cause asthma attacks. We need more measuring and monitoring in schools. We need to look at the issue of how parents and teachers can protect children when there are spikes,” she says.
"Potentially schools should have to shut in Manchester when there are high levels of pollution. Schools should consider shutting for the day. Schools should limit the children at school and people on the roads during episodes," she says.
"There should also be more understanding for vulnerable children, like those with asthma, to take time off. I know this has impacts on work and emergency worker's children should still attend. But what if a child dies at school due to high levels of pollution?”
As reported in The Mancunian Way earlier this week, Greater Manchester experienced an 'ozone pollution episode' this week due to high temperatures and existing pollution.
The region’s combined authority monitors air quality using legal limits. But the Clean Cities Campaign says just three of the 452 sites recorded as within the legal limit for nitrogen dioxide are compliant with World Health Organisation guidelines.
Oliver Lord, UK head of the campaigning group, says children not going to school is ‘quite a severe action’. "A lot of air quality policy has got to balance the reaction and the impact it has on people's lives.” Instead he suggests reducing children's outdoor exercise during periods of poor air quality, installing filtration systems in nurseries and cycling to school at quieter times.
More than 290,000 people in Greater Manchester have lung conditions like asthma and COPD that are worsened by air pollution - and the region has some of the worst hospital admission rates for asthma in the country.
Meanwhile...
Make Space for Girls
Sky Brown is one of Britain’s most famous Olympic medallists - but the young women who share her passion for skateboarding say they often feel intimidated at local skate parks.
There are almost 1,600 facilities for skaters across the country, but charity Make Space for Girls say they don’t work for everyone. The charity has produced new guidance for councils, explaining that they have a legal obligation to consider who is using the facilities they provide.
The group has also been working with students at Manchester Metropolitan University on ‘girl-friendly designs’ for Hulme Park.
“In reality skate parks are dominated by boys. 85% of skateboarders are male, and girls can find it really intimidating to go into these spaces,” says the charity’s co-founder and trustee Imogen Clark. “Where council facilities disadvantage girls, the Public Sector Equality Duty, part of the Equality Act 2010, requires them to proactively consider how to reduce that disadvantage.
“The data is clear: teenage girls are disadvantaged, compared to teenage boys, when it comes to skate parks. We are calling on councils to comply with their legal duty to consider how to reduce that.”
In a survey of 110 girl skateboarders, Make Space for Girls found more than 80 percent said that they timed their visits to skate parks when it's quiet. Nearly 70 percent said some boys made them feel as though they shouldn’t be there.
Charity workers say they have heard stories of girls who want to skateboard but find skateparks uncomfortable places to be as they are the only girl there, are told they are 'rubbish' skateboarders or 'posers'. They say some have even had stones and racial insults thrown at them. Girls who do skate do so in the mornings, or they choose indoors skate parks with adults and girls-only sessions.
Grooming gang ringleader given 'equalities' role
The ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang has been given an equalities role in prison.
Campaigner Maggie Oliver described the move as 'unbelievable' and said it speaks to a ‘lack of judgement’ from the authorities.
Shabir Ahmed is serving a 22-year sentence after committing vile sexual crimes against children in the town. Now the 69-year-old - who urged his victims to call him 'Daddy' - has been appointed 'equalities representative' at HMP Wakefield, a maximum security jailed often dubbed 'monster mansion'.
The role is believed to involve gathering views from prisoners and liaising with officers, Andrew Bardsley reports. The Prison Service said the post is intended to 'improve the behaviour' of prisoners.
Former taxi driver Ahmed once claimed his convictions represented a conspiracy to ‘scapegoat’ Muslims. Ms Oliver - a former GMP detective who resigned in disgust over the handling of sexual abuse in the town - described Ahmed's new role as 'unbelievable'.
"I just think its another example of how there is no real common sense. It is really unbelievable that somebody like him should go anywhere near being an equalities officer. He showed himself right from the start, that he is, I would say, racist in the extreme. There is no way he understands what equality even is. It shows for me a lack of judgement from the authorities that runs right through that case. It is another example of them appeasing real criminals just to keep them happy and quiet, and I just don't agree with it."
MPs receive homophobic abuse after debate
Chris Clarkson says he received 'vile' homophobic abuse as a result of comments made by another MP in the Commons. Heywood and Middleton MP Mr Clarkson accused Chris Bryant of 'specifically' mentioning his sexuality during a bad-tempered five-hour debate, Damon Wilkinson reports.
Mr Clarkson said Rhondda MP Mr Bryant ‘specifically mentioned my sexuality and told me I should be ashamed to be supporting this Government’ during the vote of confidence debate in the Commons on Monday.
"All too predictably, the next morning my inbox was full of some of the vilest, threatening and homophobic abuse possible, specifically referencing the member for Rhondda and saying how much they supported what he said,” he said.
Deputy Speaker Dame Eleanor Laing reminded MPs that 'all members should employ good temper and moderation at all times’.
Later raising a point of order, Mr Bryant denied referring to Mr Clarkson's sexuality in the debate and asked him to withdraw the allegation. He said he ‘abhors’ the idea anybody would receive death threats as a result of anything he said and added that he has had ‘plenty’ himself this week and has had the police at his house.
During the confidence debate on Monday, Mr Bryant said the Conservatives ‘deliberately drive wedges’ between people over gender identity and trans rights and ‘ignore the fact that their own equalities minister resigned because he thought the Government was creating a hostile environment for LGBT people’.
He then pointed at Mr Clarkson and said he ‘should be ashamed to defend this Government’.
Weather, etc.
Friday: Overcast changing to light rain by late morning.
Pollen count: Medium.
Roads closed: Delph New Road, Dobcross, in both directions for roadworks between Wall Hill Road and Oldham Road until August 5.
Trams: No service on Metrolink between Eccles and MediaCityUK due to engineering works until October 21.
Today's Manc trivia question: Which popstar studied at South Trafford College during his band's hiatus?
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter
Manchester headlines
Pensioner convicted: A pensioner who slit his wife's throat then tried to kill himself as part of a suicide pact has been convicted of manslaughter. Graham Mansfield, 73, said he and his wife of more than 40 years had agreed that he would kill her when her terminal cancer got 'too bad'. Dyanne Mansfield, 71, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was becoming 'weaker and weaker', Manchester Crown Court heard. Police found Mr Mansfield lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen of their home in Canterbury Road, Hale. He'd called 999 and told the operator that he'd slit his wife's throat the night before, and had tried to kill himself but failed. Mr Mansfield denied murder and manslaughter during a trial. Jurors took 90 minutes to return the unanimous verdict. He is due to be sentenced later today.
Officer fired: An experienced police officer has been sacked after pursuing a student officer and then engaging in sexual conduct with her at a police station during a nightshift. PC Christopher Armstrong admitted it was wrong but insisted it was 'consensual'. He was said to have driven to the junior colleague's home and 'groped' her and a month later tried to have sex with her in a shower room after giving the probationer a tour of Middleton police station. Now he has been sacked by Greater Manchester Police following a disciplinary hearing. John Scheerhout has the story.
Levelling Up: Michael Gove has urged his Tory colleagues to reaffirm their commitment to levelling up, amid reports the project could be shelved when Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street. The phrase has barely featured in the Tory leadership race, with the debate instead focusing on tax cuts and defence spending. Mr Gove, who was sacked from the Department for Levelling Up after urging Boris Johnson to resign, told a think tank event that whoever replaced the Prime Minister needed to continue with his plan. "One of the fundamental structural problems in the United Kingdom is geographical inequality,” he said.
Hidden gems
A new exhibition capturing moments at Stockport Market in the 1970s will open at the town’s museum tomorrow.
Photographer Heidi Alexander spent a few weekends visiting a friend near Stockport Market in 1976 and 1977 and was charmed by the atmosphere. She shot several rolls of film with a Leica M4 camera inherited from her father. Decades later, during the first Covid lockdown, she found the negatives and posted the images on social media.
Councillor Grace Baynham said ‘The Stockport Collection’ is full of hidden gems. “With the town centre currently undergoing a period of so much change, it’s fantastic to be able to look back to a snapshot of history captured so brilliantly by Heidi Alexander,” she says.
Worth a read
Michael Dias was the face of his parents’ restaurant in Corlim in the north of Goa, tasked with enticing passing tourists to come and eat. Now he runs Liv’s Takeaway - serving Goan food - from an ex-council house in Blackley.
Food writer Ben Arnold reports that the dishes are ‘just marvellous’. “Liv's also prides itself on its Goan vindaloo, a dish rather removed from the scorching rocket fuel served in many an Indian restaurant of a Friday night to competitive gentlemen who are often rather too refreshed to notice the nuances of the spicing,” he writes. “Liv's vindaloo is not the same ball game. It's barely the same sport. ‘The best vindaloo you will ever have will be a Goan vindaloo,’ says Michael.”
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me, the next edition of the Mancunian Way will be with you around the same time tomorrow. If you have any stories you would like us to feature or look into, please contact me at beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk
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The answer to today’s trivia question, which popstar studied at South Trafford College during his band's hiatus, is Jason Orange.
