The Manchester Weekly from The Mill

In this week's episode, Mollie and Joshi discuss the curious case of a semi-detached house in Harpurhey that was bought for £575,000 and sold for £1.8 million on the very same day. Manchester City Council cited the sale as an example of market manipulation, but the property company involved happens to be a major council partner. Mollie and Joshi talk about how the story showed up on our radar, and what the situation tells us about Manchester's housing crisis.Subscribe to read the full long-read here: https://manchestermill.co.uk/subscribe

Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem? Robert Pegg, a playwright and police station representative, seems to think so. In a remarkable long read for The Mill, he argues that working-class creatives have been confined to the fringe scene, with commissioning editors mainly looking towards their own narrow class to fill vacancies. So how do we address these imbalances, and how do we ensure we hear from more great working-class writers like Shelagh Delaney and Trevor Griffiths in the future?Recommendations:Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem? The MillHave the arts been 'colonised' by the middle class? The MillHow to sell out in the ’70s, The MillIt's vast, it's beautiful — but does anyone know what Manchester's £210m venue is actually for?, The Mill

Has the question of whether Manchester or Birmingham is Britain's second city distracted us from another possibility: That Britain doesn't have a second city at all?David Rudlin, director of urban design at BDP, thinks so. A little-known law states that neither Birmingham nor Manchester are big enough to claim the title of Britain's second city, which brings us onto an interesting question: How have both cities fallen short? And what would it take for them to catch up?With thanks to Manchester Museum's Wild Show for sponsoring this episode. Wild is a brilliant new exhibition at Manchester Museum exploring how people are creating and repairing connections with nature, from post-industrial urban landscapes like Manchester to Aboriginal-led cultural revegetation projects in Western Australia and the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park in the US.Many readers have been sending in photos of their favourite wild spaces, if you’d like to join them, just email us a photo and description of your favourite wild space to editor@manchestermill.co.uk. Our favourite ones will be published in future newsletters and you will get a free curator’s tour of the exhibition. Read more about Wild and plan your visit via this link.Recommendations:Britain doesn't have a second city, The MillI value Brummie art, but who else does? The ObserverHow to invigorate Britain's second-tier cities, The EconomistThe Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane JacobsThe Economy of Cities, Jane JacobsManchester Unspun, Andy Spinoza

Writer Alec Herron's gran’s house was on the Grey Mare Lane estate in Beswick, east Manchester. He can still remember Sunday afternoons "filled with rice pudding, sucking bone marrow and hours sat around the table hearing stories of tragedy and petty gossip told with the same veracity".It will all be coming down soon. The regeneration of Grey Mare Lane estate was initiated after a 2017 public consultation concluded the estate was being “left behind”. Late last year, a £70 million masterplan for the area was withdrawn, two years after being first presented to residents. Three weeks ago a new masterplan was released. 124 social rented homes are to be demolished, and at least 550 new homes built — more than double the number of the previous masterplan.In this week's episode, Alec discusses his memories of the estate — some happy, some painful — and why this area is ripe for regeneration, and asks whether the same community can live on after the demolish-and-rebuild scheme is complete.A warning: this episode contains a description of physical violence.With thanks to Manchester Museum's Wild Show for sponsoring this episode. Wild is a brilliant new exhibition at Manchester Museum exploring how people are creating and repairing connections with nature, from post-industrial urban landscapes like Manchester to Aboriginal-led cultural revegetation projects in Western Australia and the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park in the US.Many readers have been sending in photos of their favourite wild spaces, if you’d like to join them, just email us a photo and description of your favourite wild space to editor@manchestermill.co.uk. Our favourite ones will be published in future newsletters and you will get a free curator’s tour of the exhibition. Read more about Wild and plan your visit via this link.Recommendations:Clinging on in east Manchester, The MillEstates, Lynsey HanleyReclaiming East Manchester, Len Grant

It’s been a frantic few days of political shenanigans as Sir Keir Starmer’s ruthless operation in London moves to impose its favoured people on the safe seats that are up for grabs in Greater Manchester, the Lib Dems attempt to remove any Tory blue from the Greater Manchester map and the Tories fight to hold on in Bolton. So who are the people vying to be the next MPs of Greater Manchester, and what's going on with Labour's candidate selections? Mollie and Jack take a look.Recommendations:‘It’s basically a f*** you to the left’: Labour’s candidate selections are going down well, The MillYes, Galloway won Rochdale. But it’s the runner up who really tells us about politics in the town, The MillAfter Labour blows up in Rochdale, George Galloway seizes his chance, The MillWhy Labour stormed local elections across the country - but lost ground in Greater Manchester, The Mill

Last Thursday, The Mill revealed that Primary Security, a company controlled by Sacha Lord, had obtained more than £400,000 of public money from an Arts Council scheme that was supposed to support culturally significant organisations during the pandemic. Our story presented evidence that the application was deeply misleading and that Sacha Lord’s company Primary Security had recently changed its name to Primary Events. Fast forward to 5.04pm on Friday, and an expensive law firm in the capital sent a letter threatening to sue The Mill. Our story was defamatory, the letter said, and “factually wrong”. We had until 4pm on Tuesday to publish an apology and take down the story. Instead of complying with this deadline, we dug deeper. After we discovered new details, the Arts Council and the GMCA launched an investigation into the funding application, and as of yesterday evening, Sacha Lord has now withdrawn his legal threat against The Mill. In a lengthu public statement, which you can read in full here, Lord denies all of the allegations. In this special episode of The Manchester Weekly from Mill, Joshi Herrmann and Jack Dulhanty take you behind the scenes of our reporting and we sit down with the original source for the story, Mark Turnbull, the former director of Primary Security.