An overnight success: Thousands board Greater Manchester’s new night buses

Dear readers — we hope you had a wonderful weekend, free from whatever virus has been afflicting Mill HQ lately. On Saturday we published a pretty shocking report by Shannon Keating about the undercover exploits of Harry Shukman, ex-Mill-editor turned far-right-infiltrator. Tonight at 10pm, Channel 4 will be diving further into his investigation with Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, a new documentary following Shukman’s work with anti-extremist organisation ‘HOPE not hate’. We can’t imagine it’s the most relaxing Monday night viewing, but it’s an important watch.

Today’s big story checks in with the Bee Network’s night bus pilot. Targeted at hospitality and healthcare workers, the new service has been flooded with passengers, with over 50,000 journeys taken since it launched last month. This helps make the case for expanding these services across the city region. More on that below.

But first, we have another bit of positive news. Now publishing for four years and with over 50,000 free subscribers, The Mill has long been overdue a third full-time writer. Well, the day has finally come, and this week we welcome esteemed journalist Ophira Gottlieb into our office and onto our humble roster of staff. Ophira has already been working full-time across our various titles over the last six months, and has recently popped back to her home city of Glasgow to help us set up shop across the border. She’s talented, she’s funny, she knows loads about Manchester, she definitely didn’t write this introduction, and she’ll be a great addition to the team.

From today’s sponsor: Time is running out to get 50% off an annual digital subscription to the Financial Times. We link to FT stories in this newsletter every week because its writers produce some of the best long reads and incisive political coverage in the UK. With this offer, which ends this Thursday, you can stay informed for just £4.40 per week, enjoy trusted news reporting, and dive into fantastic essays and cultural writing. Click here to claim the offer before it’s gone. Thanks to the FT for sponsoring today’s edition.

⛅️ This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌦️ A couple of showers during the morning, then mostly dry with bright spells and light winds. 15°C.

Wednesday ⛅️ Dry throughout the day with occasional periods of hazy sunshine. 15°C.

Thursday 🌤️ Breezy, mild and dry with a mix of sunny and cloudy periods. 17°C.

Friday 🌦️ Windy, cool and showery. Wettest during the afternoon. 13°C.

Weekend 🌦️ Cool and unsettled as low pressure dominates.

You can find the latest forecast at Manchester Weather on Facebook — daily forecasts are published at 6.15am.

The big story: The Bee Network’s overnight success

Top line: The Bee network’s night bus pilot is proving to be a hit with passengers. Thousands have used the new services since they launched last month, according to new data, helping make the case for night bus services more broadly.

Context: There have been night bus services on various privately-operated bus routes in Greater Manchester for years, but the pilot is the first time publicly-operated buses have run overnight. 

• Two routes have been included in the pilot, the V1 and the 36, going to Leigh and Bolton respectively. 

• Around 135,000 people live a five-minute walk from the two routes.

Details: In the pilot’s opening four weeks (1-28 September), 7,000 people used the night buses, making up a total of 53,413 trips. Friday and Saturdays were the most popular periods, unsurprisingly. The pilot was directly aimed at workers in the city’s night time economy, as well as NHS staff working late.

• Security on the routes has been another focus, with enforcement officers employed on overnight buses.

• The Bee Network also partnered with Strut Safe, a support-line that people travelling alone can call.

Speaking to press about the pilot last month, Burnham described the overnight services as a “lifeline” for workers. On the data from the pilot’s first month, he said: “These encouraging figures show that the demand is there for safer, reliable and more affordable public transport at these times of the evening.” 

What’s next: Not long after the pilot launch, Burnham was asked by a radio listener when and where the night bus services would be expanding. He told them: "We will be bringing night bus services east. Within a year, I would hope we will have a night bus serving Stalybridge and the Tameside borough. That's the intention." 

Your Mill briefing

⛓️ Andrew Talbot, an ex-GMP detective, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for stealing cocaine from police evidence and supplying it to convicted dealer and co-conspirator Keith Bretherton. GMP’s anti-corruption team found that Talbot unlawfully searched for information on other drug dealers on a police computer, handing it on to Bretherton to assist him in collecting debts. Talbot used his position as a detective to threaten people with criminal investigations if they failed to pay. He was found guilty of supplying a class A drug, misconduct in public office and failing to comply with a police investigation.

🧱 Businesses lining Albert Square have complained to the MEN about the ongoing renovation of the square and Town Hall, taking particular umbrage with the offices of the Our Town Hall Project, contained in large portacabins on the square. David Fox, the owner of Tampopo, said: "I think we can all agree we need to get the wretched cabins removed and the square reopened as soon as is possible. Most building projects don’t have the luxury of using one of the best civic squares in Europe to put their building works on.” The council are aiming to get the square reopened by next Christmas, but the overall completion for the renovation has been bumped back to 2026, with the budget climbing to nearly half a billion pounds. You can read more about that in our feature: ‘Wrestling with the ghosts of Manchester Town Hall’

🏚️ Greater Manchester’s thirteen recently-graduated housing enforcement officers have described the “horrendous” state of many of the homes they have inspected, according to a report by the BBC. New measures ensuring that social housing landlords repair unsafe homes were put in place following the death of Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old boy who died from exposure due to mould in his Rochdale home. Andy Burnham intends to introduce a Good Landlord Charter in May 2025, and has insisted that the scale of the housing crisis is “much bigger than a team of thirteen”.

💸 Bolton Council has voted to triple the amount of bad debt — debt that can’t be recovered — it can write off without oversight. Previously council officers could only write off £5,000 in individual cases; this went up to £15,000 last week. Leader Nick Peel said there needed to be a balance struck between oversight and expedience, “I think it’s sensible for an organisation like Bolton Council to raise the limit from £5,000 to £15,000.” But opposition councillors said the lack of scrutiny and transparency is concerning.

🚊 Manchester councillor and city centre spokesman Pat Karney has called for a “full comprehensive inquiry” into a collision between a bus and tram in Piccadilly Gardens on Friday. North West Ambulance Service and an air ambulance team treated four people, including the bus driver, at the scene. 

📽️ As previously mentioned, Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, the new documentary based on reporting by former Mill editor Harry Shukman, is showing on Channel 4 this evening. However, it has been pulled from the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival due to fears surrounding the safety of audiences and staff. The festival’s director Kristy Matheson said that despite the film being “one of the best documentaries I have seen this year”, it was pulled because “festival workers have the right to feel safe and that their mental health and well being is respected in their workplace.” In previous interviews, Matheson has said there is not a world “where artists are not being political. Art allows us to have hard conversations about the times we live in.” That ethos doesn’t seem to apply in this case. “It’s a huge shame that the London Film Festival lost their nerve and pulled the screening of Havana Marking’s amazing documentary,” Shukman told The Mill. “An opportunity to counter far-right hate has been missed.”

Stream Undercover: Exposing the Far Right.

Manchester’s wonder material

20 years ago this week, an extraordinary discovery was announced in Manchester: graphene. The National Graphene Institute will be running activities every day this week as part of the Manchester Science Festival, to tell the story of graphene’s past and its incredible potential. You can also explore graphene related objects and stories from the sticky tape dispenser used to isolate graphene to a jacket made from the wonder material. The full festival programme can be found here.

This is a sponsored post by the Science and Industry Museum

Home of the week 

Don’t let the simple exterior fool you — this little redbrick in Newton Heath hides a wood-panelled bathroom, exposed brick living and dining room, a feature fireplace, and a paved courtyard out back. £165,000.

Our favourite reads

She Didn’t See Other Black Hikers. She Decided to Change That — The New York Times

When Rhiane Fatinikun, a former local government officer in Manchester, set off on a hike through the Peak District in 2019, “she was struck by the fact that she did not see anyone who looked like her”. She set up Black Girls Hike and encouraged black women to join her exploring the countryside. And then, “It just snowballed really quickly”, she told the New York Times. The British countryside can feel “exclusionary” to people of colour, according to Corinne Fowler, a professor of colonialism at the University of Leicester, adding that the history of people of colour in the countryside is often “overlooked”. 

50 years since 'Sad Sweet Dreamer' — Dave Haslam

Sad Sweet Dreamer, a single by the Manchester-based soul group Sweet Sensation, was number one in the charts for an entire week in October 1974, the first ever number-one single by a predominantly black British group. Marcel King, the band’s precocious, unassuming lead singer, was once described as a “genius vocalist” by the Manchester Digital Music Archive, but his story remains “under-acknowledged, even unknown”. In this great feature, Dave Haslam writes about his life and why his solo song, Reach for Love, is considered “one of the greatest tunes that's ever come up on Factory Records” despite its lack of commercial success at the time.

The Island King — Harper’s Magazine

On Bougainville, an island in the Solomon Sea that is said to possess “wilder and more majestic scenery” than anywhere else in the South Pacific, a reporter goes to meet Noah Musingku, a former scam artist who has retreated to a remote corner of the island, where he has declared himself the island’s king. The reporter encountered Musingku, who once spent weeks living in Manchester trying out for professional football teams, sitting at the desk of his citadel, surrounded by “range ornaments and gewgaws: potted plants; perfume jars; plastic bottles filled with scented oil; business cards; maps; loudspeakers; a globe; several smartphones and tablets”, and wearing “the red coat of an eighteenth-century British soldier, with a gold aiguillette and a powder-blue sash”. Is he a visionary, dreaming of a better future for an island demanding its own independence? Or, as one diplomatic envoy put it, is he a “fucking joke”?

Our to do list

Tuesday

🔭 Jodrell Bank has a great range of activities to keep the kids entertained this half term, including a green alien hunt in the gardens, planetarium screenings and cosy film nights. View the full programme here.

🎭 The Bolton Octagon presents Stones in His Pockets, a play that follows two men who are cast as extras in a Hollywood blockbuster set in their small village in rural Ireland, who notice that the film’s romanticised idea of Ireland is a long way from reality. Tickets here.

Wednesday

🎨 There’s a new sculpture and fine art exhibition at Castlefield Gallery that draws from a range of influences including modernism, classical African sculpture and Russian constructivism. More here.

🍷 Firehouse, a chic restaurant tucked away on Great Ancoats Street, has a great midweek dining deal where you can enjoy a mezze platter of Picanha steak, peri chicken and Chermoula squash and pomegranate for just £14, plus, £6 margaritas all evening. Book a spot here.

Thursday

🗣️ Hugh Cornwell, the original vocalist and guitarist in The Stranglers, is giving a talk at Waterside Arts in Sale on the legacy of Ray Harryhausen, the visionary animator behind some of old Hollywood’s most iconic fantasy blockbusters. Tickets here.

❣️ There’s a fundraiser gig at Six Trees Bar and Kitchen in Stretford to support the development of a new music space in Ramallah in the West Bank. The legendary DJ and producer Mr Scruff will perform the headline set, along with rising stars The Beatriarchy. £10.

Thanks to the FT and the Science and Industry Museum for sponsoring today’s edition. Get your discounted subscription to the FT now. And find the full programme for this year’s Manchester Science Festival here.