Greater Manchester’s infamous climate could be the key to preserving British trees

Dear readers — we hope you had a wonderful weekend, one that has fortified you for the beginning of October. There’s nothing like entering the final quarter of the year to remind you of how fast it's all whizzing by, and while today’s weather seems to foreshadow a miserable few months, our local weatherman says we’re actually in for a pretty dry week. Not that wet weather is all bad, that is. See today’s big story, about how Greater Manchester’s notorious drizzle is proving to be a lifeline for at-risk tree species that are finding it too hot down south. 

Over the weekend, we published the latest part of our investigation into how Sacha Lord’s company Primary Event Solutions got over £400,000 of public funding during the pandemic. The documents showed that the Arts Council had failed to perform very basic checks on the claims in Primary's application, and that Lord’s company, at the height of a national crisis laying waste to the arts, wanted £10,500 of taxpayers’ money to redesign its website. “Great journalism,” one member commented. “Like a dog with a bone. Please carry on as it is incredible that no-one else has uncovered this!” Another writes, simply: “Keep going!”

And we intend to. Over the weekend, Lord told the Times that he has a new job —taking up an “independent national night-time adviser position”. That sounds like a promotion from his current gig advising Andy Burnham, could the government really be hiring an advisor who is under investigation by the Arts Council, a government agency? We've asked Lord's press representative and we'll update you when we know more. But in the meantime, do get in touch with any insight.

And to end on some good news: Our Glasgow publication — The Bell — launches today! Read it’s opening piece here. Follow The Bell on X or Facebook to see its upcoming features and long-reads. Speaking on behalf of the Manchester office, it is both exciting and slightly surreal to see how this model of journalism (first supported here, by Mill members) is spreading across the UK. Now, onwards!

🌤️ This week’s weather

It’s been a horrible start to the week, but our local weatherman Martin Miles promises the rest of this week will be much more settled, with lovely spells of sunshine and warmer weather to enjoy.

Tuesday 🌥️ Mostly cloudy and breezy with well-isolated showers. 13°C.

Wednesday 🌤️ Bright and breezy with mostly dry conditions and occasional sunny spells. 15°C.

Thursday 🌤️ Dry and pleasantly mild with sunny spells. Less breezy. 16°C.

Friday ⛅️ Breezy again, although still dry with hazy intervals of sunshine. 16°C.

Outlook 🌦️ Mild into the weekend but turning windy and unsettled as low pressure arrives from the west.

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

The big story: Greater Manchester rain to preserve UK’s arboreal heritage

Top line: Manchester’s rainy climate is usually a cause for complaint, but it could make it a contender for preserving trees that are beginning to struggle with rising temperatures in the south, reports the Guardian.

Context: The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has five gardens in the UK. Four of which are expected to have hotter and drier summers that will mean they won’t be able to support certain species by 2075, according to modelling. But RHS Bridgewater, opened in 2021 in Salford, is expected to still have cooler, wetter summers in which such species can thrive.

• “We saw hotter summers, drier summers, in most of our cases, whereas RHS Bridgewater was the only garden that remained fairly stable in its climate,” said RHS’s Jon Webster.

• Species that could be better supported at Bridgewater include Oak, Birch and Beech, all of which have been part of the British landscape for centuries.

A new arboretum is being planned at the garden where these at-risk species could be preserved. The arboretum is the second phase of RHS Bridgewater’s development, and is expected to open in 2026. 

It won’t be the first time plants have been moved to the site due to it becoming impossible for them to grow down south. In August 2022, a crop of rhubarb plants were moved from RHS’s garden in Surrey to Salford so they could survive.

Given the summer the UK has just had, it might seem hard to believe that certain parts of the country have now become untenable for some species. But while this summer was the coolest since 2015, it would still be considered warmer than average for the period between 1961 and 1990, with rainfall 5% lower than average.

Bottom line: That Greater Manchester’s usually bemoaned climate could make it a haven compared to the rest of the country is ironic — granted, in a bit of a morbid way. But beyond preserving at risk species, arboretums also boost biodiversity and trap carbon. Not only that, but RHS hasn’t planted one in some 25 years, so the next one being in Greater Manchester is big news, and ought to be welcomed.

Your Mill briefing

🤖 The first building in Manchester’s new innovation district — formerly ID Manchester, newly christened Sister — has opened. Sustainable Ventures, a leading climate tech incubator, is its first customer, moving into the Renold Building. Sister is being built on the former UMIST campus, near the universities, and part of its location’s allure is that companies based there will be able to capitalise on the research done nearby. These ventures are usually referred to as spin-outs and there has recently been a push for more of them. We wrote about this — and Manchester’s burgeoning AI industry, a lot of which expected to be based at Sister — in January: Manchester’s AI sector is small, and that’s its superpower.

👮 GMP’s Xcalibre task force, set up in 2004 to stop gun crime but shifting its focus to knife crime in recent years, say that watching music videos produced by “local gangs” is an increasingly significant way of tracking criminal activity and monitoring community tension. These videos reference recent crimes and call out members of other groups. But there are two sides to this coin, with the videos also being used by prosecutors looking to establish gang narratives and successfully convict large groups of young people. One video, which was actually part-funded by GMP to help engage young people in Moss Side with the arts, was later used as evidence to convict seven teenagers of murder and four of manslaughter. 

🪩 Manchester has the most venues open after 2am, compared to other major cities like Leeds, Brighton, Edinburgh and London. The Times asked whether the capital has become host to the UK’s worst night out — both more expensive and ending earlier than other cities. 15.6% of Manchester’s venues open past 2am, whereas only 6% of London’s do.

🚃 Contactless ticketing across buses and trams will be introduced to the Bee Network in 2025, says Andy Burnham. An annual pass will be £800 and, interestingly, people will be able to apply to credit unions to help spread the cost. “This is critical for growth for our region,” says Burnham. “If we don’t have a transport system that lets people get out and about everyday, then you don’t really have a vehicle for growth.”

🖼️ Helen Clapcott, a painter who moved to Stockport in the early ‘60s aged 10, is exhibiting over 100 artworks depicting the town throughout the years. A Portrait of Stockport is running at the Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery until 25 January. Clapcott has dedicated her career to painting the north. “If Lowry first opened our eyes to the beauties of the industrial scene,” the critic Andrew Lambirth wrote, “Clapcott is chronicling its last chapter”.

Home of the week 

This two-bedroom stone cottage in Disley has beautiful period features, a log burner and a peaceful rear garden. £315,000.

Our favourite reads

ISIS and the Lonely Young American — The New York Times

A fascinating long read from 2015, which tells the story of Alex, an isolated 23-year-old woman living in a rural part of Washington State, who developed an online friendship Faisal Mostafa, a man in his 50s who lived in Stockport. Faisal became her “constant companion”, chatting to her via Skype all night long, sending her luxurious gifts and encouraging her to convert to Islam. Soon, Alex began to harbour “doubts about the Islamic State’s portrayal in the media as brutal killers”. She discovered a mosque five miles from her house, but on telling Faisal about it, “he suddenly became cold”. The steering committee of the mosque had disavowed the Islamic State, and Faisal “dissuaded her from going, saying it was a government-infiltrated mosque”. It was a Twitter user who threw Alex “a digital lifeline”, recognising the signs of radicalisation from her tweets. “They are grooming you,” @KindLadyAdilah said, “If you went there you would die or worse.”

Inside the Secret Manchester Pub That Only Serves Bartenders — VICE

“People say I’m a bit of a gobby twat because I take no shit,” says Phil Greenwood, the landlord of The Seven Oaks who has earned “a reputation as one of the city’s most ruthless landlords”. From midnight onwards, his pub opens a secret back door to the city’s frazzled bartenders and waiters, who blow off steam about working conditions getting worse, tip jars shrinking and hours getting longer. “Every once in awhile, we get the odd person who says, ‘Do you do cocktails?’ and I say, ‘Fuck off, do I look like someone who has time to do cocktails?’ Really what everyone wants is the cheapest way to get drunk in the shortest amount of time.”

The illegal, pie-eating BMX riders of Wigan — STAT Magazine

We enjoyed this dispatch from Alexandra Skate Park in Wigan, a place “set against the backdrop of a railway line, the clicking of spokes and distant conversation matted into a hum”, where a group of BMX riders decide to ditch the slopes for the forbidden thrill of performing stunts on a flat roof of a building in a “rather unassuming housing estate”. By the time the BMX riders worked up the courage to leap off the building, the police were on their way. Arriving at a DIY skate park at the end of the day, a rider picked up a megaphone and delivered “the most glorious sentence a northerner could dream of: ‘We’ve just got word that the pies have been secured.’”

Our to do list

Tuesday

☀️ Withington Walls, a beautiful public art project that has brightened up shop fronts, car parks and alleyways with gorgeous street art, has been celebrated in a new documentary about the project. We recommend enjoying the sunny weather by taking a walk around the town centre.

🎞️ HOME is showing The Turin Horse, a film about a father and daughter living through increasingly intense storms on a farm in the wild Hungarian countryside. It’s directed by Béla Tarr, a Hungarian filmmaker best-known for her dystopian 1980s film documenting the fall of communism. Book here.

Wednesday

🏳️‍🌈 Queer Lit and Social Refuge in Ancoats is showing The Secrets of a Wallaby Boy, a new film both filmed and set in Manchester that follows the wacky misadventures of a hapless delivery driver trying his best to get laid. £5.

📚 Withington Book Festival takes place this week. There’s plenty going on, including a talk from the critically-acclaimed author Anne Worthington, a spoken word night in Fuel, a special menu of book-themed cocktails at the foodie café Something More Productive, and a literary quiz at Café Blah. More here.

Thursday

🪴 Northern Lights, a gorgeous plant and coffee shop tucked away on a side street in Ancoats, is a great spot for date nights and cosy autumn evenings. They’re putting on one of their rare comedy nights this Thursday evening, and it’s just £7 entry.

🎻 At the Bridgewater Hall, the Hallé Orchestra is performing Stravinsky’s iconic score for The Firebird, a ballet based on the Russian legend of the search for a magical, glowing bird who was supposed to bring beauty and protection to the earth. Tickets here.