Long-awaited night buses launch in Greater Manchester

Dear readers — welcome to this week’s briefing, brimming with insightful long reads, unmissable event recommendations and insider gossip that we spent the weekend seeking out to deliver to you right here and now. We also have the latest on a new limited edition photobook of lost images of the aftermath of the 1996 bombing. All that’s below. 

Over the weekend, we published a piece about what might be in store for Oasis tribute bands now the real group is reforming. “For the last decade and a half, Oasis tribute bands have been able to offer fans something much more potent: a dream,” writes Jack Dulhanty. “The looming yet distant possibility of the band’s reformation has been central to the allure of its tributes, who could play on the fantasy of the Gallagher brother’s reconciliation. ‘With the real Oasis not looking like getting back together anytime soon,’ one band’s about page still, ironically, reads, ‘this is definitely the next best thing’.” Click below to find out how tribute acts are faring in this new frontier. 

This week, members can expect pieces about Greater Manchester’s green spaces and the Burnage parents who have been scammed out of thousands of pounds of nursery fees, while the nursery’s apparently insolvent director travels the world and builds her property portfolio. To get those pieces, hit the button below and take out a subscription.

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This week’s weather

Our weekly forecast comes from local weatherman Martin Miles, who tells us to expect: “mixed fortunes for the first full week of September, which is pretty typical for this time of year.”

Tuesday 🌦️ Breezy with sunny spells & a few showers. Feeling fresher. Max 18°c.

Wednesday 🌦️ Cool and breezy with occasional bright spells & isolated showers. Max 17°c.

Thursday 🌥️ Warmer with patchy cloud and intermittent sunny spells. Max 19°c.

Friday 🌦️ Warm & breezy with sunny spells. Risk of showers PM. Max 21°c.

Weekend 🌦️ Warm & likely muggy with changeable conditions.

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

The big story: Long-awaited night buses launch in Greater Manchester

Top line: 24-hour buses returned to Greater Manchester yesterday. Two routes will be operating the extended timetable as part of a year-long pilot. It is being hailed as another “game-changer” for transport in the city region, and the first night bus service put in place since the network was taken under public control last September.

Bus back: First announced in February, the all-night buses will operate on the V1 and 36 routes, going from the city centre out to Leigh and Bolton respectively. There are already some night bus services in south Manchester, but the last night bus service in Bolton was cancelled eight years ago (and sparked an overnight bus ride protest).

• The V1 and 36 will now run at least once an hour in each direction everyday.

Workers welcome: 135,000 people are within a five minute walk of the two bus routes, including students of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Salford and Bolton universities. But the new service’s main focus is those working in the NHS and hospitality sector, providing a cheaper, safer way for them to get home late at night. 

• Some 34,000 people work in Manchester’s hospitality sector, with another 9,000 working in Salford’s, according to the most recent Business Register and Employment Survey.

“Lifeline”: Speaking to the press yesterday, Andy Burnham said the new services will be a “lifeline” for shift workers, operating most bank holidays (always a difficult time to get home for hospitality staff) and capped at the same £2 fare as daytime services.

Tales from the bus station: The mayor’s night time economy advisor, Sacha Lord, told reporters the night bus service was one of the very first recommendations he made when he stepped into the role in 2018. “I said ‘look, we’ve always called ourselves 24-hour party people, our transport stops before 12 o’clock, we need 24-hour transport.”

It’s Lord’s first public appearance as night czar since we revealed his company, Primary Events Solutions, won a £400,000 Covid grant from the Arts Council using an application that made seriously misleading claims about what the company did. Insiders at the combined authority say there was a “whole load of commotion, umming and ahhing about whether to invite” Lord to the night bus press conference. We understand it went right up the chain to the authority’s new CEO Carol Simpson before he was invited. 

Bottom line: The return of night buses is welcome, and another instance of GMCA using its new control of the bus network to make the service work better. A good next step would be to look at expanding times on the Metrolink as well — which generally stops around midnight during the week.

Your Mill briefing

🤑 The government will investigate the “dynamic” pricing that led to a huge surge in Oasis ticket prices over the weekend, reports the FT. Ministers will look at the practice in a consultation into price gouging and ticket touts. Culture secretary and MP for Wigan Lisa Nandy said it was “depressing to see vastly inflated prices excluding ordinary fans from having a chance of enjoying their favourite band live”. The Guardian’s Josh Halliday covered his own “Supersonic swindle” over the weekend, writing: “I’m paying £361 to stand in my local park.”

🚶‍♀️‍➡️ In brighter news: the Greater Manchester Ringway, a walking trail that spans all ten of the city region’s boroughs, has now been completed. The final information boards have been installed around the route, which means you can now find a stage of the 200-mile trail you fancy and head out. It is split into 20 walks exploring Greater Manchester’s natural landscapes, waterways and heritage.

⛲ Any of you that have happened to pass through Piccadilly Gardens recently may have noticed it's looking a fair bit more presentable, which is to be welcomed. Part of the grim, stained concrete pavilion has been removed and the whole space seems a lot more open. We even saw people playing football there. Over the last few years, the gardens have been clogged by the pavilion and various other appendages, like the wooden platform that was used to host events and fan zones. We wrote about the debate surrounding what to do with the gardens back in February: Can anyone save Piccadilly Gardens? 

🗣 Our call for community journalism worked fantastically last time, so one more time with feeling: Sophie would like to hear from anyone receiving this who is a homeowner in Whalley Range for help with one detail on an upcoming piece. Is that you? Email her at [email protected].

Do you recognise this photographer?

A new photobook, 3300, collates photos of Manchester city centre taken by an unknown photographer in the immediate aftermath of the 1996 IRA bomb. The photographs were found in the Renold Building in 2022, by electricians decommissioning the building. The series of 40 35mm photographs was found on the floor of the main office, where they must have lay for some 30 years. 

They have now been curated by Pariah Press, and can be bought here (only 250 have gone to print). But the biggest mystery of all is: who is the photographer? The only clue is the small reflection in the top right corner of a photo of what was Debenhams. If you know anything, then let us know at [email protected].

Home of the week 

Lillibet, a one-bedroom canal boat currently moored in New Islington Marina, has just come on the market. Two years’ worth of fees to moor at the marina have been paid in advance, where it’s a short walk to Pollen Bakery and natural wine bar Flawd. £150,000

Our favourite reads

The Unheard — 3am Magazine

Anne Worthington, the documentary photographer best-known for her sensitive, beautiful portraits of life in East Manchester, sits down to discuss her latest book, The Unheard, in this interview. The cover photo is a man called David, who had started to spend the final weeks of his life “sitting in front of the altar of a church, the place he felt most at home, and where he’d started sleeping”. “Of all the images I’ve taken, I chose this for the book,” Anne says. “David’s expression reminds me of my father, who inspired some of the writing. The image goes to the heart of what The Unheard is about.”

The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s — The New York Times

Joy adored the way her secondary-school boyfriend, Les Milne, smelled, all “salt and musk, accented with a suggestion of leather from the carbolic soap he used at the pool”. When they married and settled in Cheshire, Les got a job as a consultant anaesthesiologist at Macclesfield District General Hospital, “and Joy typically found that he came home smelling of anaesthetics, antiseptics and blood”. Then, in 1982, his smell changed to something “new and distinctly unsavoury, of some thick must”. The scent she was picking up was Parkinson’s disease. Now, doctors believe her capabilities of detecting the smell of the disease could “unlock new research in early disease detection”. 

Exclusive: The mystery £5m loans to companies owned by a Liverpool councillor and disgraced charity boss — The Post

In the third instalment of its long-running investigation into the Big Help Project, our Merseyside sister paper The Post looks deeper into the charity’s network of for-profit and community interest companies. They found that £5.5 million had been moved from the charity to companies privately owned by Big Help’s boss, Peter Mitchell, and sitting councillor Colette Goulding. “It’s abhorrent that it appears that £5.5 million, potentially of public funds, has been moved into their private companies,” says Carl Cashman, leader of the Lib Dems in Liverpool.  Cashman has vowed to “call on Goulding to consider her position and to resign immediately.” Pieces like this one set the standard for the kind of rigorous, investigative work all of our titles strive to publish. It really is worth a read.

Our to do list

Tuesday

😆 Did you know Manchester has a great comedy club that runs live stand-up events seven nights a week and doesn’t break the bank? From the basement of a Northern Quarter bar, Creatures Comedy Club has made itself unmissable. Tickets here.

🍜 Every week, queues wind down Cutting Room Square as Lucky Ramen in Ancoats offers 50% off all food on Monday and Tuesday evenings. We recommend putting your name down on the door and getting a dirty martini at the Edinburgh Castle while you wait. More here.

Wednesday

🎸 Belmondo, a band with industrial, post-punk and goth influences, are performing at Disorder Bar from 7.30pm. £9.

🎭 Jewish Hollywood is a new revue at Hope Mill Theatre in Ancoats that tells the stories of the Jewish artists, directors and writers who made Los Angeles their home, created a rebirth in Jewish cinema in the 1960s and gave rise to stars like Barbara Streisand. Tickets here.

Thursday

🎨 Sett Art Cafe, a relaxed, creative hangout on Burton Road, hosts a weekly painting session to live music from a vinyl DJ. Tickets here.

🎤 John Simpson, the foreign correspondent who has reported from more than 120 countries, 30 warzones and sat down with world leaders, will be giving a talk at the Lowry about his life’s work. You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions about the people he’s meet in his career, from fearless dictators to figures like Princess Diana. Tickets here.