Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

St Ann’s Square Manchester with red tulips

It may come as news to some, but it doesn’t rain continuously in Manchester. In fact, the rainiest place in the UK is in the middle of the Lake District.

On sunny lunchtimes, Manchester city centre is a great place to be. Office workers have lunch at cafe bar tables, or sit on benches in Manchester’s streets and squares, munching sandwiches and sipping coffee to go. Glamorous women stroll with large shopping bags after visiting boutiques on King St or New Cathedral St. Men in suits from nearby offices go for liquid lunch breaks in pubs and bars.

It’s a busy streetscape that might have been of interest to the painter LS Lowry, whose northern scenes weren’t always gloomy.

But as soon as it clouds over and starts raining again, no doubt people will say ‘Huh, typical Manchester, it never stops raining!’.

Well just to remind them of Manchester’s sunnier side, here are the pictures as proof.

Taken lunchtime Friday 28 April 2006 and published on Eye On Manchester shortly after!

St Anns Square Manchester with yellow tulips

New Cathedral Street Manchester

Manchester Bar 38 Great Northern Piazza

Chapel Wharf Salford. The rear of the Lowry Hotel
is on the right. Century Apartment buidlings are
across the Irwell straight ahead.

A new residential development, including a high rise apartment tower, is set to appear on Chapel Wharf, the former industrial site between the Lowry Hotel and the Edge buildings next on the Salford side of the Irwell next to Manchester city centre.

Planning permission was given on 6 April 2006 for the development by Dandara, whose head offices are located just nearby. The tower will be Salford’s tallest building. Phase one, which has full and outline planning permission, will encompass 552 apartments. Phase two – currently given outline planning permission – will comprise 438, making a total of 990 units. Architects are Sheppard Robson, based in London and Manchester.

The apartment tower will rise forty storeys above Manchester and Salford – I calculate the height to be well over 300 feet (100m) – dwarfing neighbouring buildings. Some apartments will feature a layout developed by Dandara in which the entrance hall has been removed, allowing better use of space.

I visited the show apartments, constructed inside a warehouse in Hulme, and was impressed with the layout and decor. The designers have managed to give a spacious, Manhattan loft-style feel within an apartment with British-size dimensions.

Chapel Wharf Salford. View from Chapel Street.
Manchester city centre is just beyond the
development on the other side of the Irwell

Views from the upper floors of the tower are likely to be Manhattan style too. And I think that residents can be assured that no building as tall will appear in the vicinity, as this is the last vacant site in the immediate area.

It will be some time yet before any of the properties go on sale, and the show apartments are not open to the general public at the moment. Nevertheless, it’s worth keeping in mind for future reference. Competion date for phase one is expected around winter 2009.

More info at the Dandara website www.dandara.com

It’s a tabloid format, the same width, and a shade longer than its main competitor publication in Manchester, the Manchester Evening News, an article about which appears on page 13.

The North West Enquirer has 80 pages, plus a 32-page pull-out property section entitled ‘The Market’. It costs £1.

There is a strong emphasis on photography. I counted over 80 photographs in the main paper, including nearly 20 half or full page images, and 12 monochrome.

A centre spread ‘Then and Now’ features a fascinating view of Liverpool city centre by Edward Chambré Hardman from 1946, with a present day digital photo taken by James Glossop for comparison.

There’s also a review of photographer Graham Finlayson, with a superbly atmospheric black and white photo taken in Salford in 1960.

I also counted well over 20 ads, including a few full page and a double page ad for Manchester United conference facilities, with a large format and not very impressive photo of the MUFC ground.

Interestingly, there are no tv or arts listings because – it’s explained in the introduction by editor Robert Waterhouse – that information is well provided elsewhere. And there is a section of international news stories with content syndicated from the International Herald Tribune. Presumably this allows journalistic resources to be focused on the North West content.

For the first time, a newspaper takes a North West regional view, from Congleton in the south to the Lake District in the north. The North West identity runs through the content of many articles, and can be seen in the weather map on page 30 – which also includes north Wales, and the charts with tide times from Holyhead to Silloth.

Printing of the newspaper has been ‘outsourced’ to the east – Horncastle Lincolnshire.

EOM says: It’s great to see a newspaper giving expression to the North West identity. I’m glad to see there’s a good emphasis on photography and in an age when media standards seem always to be slipping downmarket, the look and feel of the North West Enquirer is definitely upmarket and business-orientated.

My pristine first edition will be wrapped in clingfilm and put into storage. I hope that in 10 years time the North West Enquirer will still be there.

The North West Enquirer is based at: Bank House, Faulkner St, Manchester M1 4EH. Visit the website www.nw-enquirer.co.uk.