Star plays game of the name to avoid attention

GARY Neville has been buying Manchester property and developing it under other names – as he reckons his fame could be hampering efforts to secure planning permission.

The Sky pundit, who today unveils a massive redesign for his St Michael’s development, revealed he has purchased other buildings in the city under different names.

Neville said he has found those developments much easier because the projects ‘don’t attract the same sort of attention’.

The location of the four projects has not been revealed.

In an interview in the latest edition of the British Airways in-flight magazine Business Life, reported in the Daily Mirror, it is revealed that in the last 12 months, Neville has bought four other buildings in Manchester under different names.

He said: “They are not all huge projects, but projects that excite me. And it’s quite interesting that when I buy under a different company name - or request planning permission under a different name actually the planning permissions don’t tend to attract the same sort of attention.

“I think we reap the rewards of extra publicity when it suits us, so we can’t then complain when the extra publicity potentially goes against us.

“Sometimes it happens for you and sometimes it happens against you. You can’t pick and choose when it suits.”