REVIEW OF A YEAR WE WILL NEVER FORGET
MANCHESTER’S PAST 12 MONTHS HAS SEEN PAIN, DEFIANCE, COURAGE AND UNITY - AS WELL AS CONTINUING INEQUALITY AMID AN ECONOMIC BOOM. JENNIFER WILLIAMS LOOKS BACK
SOME years fade quickly into the background once they’re done.
When they are mentioned later, you have to rack your brains for a reference point.
‘Where was I living that year? What was going on at the time? How old was I?’
For Manchester, 2017 will not be one of those years.
In a city that is always reinventing, always changing, always moving, the clock seemed to stop at 10.33pm on Monday, May 22.
For those closest to the Arena attack, it may never truly restart.
Yet, even as the city reeled in shock, it broadcast its unity as much as its grief.
The Manchester bee, that symbol of no-nonsense industry and harmony, was revived for a reason in 2017.
Nothing could have better summed up the city’s dignity, or the sense that Manchester’s industriousness - its extraordinary, buzzing pace of change - would not be knocked off course.
Because as a dark year draws to a close, Manchester is still more powerful than at any point since the 19th Century; its voice on the national stage never louder.
In the midst of tragedy, this year also marked a turning point in Manchester’s journey towards autonomy - a new regional mayor taking up post just as the city’s most powerful official, Sir Howard Bernstein, departed Albert Square.
At the same time Manchester’s social and physical fabrics continued to alter at breakneck speed.
Unprecedented waves of investment saw new bricks, mortar and glass fused together high above the city, new tram links open, bridges built.
Big plans were hatched for the city centre’s march outwards in every direction. Yet at the same time Manchester’s biting inequalities were felt more keenly than ever before, a moment borne out nationally in June’s general election result.
Manchester’s year was punctuated by battle after battle with Whitehall over public funding, from Universal Credit to homelessness, rail links to the cost of the Arena attack and the aftermath of Grenfell.
Effects of state cuts became increasingly plain. Manchester’s Spice addicts made international headlines.
Homelessness rocketed further, sweeping up the political agenda.
The pace of social, economic and political change, for better or worse, has been breathtaking.
Nevertheless one event - and one event alone - will come to define Manchester’s 2017: the moment all that activity froze. The deaths of 22 people and the injuries of dozens more at Manchester Arena marked a new era for the city, one that saw it join the ranks of London, New York, Madrid, Nice and Berlin.
Suddenly it was our city - our tragedies - on the global news networks, not someone else’s. Greater Manchester’s Chief Constable, Ian Hopkins, was the first person to face the media after the Arena attack, shortly before 3am on May 23.
At that point the full death toll had not even become apparent.
Seven months later, he is still processing. “I sit here now and it’s December and I just still can’t quite believe where the time has gone since May 22,” Chief Con Hopkins says. “It feels like yesterday.”
The attack was by far the biggest challenge GMP has ever faced, he says.
While Manchester reeled from the
Manchester is still more powerful than at any point since the 19th Century Jennifer Williams
1996 IRA bomb, the violence after the 2008 Uefa Cup final and the riots of 2011, this was different.
“All of those were enormous, but no lives were lost,” he says.
“We have never dealt with anything where so many people have all been murdered in such horrific circumstances.
“As the time has gone on, the number of people who are really, really traumatised has started to come out. So there’s just the enormity of it.”
Police initially had no idea in the hours after the bombing whether there was still someone else on the loose, he points out, so officers were grappling with the atrocity while still unclear about what else might happen.
“I’m so proud of what my teams did. They just ran towards danger when others - rightly - were running away,” Chief Con Hopkins adds.
“Some of those officers are so, so young in terms of age and length of service and saw things no human should have to see.
“And I worry about them going forward. If that’s all you ever had to deal with you would probably be able to get over it.
“But it’s the cumulative effect of the things they have had to deal with.”
Survivors of the May 22 attack, as well as the families of those killed and the emergency services at the scene, will live with its effects forever.
For those most acutely affected, the outpouring of donations into Manchester’s £18m emergency fund will provide support and counselling. But while the attack highlighted Manchester’s extraordinary capacity to rally round, it also brought into sharp focus another hallmark of 2017 - the region’s growing fight for resources. While the year has been marked by myriad battles with government, none was more high-profile than the one over post-attack funding. For the region’s new mayor Andy Burnham, this was one of the first items in his in-tray. Whitehall had been expected to
I’m so proud of what my teams did. They ran towards danger when others - rightly - were running away Ian Hopkins
pay back £17m in public spending following the attack, including for policing, health and counselling services, yet by November it still hadn’t arrived.
Only after a blaze of publicity did it materialise.
Mayor Burnham believes that episode is indicative of wider issues within the current government, perhaps chaos rather than callousness - but a chaos that has had a direct impact on Manchester.
“I really hesitated over highlighting the cost of the attack,” he says. “But I look back and wonder how we ever got in that position. It feels as though the processes of government have broken down. There’s a dangerous sense of drift.
“That does really concern me because there are things looming in 2018 that could make things a lot worse - and I think Universal Credit is one of those things.
“The social challenges we are grappling with are at a tipping point and I don’t think there’s a government grip on it, ready to respond.”
Indeed, senior politicians of both main parties, as well as officials, report frustration at trying to get traction on anything from Whitehall this year - particularly since the general election.
Nevertheless, 2017 marked a turning point in that dialogue, in the shape of Burnham himself.
A politician who wears his heart on his sleeve, the former Leigh MP’s campaign focused heavily on social problems, a departure for a city-region that has historically tended to talk more about economic development.
As Sir Howard Bernstein - the city’s veteran top official, a man with a laserlike focus on regeneration - retired as chief executive at the end of March, Burnham was entering stage-left.
While privately incurring the wrath of Manchester council for his pronouncements on city centre homelessness, his was a big manifesto, full of big promises on big issues.
One of those was thrown into stark relief in April when a vicious, catatonic strain of Spice made the city’s latest drug problem national news.
Some eight months on and Spice is still swirling around the streets. Indeed, last week a new batch appeared to be causing similar problems, despite a number of successes by the police in pursuing dealers.
Street homelessness remains painfully visible, while figures from November showed an 80pc annual increase in children living in emergency accommodation - and a 250pc rise on 2015. Charities believe at least 500 other people are living secret lives of destitution, but are not being officially recorded.
Unsurprisingly, the public now turns to Burnham for answers. When he walks out of his office to grab a coffee, it is these problems he is asked about more than any others. He insists progress is being made. “We have successfully introduced this new way of doing things and the sense of partnership is building all around between the different public services,” he says.
“We have gone through a change in the way we are thinking about it. It’s
People wouldn’t accept me putting forward a second best offer, would they? Andy Burnham
much more of a collaboration now.” Yet despite the work behind the scenes, to the public the problem looks as bad as ever, if not worse.
Does he regret any of his promises, now he has his feet under the table?
“No,” he says, while admitting his pledge to end rough-sleeping by 2020 will be a ‘tall order’.
“I don’t regret putting forward an ambitious prospectus for Greater Manchester. I’m not in any way comparing myself to Pep or Mourinho but just to use that analogy for a second, people wouldn’t accept me putting forward a second best offer, would they?
“Yes, it’s a stretch to get to where we want to be and people should hold me to account in 2020. I’ve been in politics long enough to be comfortable with that.”
For those already in office here before Burnham, this year has marked a power shift.
Stories swirl of disagreements between the mayor’s office and Manchester council over a range of issues, but particularly over housing and homelessness - although insiders say relations have improved of late.
Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese diplomatically admits to a ‘learning process’ on both sides.
“Having an elected mayor for Greater Manchester is clearly significant,” he says.
“I always anticipated that six years’ work as a combined authority before the mayoral election was long enough to get fairly stuck in our ways.
“I guess we have got an internal learning experience, which is ten leaders learning to work with a directly elected mayor, and a directly elected mayor learning to work with ten leaders - and how local government works. “We wanted someone with both time and profile to be full-time engaged with the Greater Manchester agenda, so he’s clearly doing that and making good progress so far. But it’s a bigger change than a lot of people anticipated and we are still getting used to it.” For Manchester’s leaders, the hope is that 2017’s visible economic uptick will continue into next year.
Because aside from its social problems, nowhere in the country is booming like Manchester.
Analysis by the M.E.N.’s data team shows that even before this year began, Greater Manchester’s economy was considerably outstripping London’s.
Its ‘gross value added per head’ measure - which essentially quantifies the average contribution each of us makes to the local economy - has risen more sharply than any other city in the country since 2014, as jobs and investment have flooded in.
The growth is concretely visible, as are the results of a push for transport investment.
The Ordsall Chord was unveiled this year. The new ‘second city’ tram crossing opened.
At the end of Deansgate two huge new skyscrapers are taking shape, creating a new gateway from the south.
On the border of Salford a vast new development around the old Granada Studios site will inch the city’s highest point up to 67 storeys, creating a new 3,000-strong neighbourhood.
This year Manchester council bought Central Retail Park as its partnership with Abu Dhabi - for 10,000 new homes between town and Eastlands - gathered pace. The start of the city’s radical expansion out towards Collyhurst began, aiming for similar numbers. Manchester city centre is spreading in all directions.
Much of that represents the fruits of a push for foreign investment begun under George Osborne.
Cranes are now visible as far as the eye can see, re-drawing the skyline daily.
The year has been ‘significant’ for Manchester’s growth, says Sir Richard Leese, adding that it is predicted to continue outstripping everywhere else, including London, for the next three years.
But, live to the city’s growing debate about inequality, he adds: “I do say this from time to time, but it tends to go unnoticed. Economic growth is not an objective in its own right. It’s a means to an end.
“And for Manchester, the end is still about eliminating poverty.”
How we do that will continue to be a point of debate into 2018 and beyond, but if 2017 has proved anything, it is how extraordinary Manchester is when it comes together with a common focus.
For many, it is that spirit of collective working - and especially of compassion - that not only defines the year, but should be taken forward.
Nick Taylor, chief executive of the Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Peace Foundation in Warrington, which has been encouraging dialogue within local communities in the area for years, says the incredible kindnesses and solidarity the city showed at the start of the summer can and should be the year’s legacy - although it will take effort.
He believes Manchester’s response to disaster has not happened by accident but through a determination - particularly within schools - to learn understanding and dialogue. Keeping that going requires perseverance, but the foundations are there.
“It needs continued work and it’s difficult, but what we have found in the last six months is that there are many great acts of kindness taking place out there,” he says.
“It’s bringing those to the attention of everybody and showing them they can all get involved and do something.
“And it’s not about sitting back on our sofas, it’s about getting up and doing something. That’s the priority now for 2018.”
There are plenty of reasons to be positive about that. Looking back on a draining year, Ian Hopkins says it was that attitude - the ‘brilliant’ support and energy of Mancunians during the city’s darkest moments - that kept him and many others going in the direct face of tragedy.
For while Manchester will always remember 2017 most keenly for the events of May 22, the spirit it showed afterwards was here long before this year. And it won’t disappear at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
“I read the other day that the Manchester bee represents peaceful togetherness, but that it’s not to be messed with,” reflects Chief Con Hopkins.
“And I think that summed it up.”