Decline reversing as cheaper areas of city become desirable

THE decline of industry triggered depopulation across east Manchester. But now this trend seems to be reversing, as arrivals from the Commonwealth, key workers and professionals are drawn to the historically cheaper neighbourhoods that ring the city centre.

Walk less than ten minutes from Ben Street, down John Heywood Street and Vale Street, and you’ll arrive at St Willibrord’s Roman Catholic Church, which has stood through the varying fortunes of the Clayton community for more than 70 years.

Father Joseph, 34, arrived here in September last year. Originally from Tanzania, he studied to become a priest in Nairobi. It might be a long way from Kenya to Clayton - but on Sundays the pews of St Willibrord’s are filled with many other African faces.

The area is one of several in Manchester where migration is breathing new life into oncestruggling, depopulated postindustrial communities. And the church is uniting people from different backgrounds.

“It was a new experience to be in the UK, since I arrived what shocked me was... the weather!” says Father Joseph.

“The way things are done here, things are different from Africa. The first thing was the greeting itself somebody was asking me [in his best Mancunian] ‘Your’ight?’

“I didn’t understand he was asking ‘Are you alright?’I was not used to it for me it was ‘Good morning, good evening, how are you?’ - I realised there is another one!

“Every day there is a growth of those who are coming to the church. I don’t know, maybe because of the construction that is going on around here, many people are shifting to the area.

“It is a mix of people. You can see Africans, British, African-British people, sometimes we have a mass at six in the evening, the big population that attend that mass are British.

“But on Sunday it is half and half. You see some children, coming with their parents or their grandparents. You can see there is progress.

“Everybody is trying to build the community. There is a positive atmosphere. I have never found anybody here who isn’t friendly - even people I’ve never met. I walk in the street and people say ‘hi Father’.

“I have been in many houses here every Monday and Friday I go round to people who cannot come to the church. And in each house I enter, they welcome you, even if they are sick. Sometimes I visit care homes, and people there are very welcoming and offer you a cup of tea. Clayton is changing - the community is growing.”