City is in a mess and the price we’ll pay is tourism...

IF I had visited Manchester this summer, I wouldn’t be coming back in a hurry. Not because of the idiosyncratic weather we’ve been having again lately but because of the mess.

I’ve been in Manchester for decades but never have I seen it look so chaotic or filthy. Every road you turn down you meet an obstacle: a closure for tram extensions, pavements shut off for underground pipe work, fencing channelling you into hemmed-in walkways to get you past building work, out of bounds zones around statues and in Piccadilly Gardens.

Some of it is the price of progress, but you can’t help but wonder if it’s too high a cost to pay to let it all happen at once.

It feels like every single pretty part of Manchester, as well as every major thoroughfare, is affected by works at the moment: St Peter’s Square, Cross Street, Shudehill as far as Exchange Square and Cathedral Gardens, Portland Street.

It’s a big and pedestrian-heavy area, the image of which will stay with (and go back with) any visitor.

And then there’s the litter. It feels like empty food packets and cigarette ends are constantly blowing around my feet, or I’m side stepping yet another billowing shopping bag. There are bins, so what has happened to turn us into such thoughtless litter bugs is a mystery.

Weekends are the worst with broken glass and takeaway detritus everywhere, making my morning dog walk a nightmare.

Even if we can avoid the broken bottle shards, we never make it past the chicken bones – lethal if eaten because the sharp bones pierce their stomachs – without a fight.

And then there are the rats. Big rats. In the Northern Quarter at least, as prevalent by day as by night, brazenly scampering around the streets and the rubbish bags left on the pavements to fish through the rich pickings.

A neighbour of mine recently complained to the council only to be told the land the rodents are living on is private and not the council’s responsibility – a response that utterly exposed the inability of those in authority to grasp the nature of the problem.

The abundance of food in the nearby bins and streets is an issue increased tenfold in the past few years due to the proliferation of licensed bars, restaurants and takeaways now operating in the area. A council-led appropriate rise in the rubbish collections is the only solution to this.

That, or tourism is the price we’ll pay, surely.