What to watch
Manctopia: Billion Pound Property Boom BBC TWO, 9.00PM
With its rapidly transforming skyline and a population due to double over the next five years, is Manchester becoming the British equivalent of Manhattan? Or, as one unhappy resident says, “no proper Mancunians, just Starbucks Central”? This four-part documentary series, filmed over a year, follows the fortunes of people living and working in its remarkable citycentre boom.
It’s an area of seismic change and stark contrasts. Local millionaire Tim Heatley plans to transform the city’s red-light district into a fashionable residential quarter, as well as organising a fundraising concert for mayor Andy Burnham’s homeless charity. A few streets away, divorcee Helen Wilson has £1m to spend on a penthouse – she needs plenty of room for her 250 pairs of shoes. As gleaming skyscrapers crowd the horizon, not everyone is a winner. Single mother Christina Hughes finds herself priced out of the area she grew up in and must find a new home for her two children. Narrated by Coronation Street alumnus Sally Lindsay, it tells the human stories behind the property deals.
However, it won’t reassure anyone worried by the lack of affordable housing.