Our once-thriving town is overrun by posh toffs who are pushing us out – we want them gone NOW
LOCALS say their once-thriving town is now overrun by posh toffs who are pushing them out.
New Cross has been designated a regeneration area in central Manchester which is currently being developed and property prices are going sky high.
But locals say developers need to ensure much more affordable housing is made available because they can no longer live there.
It’s no joke for the traditional workforce and David Perkins, founder of The Frog And Bucket Comedy Club on the corner – where the Cross, which gave New Cross its name, once stood – believes more needs to be done.
David, 67, who founded the club that saw Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas, Caroline Aherne and John Bishop among others cut their comedy teeth, is adamant that developers and planners need to look to sustainability of the workforce as they build more and more tower blocks.
David told The Sun Online: “It’s no laughing matter that I employ 26 staff and none of them could afford to live in what was once a traditionally working-class area of Manchester.
“It’s boom, boom, boom around Ancoats [the area next to New Cross] with more and more cranes and more and more blocks and hotels.
“When I started this place in 1994 you couldn’t move into an apartment as there no flats around here at all.
“The area and the city had been in decline for years. Now there are hundreds and hundreds of flats.
“The main problem in the area is that they are not doing any affordable housing that I can see.
“Staff at The Frog And Bucket have no chance to get their foot on the housing ladder round here.
I employ 26 staff and none of them could afford to live in what was once a traditionally working-class area of Manchester
David Perkins, founder of The Frog And Bucket Comedy Club
“You have town houses going for £750,000 and traditional terraces are hundreds and hundreds of thousands now.
“It’s really great for Manchester this massive boom, but surely there has to be a bit of a balance.
“It’s going to get like London – where will all the workers live. We are doing nine shows a week, so benefitting massively from the boom and very, very grateful for it.
“Is it sustainable, the nurses, students, ordinary working people are being forced out of the city centre?
“I remember council houses round here being sold for £30,000 and now they are worth £600,000.
“Manchester has done an amazing job for all the businesses, but let’s not forget the workers.”
At the other border of New Cross is Kutters barber shop and Jimmy Kennedy, 66, has been cutting hair for 41 years and he’s seen the area change “both for good and bad.”
Dad-of-three Jimmy said: “It’s unrecognisable from the New Cross when I first came here in 1982 – they have taken it up to a different level.
“It wasn’t a bad area, but it was a working-class area and a lot of the locals are now being forced out.
“I am at the very end of New Cross right on the border with Ancoats, Beswick and Fitton and I know David Perkins is down the other end, where the Cross once stood.
It wasn’t a bad area, but it was a working-class area and a lot of the locals are now being forced out
Barber Jimmy Kennedy
“Opposite here 10 years ago they announced a £300million regeneration, so you have all the cranes and tower blocks – they call it the Corridor.”
“All the pubs have gone, all the low rise industrial units have gone and it’s high-rise after high-rise more and more of the same.
“The only thing that has done has got rid of the ordinary working-class people as they cannot afford to buy them.
“Even the private rents are in the region of £1,450 plus add ons – even the old terraced houses have been going for £250,000 and way upwards.
“The first one about 16 years ago sold for £36,000 – the lady sold it about five years later for around £160,000 and moved out of town into a bigger house.
“She was the first one to buy on George Leigh Street all the old properties that sold have gone sky high in price.
“When I started out we had two barbers on this street – now we have 37 barbers in the area and eight in just about 200 yards from my door.
“Many of those have big rents to pay, so charge £28 a haircut – I own this property and bought it for around £20,000 and that means I don’t have the daft rents and can do a haircut for £12.
“My first shop round here was about 300 yards further out of town and the solicitor I rented off started putting up the rent, so I bought this place.
“The block next door, the properties were going for around £22,000 and I went to the auction to try and buy one and some Chinese chap bought them all. He wasn’t daft as they are all worth a lot more now.
“I’ve got some great new clients and customers – more professional people as the ordinary working people cannot afford it round here anymore.”
Retired publican David Moreton, 83, moved into Victoria Square across the road from Kutters around 16 years ago, when the walls of his pub The Cheshire Cheese were knocked down.
David said: “This place is for renters only and that goes back to the days of Queen Victoria – it is affordable housing introduced by Her Majesty as she was apparently appalled by the lack of accommodation for the mill workers more than a century ago.
“The Irish pub over the road from here has been closed for as long as I’ve lived in this place.
“To get in here you have to need social housing – most people I know are practically over 80.
“I’ve lived in the area for 75 years and the changes have been enormous.
When I started out you could buy a good house for thousands – now it’s hundreds of thousands
Retired publican David Moreton
“I had a house in Swinton that would have been worth £3m – but when I was working in the pub some youths broke in and burnt it to the ground.
“When I started out you could buy a good house for thousands – now it’s hundreds of thousands.”
Retired cleaner Rosemary Gribben, 67, also lives in one of the flats in the neat four storey Victoria Square blocks and pays £89 a week in rent.
Rosemary, standing outside the graffiti covered and shuttered front of New Cross Arts Centre, said: “I’ve five kids and they’re all grown up and gone, but none of them could afford to live round here.
“It’s a really nice place and I moved here three or four years ago from Longsight, but the rents in the new flats are so dear. It’s not affordable for ordinary working people.”
The rents in the new flats are so dear. It’s not affordable for ordinary working people
Retired cleaner Rosemary Gribben
Stonemason Kevin Thelwell, 60, is working on the 32 floors of Swan House on Addington Street, which will be filled with flats for renters.
Kevin, who commutes in 40 minutes from the suburb of Sale every day, said: “My son and his girlfriend paid £900 rent for a flat in the city, but when they finished their studies the rent went up to £1,600.
“Manchester is for young people – I wouldn’t want to live here. All the blocks are being built by investors and if I had the money I would buy one.
“It would top up your pension and is probably a better investment.”
Walking his dog Tyson on the New Cross boundary was Italo Aaron, 50, who pays £70-a-week in rent to the council for his flat on Anita Street, which is one of the most Instagrammed roads in the city, in nearby Ancoats.
Italo said: “I moved in around 17 years ago and the changes have been enormous.
“When I first moved in there was wasteland around the church and just one derelict house sitting on it – now there are hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of flats.
“The big negative is Sundays when the parking is free and you cannot find a parking place.
“In my hallway, there are three people who are paying rent to the council and one flat is privately owned.
“The council rents have not changed that much, but the private rents are enormous.
“The changes to George Leigh Street and the square nearby are just immense – they are all unrecognisable from when I moved in.”
Another Victorian Square resident Bridget Doherty remembers the days before the industrial decline in the area.
Bridget told the Manchester Evening News: “It was all factories. You could get sacked from one job and walk right next door and get another straight away.
“It was the same with pubs – you came out of one, walked a couple steps and you were in another.
“Some people don’t like change, but I think it’s good.
“We moved here in 1968 when I was three, but it still felt like the 1940s. Now it feels modern, it’s exciting.
“It’s improved a lot for the next generation. There’s more money, more work. And it’s good for new people to come in.
“When I was young it was all white Mancunians, now there’s a bit of everything. It’s good for the younger generation to see that.
“The only problem is money. You want to stay where you grew up. But a house on our street costs about £500,000 now and you need a £2,000 deposit to rent some of these flats. It’s scandalous.”