This week's Manchester Memo: leaving it to the grown-ups
A round-up of current politics in a city that isn't paralysed by Brexit
(Image: Mark Waugh)
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While Westminster has been redefining the definition of omnishambles this week, the grown-ups here have been getting on with things.
Top of the list has got to be this remarkable coup by the region's political, health and university leaders, who have managed to persuade one of the world's leading drug research firms to set up its European base here.
Hi, ministers knifing each other over how to attract investment post-Brexit. If you need some advice, honestly, they're quite busy here but I'm sure it would be no trouble.
In fact it's been a particularly busy week for Manchester council.
Over the past few days the town hall has launched not one but two pretty significant visions for different parts of the city, areas that are both important in different ways.
This is their plan to pedestrianise Albert Square as part of the ongoing refurbishment and restoration of the town hall, a move that so far seems to have gone down pretty well.
And here is the latest on its plans for a vast regeneration scheme between the city centre and Collyhurst, featuring 15,000 new homes, new schools, a health centre and a transport interchange - plans on a scale that haven't really been seen since the east Manchester programme in the wake of the Commonwealth Games.
This turned out to be pretty timely for me, since a few days earlier I had done this piece about the little urban oasis barely anyone seems to know about. St Catherine's - which, even though I used to live round the corner, I had no idea about either until someone I know stumbled across it while jogging - turns out to have been the start of the original river park council bosses planned at the end of the 1990s, but which never really happened.
Council also held its last full meeting until the autumn this week, debating issues from cowboy parking operators in Wythenshawe to 'environmental vandalism' in Fallowfield and the mysteriously low number of road resurfacing complaints the council claims to have had over the last year.
My round-up of some of the key talking points is here .
What we didn't see at full council was the internal politics of the night before, when Labour group met for its monthly meeting. Stories drift back of an unexpected half-hour speech by Sir Richard Leese that has been variously interpreted as 'wind your necks in, stop fighting, I'm not going any time soon', or 'wind your necks in, stop fighting, actually I am going quite soon'.
Glad that's been cleared up.
Also at the council meeting, an interesting exchange took place regarding the thorny issue of bus regulation, which sounds tedious but sits slap bang at the heart of any attempt to give Greater Manchester a genuinely fit-for-purpose transport system.
There are a range of complex legal hoops that will have to be jumped through in order to take control of the bus network, be it through a partnership arrangement with operators - as in the West Midlands - or a franchising model. While that process is played out within the mayor's office, however, Sir Richard made it quite clear that he wants to go down the franchising route.
But his comments also underscore why franchising would be a tricky process, practically, financially and politically.
Not only would the region be likely to face legal challenges from bus operators, but it would need to find a new subsidy pot in order to pay for improved services. I've heard estimates of anything between £20m and £60m extra a year - and Sir Richard made quite plain that there is only one way that will be achieved: a mayoral precept rise, possibly as soon as next May.
Watch this space.
In related news, we got wind this week of this mayoral plan to bring in minimum standards for taxis across the region, a move that again will be complex and legalistic, since it will need the government to deal with drivers from other areas coming in and undermining it, but which is seen as a key strand in creating that decent transport network everybody wants.
And in further taxi news, here is my colleague Charlotte Cox's coverage of the ongoing row about black cab pick-ups at the airport, which has sparked both go-slow demos and boycotts just ahead of peak holiday season.
Finally, it wouldn't be a normal week without a Pat Karney story, and this week he surpassed himself by announcing he planned to ban Donald Trump from Manchester's airspace .
Like I say. Westminster: you know where we are if you need any help.
Councillor Pat Karney
Sir Richard Leese
East Manchester
Fallowfield
Collyhurst
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