“We are now becoming a community of ghosts. Nobody listens, and certainly, no one seems to be caring anymore. If that building goes ahead, I think that could be the last straw for a lot of people”, said Roy Bennett, Hulme resident and anti-gentrification campaigner.
He was speaking to Joe Malamed as part of his 2023 documentary “Block to Block– a short history of Manchester’s property disaster”, which followed activists in Hulme who are fighting against the ‘gentrification and mass displacement’ caused by the private rental market. This campaign has come to be known as “Block the Block“.
The block in question is a nine-storey development of luxury student accommodation approved by Manchester city council in January. The site is currently home to The Gamecock Pub. Threats of redevelopment have loomed large for many years now and have been the source of tension between residents and the private developer, Curlew Opportunities.
In his documentary, Joe Malamed explores the history of redevelopment in Manchester, how residents have fought against it, and how gentrification erodes communities in affected areas. I urge anyone living in and around the city to watch it.
“Gentrification is a bit of a blunt word – it’s not always the most useful- but we think this is gentrification. It is working-class people getting pushed out of their areas, and wealthier people coming in who can pay higher rent prices”, said Elliot, the Students’ Union’s City and Community Officer, when we spoke.
It was October 5th, the day of Fuse FM and Greater Manchester Tenants Union’s collaborative “Picnics and Pickets” fundraiser at Platt Fields community garden. The money raised was for the Block the Block campaign, which is taking Manchester city council to court next year over what they believe to be the unlawful approval of the development of the Gamecock site.
The sun shone down on the small crowd of people milling around with coffees and Guinness cake in hand; Bluegrass music played in the background, courtesy of the Rochdale four-piece Snake Oil Remedies.
As we sat on a wooden picnic bench, surrounded by gingham bunting, Elliot added:
“The reason that we’re doing this is, yes, we have solidarity with those local people, but also, the prices of these student flats are insane. It’s extortionately expensive. Working-class students cannot afford them; they will not be able to come to university and live in those flats, so we don’t think this works for anyone. The city council needs to be held to account”.
This extortionate pricing of student accommodation extends beyond the plans for the Gamecock site. The city council has also approved the redevelopment of Owens Park in Fallowfield, alongside the 42-storey ‘Ardwick monster’. Many of these flats will cost around £200 per week—a figure all too familiar to those currently living in Unsworth Park.
A notion of unity was at the very core of the Platt Fields fundraiser. The garden is something from an idyllic pre-capitalist world, with a communal kitchen and a ‘pay it forward’ scheme in the café. The fact that everyone was there to support a cause made for a sense of true togetherness.
Local and student bands performed, there was poetry and a DJ set. Charlie, the Activities and Culture Officer at the SU, believes that combining the arts with politics “is the best way to build community and make people want to get involved”.
When speaking to the first band to perform, Snake Oil Remedies, their mandolinist and lead vocalist Graham Thompson, explained what performing at the community garden meant to the band:
“Since we got out of lockdown, we have noticed that so many live venues haven’t opened their doors back up, and so pretty much anywhere that will play live music is somewhere to support these days”.
Another performer was Delilah, a poet who spoke about transgender issues – it was clear that the community garden was a space for voices to be heard.
“The political side of the campaign is really important, but you can only build a community for a campaign by doing communal things… It’s really important for the people involved to get together in one place and to have strategy and conversations built out of these spaces,” said Charlie.
Nobody embodied this merging of politics and art better than André Jahnoi, a Liverpool-born hip-hop ‘artiste’ who performed a series of spoken word pieces with stirring lines such as: “It seems that the truth is irrelevant / They cut down trees, call it fruitful development”, “Relying on dividing us ’cause unity is dangerous”, and, my personal favourite, “In hard times, we need soft love”.
He spoke with an electrifying conviction, inviting the audience into call-and-response routines that demanded systems of oppression be “dismantled” and for love to be championed; it was a call to action.
I spoke with André after his performance. He was extremely kind and enthusiastic, telling me that he considers students the ‘”lifeblood” of movements like Block the Block and that they help to “keep the world moving”.
“We have to have a future we want to live in. That’s what I’m all about”, he said.
Another performer, Fuse FM’s very own DJ RIxY, echoed a similar sentiment about the future:
“I think things that make Manchester and other cities great are slowly being replaced with the worst dregs of neoliberal capitalism, and if you want things to continue being nice, then you should probably get organised because it’s not going to do it itself. The more of us who stand against it, the stronger we are”.
What makes Manchester ‘great’ is its history as a hub for the arts, industry, women’s suffrage, and LGBTQ+ communities. I like that the city has such a proud identity– it seems probable that God really did create Manchester on the sixth day. So much of this magic, this je ne sais quoi, is rooted in the redbrick terraced houses of its suburbs and the less-than-perfect city centre.
Moreover, the Block the Block campaign states that the Gamecock tower would stop sunlight from reaching existing estates– casting a long shadow that would serve as another depressing indictment of gentrification in Manchester, and the council’s willingness to disregard the needs of working-class people.
As with any city, as Manchester expands and becomes more economically prosperous, redevelopment is inevitable; but the city council would do well to remember the interests of the people. After all, it is Mancunians who have made Manchester what it is.
Hulme residents have a vision for the site of The Gamecock that does this. In their imagining of a social housing development that has spaces for community services and job opportunities, the site could be transformed into something with real value rather than a shiny new tower block to house an ever-transient student population.
To hollow out Manchester, to scrape it clean of the proud communities that make it what it is, is an extremely short-sighted modus operandi that will have us scratching our heads in ten years, looking around and asking, ‘Where did Manchester go?’.
Manchester city council declined the right to reply as the case is still ongoing.
The judicial review is set to take place in early 2025.
