Residents of a central Manchester suburb have rallied together on Deansgate to protest a decision they say will ‘destroy their community’.
Block the Block campaigners nd Hulme locals met outside the Manchester Civil Justice Courts this afternoon (March 24), ahead of a judicial review against Manchester City Council’s planning department.
Last year, a planning committee approved an application by Curlew Alternatives Eighth Property LP to build a nine-storey student accommodation block on the site of the former Gamecock Pub on Booth Street.
But campaigners have mounted a legal challenge against the decision, claiming council officers ‘misled’ the committee members who made the choice to grant permission.
Block the Block campaigners nd Hulme locals met outside the Manchester Civil Justice Courts this afternoon (March 24), ahead of a judicial review against Manchester City Council’s planning department.
Last year, a planning committee approved an application by Curlew Alternatives Eighth Property LP to build a nine-storey student accommodation block on the site of the former Gamecock Pub on Booth Street.
But campaigners have mounted a legal challenge against the decision, claiming council officers ‘misled’ the committee members who made the choice to grant permission.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We're here for our community to be recognised as an important and integral part of the year.
00:05That we will not be carted away to other areas that are homes of the like.
00:10The developing of massive, huge towers that belong to the University, that has encroached on us for decades.
00:22The tiny plot of land that the GameCop's down on is kind of like the epicentre.
00:28That is the principle, the fact that we are tired of our community being decimated by developers and no one engaging with us.
00:38We want to let them know that we have a voice and we will fight back.
00:43We're dumped upon all the time.
00:47What we're fighting here today is to stop the developer building 11-storey blocks of flats on a tiny, tiny piece of land between two five-rise blocks.
01:02It would be detrimental for the people who live in those two blocks.
01:08We have an older population in here and the University and the developers have taken away five care homes.
01:18So we have a lot of older people who live in fear because they are not able to go and get their needs met at a care home locally.
01:27So they're being forced out of their home which they've lived for decades.
01:31The neighbours have become family and forced out into other care homes.
01:35So much so that people have been hiding their illness and some have died because of it.