THING OF THE WEEK
PRETTY FLY… Manchester United, City, Sale Sharks, Altrincham FC. Greater Manchester has its fair share of sporting titans across a wide range of disciplines, not to mention hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2002. But if council chief executive Joanne Roney gets her way, the city could play host to something a bit different: a fly fishing world championship. Speaking at the Manchester MIPIM dinner on Wednesday, Roney picked out her quotes of the week, including from Tom Fenton of FEC, whose presentation on the Northern Gateway outlined the chance of a green corridor from NOMA to Collyhurst. This could open up the River Irk for cycling, walking, and fly fishing. While Roney had to admit to a “frantic Google” to find the nuances of the sport, she gave her enthusiastic backing to the idea of bringing international fly fishing competitions to the city. If she fancies a fact-finding mission, the next championship takes place in September in Trentino, Italy.
PUN-DIT… Seemingly anyone operating in the property sector has to get to grips with sporting analogies, whether you’re a fan or not. The prize for the most elaborate football comparison this week, appropriately, goes to Gary Neville. Perhaps of all people, as a former football professional, he can be forgiven.
“It feels like we were two-nil down to City in the first half and now we can pull it back in the second": @GNev2 on the process to get St Michael's over the line @PlaceNorthWest https://t.co/2qckJmi5DG
— Charlie Schouten (@charlieschouten) March 15, 2018
SCANDI COOL… Arguably the three coolest city stands down in the depths of the Palais bunker were Copenhagen, Helsinki and Oslo, the latter featuring rather tasty curved timber walling that made its meeting area feel like an actual bar, rather than an exhibition stand with beer. Their Architect Pale Ale was fairly tasty too, right up there with the Liverpool Craft Beer Co’s Love Lane ale served up on the Liverpool stand as refreshment of the week.
Leese advocates a not-so-Healthy City
POP-UP… The Healthy Cities debate hosted by Manchester saw Helsinki’s director of strategy Sana Mari Jantti explain the city’s “Restaurant Days”, cooked up by would-be start-ups frustrated by a tortuous planning regime for food and drink in the city. Anyone is allowed to set up a pop-up restaurant for the day. Greeted with initial horror, the events are now staged quarterly. All contributors to the session from that point on were asked “what would your pop-up be?” Audience ideas included Scouse, somewhat inevitably, and jambalaya, while Sir Richard Leese declared that he’d offer up roast lamb and bread & butter pudding: “Not very healthy, but as it’s only four times a year…”
ROOFY IN THE SKY… When one conference ends, a summit begins. Next week Manchester is hosting a Green Summit, and to highlight the potential the city has to improve its green spaces, architect AFL has partnered with Open to produce a detailed image and animation to show the possibilities of a ‘Park in the sky’, if all roofs were covered with vegetation. The initiative promotes the work of charity City of Trees, which aims to plant an additional three million trees across the North, and promote urban drainage, energy conservation, biodiversity and well-being.
