THING OF THE WEEK
PADDLE/PADEL… Jesus may have walked on water, but in Liverpool they’re stepping up the game. Why walk when you can play padel? Work has started on three floating padel courts at Princes Dock in Liverpool, with an eye towards the first two courts and clubhouse opening for play within a few weeks. Due to cost £700,000 to deliver, Vibora Liverpool Waters is definitely a unique spin on the padel craze that has swept over the UK like a tidal wave. Life vests are not required.
A different kind of drive thru has come to Widnes. Credit: via Beesley & Fildes
DRIVE-THRU CONCRETE… The machines are taking over. Beesley & Fildes has launched an automated drive-thru for concrete collection at their batching plant in Widnes. Drive on up to Beesley & Fildes trade counter, put your order in (as small as .25 cubic metres), get a barcode, then plug that into the machine and pick up your mixed concrete. Simple. Want fries with that?
The Harris is altogether too popular it seems. Credit: Francis C. Franklin
MOSAIC… In classic “victim of their own success” news, Preston’s Harris Museum is facing a niggle over its mosaic flooring. Long story short, since reopening last autumn after a four-year makeover, the off-the-charts footfall as people flock to events such as a Wallace & Gromit exhibition have seen the grade one-listed floors damaged, leading to an urgent request at this week’s Preston City Council cabinet meeting for £45,000 to cover repairs. There is, it seems, a bit of contingency cash left in the Reimagining The Harris coffers, so all will hopefully be well.
The grand trophy of the Grand Depart will be in Cumbria next year. Credit: via Cumberland Council
BICYCLES… July 2027 will be here before we know it, when the Tour de France’s Grand Depart arrives and we’re all lining the roadside, painting old bikes yellow and making field sculptures. Cockermouth will be a part of that, and will have a warm—up next week when the Women’s Tour of Britain’s opening stage starts and finishes in Cockermouth. There’ll be a nasty 159km route taking in Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport, Allonby, Silloth, Abbeytown, Wigton, Caldbeck, and Aspatria. The Tour’s Grand Depart Trophy will be there too, for eager pic-hunters.
Sheila Bird Studio’s Atul Bansal published this video on LinkedIn and has subsequently made us all jealous of his terrace and rooftop. Credit: Sheila Bird Studio
LIVING THE HIGH LIFE… Yes, it’s been hot, but it has also been a week of glorious weather and a solar eclipse. The parks have been full and we’ve been soaking up the sun’s rays every chance we get (provided the powers that be see fit to release us from our keyboards). So join us in a moment of celebration of a truly great rooftop space – the one at Sheila Bird Studio’s home of 24-26 Lever Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
This came to our attention thanks to a LinkedIn post from co-founder Atul Bansal. He told us a bit more about how the project came to be: “The rooftop was never a Grand Designs moment. No big reveal, no dramatic music. It’s been a slow burn, years of nudging, borrowing and quietly getting on with it.”
He pointed it was a community project from the get-go, with the tenants of 24-26 Lever Street opting to make the roof their own without asking permission – eventually winning the landlord’s support. It started small with some astrotruf, a pergola and then it became the home to cinema nights, exhibitions, yoga sessions.
The studio has now zero-ed in on the building’s third-floor terrace, which has doubled as a party venue with DJs and pop-up bar – effectively becoming one of the NQ’s most exclusive venues. We’re still waiting for our invite, Atul.
