Hough Hall should become a monument to Manchester’s towering infernal chiefs

I’LL SAY it again: if the Tower of London had been built in Manchester it would have been demolished by now – probably to make way for flats.

Something strange has been going on within the city’s planning authority. Quite recently – I reported it at the time – the authority refused permission to demolish 250-year old derelict weavers cottages in the city’s Northern Quarter to make way for flats.

Conservationists applauded the decision.

But it seems the same application – totally unchanged – went back before the authority this week and members, or a majority, changed their minds, this time approving the demolition.

Three city centre councillors who objected to the original application claim they were kept in the dark over the authority’s decision to reconsider it.

One of them, Sam Wheeler, says the new decision to demolish what he described as “monuments to the working class history of Manchester” is “a cowardly and unconscionable surrender.”

Quite what has happened in the interim to make them approve an application that only weeks ago they rejected remains a mystery.

Perhaps whatever is now built on the site …should contain a fish stall!

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HAVE you seen the state of Moston’s Hough Hall recently? Utterly shameful!

The council approved the demolition of part of the Grade II listed building dating back 500 years because it was unsafe.

Well if it was or wasn’t unsafe at that time the decision was made … it sure as hell is now.

Nevertheless, I think it should remain as it is – it could serve as a legacy to the philistines who claim to represent us in the town hall.

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THE M.E.N. reports that “a tsunami of opposition” greeted plans to build what it described as “a tombstone skyscraper” on the site of an old car park in the city centre.

The 53-storey tower – designed like so many of Manchester’s tall buildings by someone one with a Lego fetish – will house 850 students flats: 750 letters were received objecting to the plans.

… the planning authority gave it the go ahead!