Star date: 28th June 2017

THIRTY FAMILIES FACING EVICTION FOR COUNCIL PRIVATISATION

Thirty families, many with Salford connections, living on boats at the New Islington Marina in the middle of Manchester's swanky development sites face eviction by the end of August.

This morning, Manchester City Council meets to approve 'remedial works' to the marina but it wants the families out before this starts, with a private company running the place when the work is complete...

"To simply wipe out a community and feel no obligation to re-house them seems to me totally inhumane" says Jane, who will probably lose her business as well as her home in the process.

Full details here...

Well out of Salford, at the back of the Toys R Us retail park on Great Ancoats Street, Urban Splash and other developers have gentrified derelict sites around the Rochdale Canal and Ashton Canal, with vast amounts of public money. This is what Manchester City Council calls the Eastern Gateway.

Here, rents for places like Chips, Islington Wharf and The Hat Box can hit over £1,000 a month, while properties are marketed to investors as 'amazing canal side opportunities'.

In the midst of these 'investor opportunities' is a community of thirty families living in boats on the New Islington Marina, with affordable rents for their water bound homes. Some of these people have kids, and all have jobs or businesses based around the city centre. Yet Manchester Council has slapped a notice on them with an intention to evict by 31st August.

It goes well against the Council's own stated aims of "creating a socially integrated neighbourhood" with a "unique identity". These families are part of that 'integrated neighbourhood' and definitely supply the 'unique identity' of the area. Or are these just words, shorthand for social cleansing?

Manchester Council's Executive meets this morning to ratify £5.2million of 'remedial works' around the Marina, to, amongst other things, stop water seeping into land it wants to develop and re-direct it into the canal...

"In order to undertake the works in the Marina in the most cost effective and safe manner, it will be necessary to relocate the 30 boats that are currently moored there" a report states "...all boaters would need to leave the Marina by 31 August 2017."

The 'boaters', or residents, believe that the work should be staged in a manner that would allow them to stay but the Council appears adamant that it wants them out, perhaps because they don't fit the 'aspirations' for the area, and new regime of higher rents...

"Once works are completed and the Marina is reopened boaters who currently hold licenses will be offered the first opportunity to take new residential mooring licenses in the Marina" the report adds "However, it is likely that by this point a new Marina Operator will have been appointed, replacing the interim arrangements that are currently being provided by Urban Splash.

"The terms of mooring licenses will be reviewed as part of this process and may be amended" it states "...the New Islington Estate and Marina will be managed and maintained as a self-funding private estate that is open to the public."

Which all leaves the residents fearing for their homes and jobs..."To make a decision to simply wipe out a community and feel no obligation to re-house them seems to me totally inhumane" says Jane Williams "It's an appalling decision to be making."

Jane, whose father is from Salford and has lived at the Marina for over twelve months, insists that the works shouldn't affect the boats that are moored...

"None of this, as far as we can see, requires the removal of the boats; we're quite nonplussed as to why they need us out" she explains "Our theory is that they want to hand over the Marina to a developer who will then turn it into some sort of gated community, and perhaps charge a lot more to live here, and possibly get rid of the existing residents. I suspect that the Council is looking to get maybe a different class of boaters in...

"At the moment, living on a boat in the middle of Manchester is a very cost effective way to live" she adds "All of us would not be able to carry on doing the jobs that we do and live in the centre of Manchester if they asked us to leave because there isn't another marina with enough births in it within fifty miles."

The council has suggested alternative sites – one in Greenfield, halfway to Huddersfield! Another is somewhere on Peel Holdings' Bridgewater Canal in Salford, which wouldn't help these families with kids in local schools and jobs in the city centre. Peel's other marina, at Castlefield doesn't have many permanent boat homes moored and there are reports that the company charges up to £250 a week rent.

"Some of the boats here don't even have engines, they're residential crafts that are intended for people to live in" Jane explains "The idea that we're some sort of leisure boaters who have flats and homes elsewhere and just go off for a weekend jolly is completely misleading. Most marinas are suited to leisure boats not residential boats."

The only alternative for these families could be what's called 'continuous cruising', where the Canals and Rivers Trust allows boats to stay in one place for about a fortnight – which is absolutely useless if you're trying to hold down a job, or trying to get credit with no permanent address.

 "This is what's scaring people" says Jane "You're uprooting a family, and you're uprooting children from the place where they get their education. It's just unthinkable. No-one would dream of uprooting families in housing in this way, there would be some attempt to re-house them. Here, you're displacing kids, people who have got jobs, and that's an awful lot of people to be out of a job and homeless."

Jane herself says that her business as a mobile food trader, selling Italian coffee, would be totally unviable without easy access to the city centre, while others in the community work in restaurants and hotels doing late night shifts. The sense of safety in the Marina is a huge factor.

There are kids, babies, disabled people, pregnant mothers, LGBT folk, single women...all classed as vulnerable sections of the community...

"An establishment like New Islington Marina offers security, it's a close knit community" she says "People look after each other here in a way that you don't see much these days, that old fashioned community spirit. That family atmosphere you just don't get in somewhere like Chips or Marina's Wharf or any of these new developments here. And that element of security is not there if you're living out on the cut..."

'On the cut' means not moored in a permanent marina and there are plenty of stories of isolated boats being attacked, set on fire and vandalised...

"The reason many people are here is that they feel safe, and the thought of going out on the canal really scares a lot of them" says Jane's husband, Martin "People here are fearing for their safety as well as for their homes. This is a unique community."

It's a community that is gaining huge support for its campaign to Save the New Islington Marina Community, with over two thousand people signing its petition within four days of its launch this week*.

Residents of New Islington Marina are taking their protest to Manchester City Council this morning, hoping councillors will see some sense. For instance, the 'intend to evict' notice has been issued before the funding for the work has been approved, before any contractor has been assigned, before any official impact, environmental and community assessment has been carried out.

"On 31st August they just want everyone out, and we'd just be forced onto the cut" says Jane, adding a note of caution to both Manchester and Salford should this happen.

"If you take thirty boats, one after another, out through the locks down the Rochdale Canal, millions of gallons of water will suddenly start pouring down the Canal towards Salford, and you'd effectively flood Manchester" she argues "Thirty boats all going at once would be a disaster."

In the meantime, it's a moral choice facing Manchester councillors today – whether to break up a community, and force them to lose their homes and jobs, in order to "complete the aspirations for the area"...

"The remedial works of the New Islington Marina will allow the continued regeneration of New Islington which will deliver a range of good quality homes in a variety of types and tenures, increasing housing choice which will increase the prospects of retaining and attracting economically active residents whilst helping to build a sense of place and positioning the area as a neighbourhood of choice" states the Council report.

...Just not a 'neighbourhood of choice' for this community?

To sign the petition to Save the New Islington Marina Community – click here

Update: 6:30pm

This morning, Manchester Council passed the report on the future of the New Islington Marina, including the forced eviction on 31st August.

After Samantha, speaking on behalf of the residents, told councillors that they felt the plans for the Marina's future had been done "with absolutely no consideration of the impact that a forced eviction would have on our lives", Councillor Bernard Priest apologised on behalf of the Council. But that changed nothing.

Councillor Richard Leese talked only of the "significant costs" and length of time it would take to do 'remedial works' if they were staged to accommodate the boat residents... "The conclusion is that the only practical and affordable way of doing this work is to do it all in one go."

The Council promised 'ongoing discussions' with residents but at the end of the day, despite platitudes from officers and councillors, the 'bottom line' and the cash tills of the development land around the Marina spoke louder...