Fifteen years on the muck trail, and let's face there has been plenty of it in the political, social and economic life of our dear city. But very soon the chronicle of dubious deals, policy pandemoniums and grubby goings on will cease to publish - and so the light that has shone on some of the darker corners in Salford will fade and darkness will descend and cloak all that is rotten in the city of Salford.
The politicians, dodgy business partners and shabby practitioners will do what they have always done and get away with it. Only without the Salford Star all those nefarious goings on will become that much easier.
Looking back, the Star questioned and exposed the waste and injustice of the Langworthy and Seedley regeneration programme and the demolition of the Top Streets in Higher Broughton. It detailed the waste of £millions of taxpayers and European Union money spent on removing long time residents from their homes to facilitate 350 upside down houses installed by development company Urban Splash.
The Salford Star was able to identify £15million that went to Urban Splash in the form of grants and incentives to do the work, and then after completion the company was able to sell refurbished houses for further profit.
At the other end of the city, the Star got behind the Griffiths brothers and their defiant fight against Salford Council in their struggle to hold on to their houses in Higher Broughton and get fair compensation from the Council.
Fifteen years later, no one could say that the cosmetic look of those areas has improved, let alone enhanced the lives of those families uprooted from their viable communities, with many forced into rented accommodation miles away from their roots. The Star called it for what it was, social cleansing. The Council called it 'mixed tenure'. I called it outrageous!
At the heart of this were outsider developers and political carpet baggers who should never have been in the positions they held. I can only assume they held no real love for Salford and its unique heritage forged by the tight knit-streets and heavy industry, and nourished by the Docks. That link connected us to the wider world in a way that only a few other areas with a similar set up could claim privilege to.
Maybe it was this emotional detachment that allowed the two iconic cranes to be dismantled for scrap, for the want of £70,000, whilst an app costing £150,000 was proposed, to provide an insight into Salford's maritime history. Lesser ports still have their industrial monuments intact which give testimony to their maritime past - but not Salford. We lambasted the then Mayor Stewart for his temporary penny pinching parsimony, and I personally would like to have seen him dangling from one of the cranes...metaphorically, of course...
That episode dovetails nicely into the new maritime freight development down at Boysnope, now known as Port Salford. Peel Holdings, which now owns the Manchester Ship Canal, received a generous £16million grant for this shiny, multimodal development between Irlam and Patricroft…that five years after completion has yet to see one ship discharge its cargo there. Strange, as ships regularly dock at Irlam Wharf and pass by up river to discharge at Patricroft and at Cargills in Trafford Park. It's bizarre, ships passing the newest most modern facility.
You might call me a cynic but the new Port Salford is very close to Barton Aerodrome, now known as the City Airport. It couldn't be that Peel Holdings has more of a future eye on air freight as opposed to sea freight? Could it?
Let's see...what else was there? Oh yes, the exposure of the shocking treatment of domiciliary care recipients in the city following reorganisation*, plus other stories on cuts, cladding, floods, a riot, MPs' expenses, planning scandals, Salford Council scandals...
The Star has also interviewed most of Salford's finest, from pop super heroes like Hooky, Graham Nash and Shaun Ryder, to thespians like Ben Kingsley, Robert Powell, Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake, plus publicising community events and loads more.
In short if it happened in Salford, we covered it and gave a voice to you, the people.
Some of Nigel Pivaro's articles for the Salford Star...
Nigel Pivaro Says 'Save Salford Quays Cranes!' - click here
Reasons To Be Angry And Not To Riot – click here
* Adult Care Horror – click here
On The Lower Broughton Flood – click here
Hazel Blears Doesn't Meet Nigel Pivaro – click here
For a full background on the closure of the Salford Star see previous articles...
Salford Star To Close After 15 Years – click here
A Star Is Born – click here
Alice's Story: Injustice From South Africa to Salford – click here
Salford Stars – Part 1 – click here
Salford Stars Part 2 – click here
The Battle of Barton Moss – click here
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