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FOCUS REPORT
Monday March 19 2007
ENGLAND’S NORTH WEST
New Thinkers Welcome
ECONOMIC PISTON PAGE 2 RESEARCH HOTHOUSE PAGE 6 CLASS ACT PAGE 13
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second economic piston and the North generally, and the area centred around the Manchester-Leeds axis, is that second piston.” But more impressive than the picture painted by the statistics is the enormous sense of cohesion that permeates the academic and research sectors as they co-operate to develop the modern research in the creative and digital, biotechnological and advanced engineering, sectors that are the region’s future. That unified sense of direction links a cluster of universities and research facilities that match any in the country. The region has it all, from the cutting-edge research of the Daresbury Campus, Europe’s biggest area of biotech production at Speke, engineering excellence of the Bentley and BAe plants to some of the finest professional services companies, in banking, accountancy and law, to be found anywhere in Europe. Put that together with con-
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Southport A59
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LIVERPOOL Wallasey Birkenhead Wirral
Rochdale
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are just a short drive away. Six premiership football clubs are within easy reach not to mention several first class rugby clubs and the county cricket club of Lancashire. But it is the world of golf that the region truly excels. The Golf Coast has the highest concentration of championship links courses in the world and boasts three of the top 20. Royal Birkdale will stage The Open in 2008 but even for those who do not aspire to that level of play, there are a string of fine courses running down the coast from Silloth in Cumbria to the Wirral. The region’s artistic ambitions are as ambitious as its creative and industrial ones, starting with this year’s Manchester International Festival. This year the festival will be headlined by an extraordinary Chinese offering, a dazzling circus opera for the 21st Century based on an ancient Chinese legend titled Monkey: Journey to the West. It promises to be a brilliant spectacle featuring more than 40 Chinese acrobats, Chinese vocalists and performing martial artists. Liverpool is working towards a transformational expe-
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He is lobbying for the Beatles to appear on £20 notes rience next year when it is European Capital of Culture. The city has taken on the services of Professor Drummond Bone, vice-chancellor of Liverpool University and chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company. Bone was one of the moving forces behind the success of Glasgow’s year as European culture capital and says that while his native Glasgow fo-
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‘We are a region that has a very good public-private relationship’
nectivity to the United States, with five flights a day to New York, almost on par with that to London which offers a choice of 50 trains a day to the capital and you have a combination of business facets that is hard to beat. Stephen Broomhead, chief executive of the North West Regional Development Agency, says: “We are never complacent but we are a region that has a very good public-private relationship. The universities work very closely together and with others around science and innovation. We are all seen to be pulling together and that is why laterally we have been having a good deal of success.” One analyst adds: “The North West is a very competitive cluster in the international marketplace and it needs to have its self-awareness raised to be more effective as a single cluster because on a global scale that is the way we make an impact. The thing that always distorts the picture is London. If you step back and look at Europe overall, the North West is the next biggest cluster of businesses in Europe, not just the second in the UK, but because we have got the 800lb gorilla of London it is not a message that ever gets out.” The most revolutionary departure is the plan for the UK’s first purpose-built media city in Salford. It will provide a creative centre for media companies to share high quality facilities. Mediacity is also expected to play host to a radical departure by the BBC when it moves a number of its departments from London and becomes the anchor tenant and catalyst for a whole new digital future for the region. With the Lake District and Lancashire coast beaches close at hand some of the finest recreational areas in the country
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THE North-West region is a country within a country such is its economic clout, its educational and research base, the strength and innovation of its industries and the beauty of its countryside. Its £106 billion economy dwarfs anything outside the South East and is larger than many economies on the European mainland. Bryan Gray, chairman of the North West Regional Development Agency, says: “For too long we have looked to London and the South East to be the economic engine of the country. The UK needs a
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David Watts reports on the surging, vibrant energy of the North West’s people and places
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Economic piston that drives the region forward
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cused on traditional culture, the experience at Liverpool would feature more community participation, “but without neglecting the Berlin Phils of this world and a big exhibition of Gustav Klimpt.” He adds that the community aspect is one of the key reasons why the city won the nomination. He is lobbying for the Beatles to appear on £20 notes
and says: “You can feel that the whole city is involved. The culture is deeply imbedded here. It is something that you do not feel in a city like London. If you go into a bar there and say you are a professor of literature that would kill the conversation whereas in Liverpool the chap sitting next to you will tell you what he is reading and ask your opinion of a poet.”
Stokeon-Trent Newcastleunder-Lyme
He adds that the spin off for Liverpool will be a boost in its self-confidence as has happened in Glasgow. “If you’ve got a city that is sure of itself it is a good place to be and the benefits are economic.” For further information see: www.timesonline.co.uk/ newthinkerswelcome
FACTS AND FIGURES FROM THE NORTH WEST REGION 0 The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) was established in 1999 to provide business-led direction to the region’s economic development and to establish economic priorities. 0 The North West’s economy is the third largest in the country, with 6.8 million people and 230,000 firms powering a £106 billion economy.
0 Between 2000 and 2004, the Northwest created 180,000 news jobs and grew at a faster rate than the English average. 0 Since its inception the agency has: created or safeguarded 161,200 jobs; reclaimed 3,700 hectares of brownfield land, an area the size of Blackpool; levered £2.1 billion of private sector investment and created 12,000 new businesses.
0 In the first five years of the new century the value of regional exports rose by £2.3 billion to £19.1 billion with an additional 1,100 companies now exporting. 0 The Northwest is currently the third highest exporter of the English regions. 0 Digital-based industries make a key contribution with 5,000 firms with 63,000 staff with an annual turnover of £6.45 billion.
0 The region is home to more than 80 banks and the financial and business services sector employs more people than anywhere else in the UK outside London and the South East. It employs 172,000 people in a sector which is valued at more than £9 billion. 0 The region is the second largest legal centre with 1,800 legal service companies.
0 The financial and professional services sector generated £7.3 billion in the year 2000 and employed 280,000. 0 The region’s 230 biomedical companies, include seven multinationals.
They employ 25,000 people and export pharmaceuticals worth £3.4 billion a year. 0 Its aerospace sector is the largest in the country, worth £3 billion, while 450 automotive firms have a turnover of £9 billion.
FOCUS REPORTS: Editor: Isobel Shepherd Smith, 020-7782 5064, isobel.shepherdsmith@thetimes.co.uk Commercial Features: Jessica Taplin, 020-7782 7185, commercialfeatures@newsint.co.uk Cover: Marta Pérez
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Manchester is the top draw for UK aspiring students
On the waterfront: tower cranes now dominate Liverpool city centre and an army of workers is busy regenerating many sites
Merseyside transformed Robert Hough on a region that has not stopped growing MERSEYSIDE, like other parts of the North West, is on the up. Strong economic performance, record levels of investment, regeneration of its older urban areas, high rates of growth in output and job creation, booming property prices and a growing sense of pride and optimism have replaced years of industrial strife, urban decay and widespread disillusionment in the 1970s and 1980s. The extent of the physical changes currently transforming Liverpool is striking. Tower cranes dominate the city’s skyline, famous for The Three Graces at the waterfront, and an army of workers is busy regenerating many sites, known as the Big Dig. The new glass and chrome shopping and commercial developments underline that this is a city buzzing with renewed energy and confidence, befitting a great city celebrating its 800th birthday this year. Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture 2008 is the catalyst for drawing together the city’s and region’s outstanding cultural, leisure, sport and retail facilities into the biggest
year-long programme of culture that Europe has seen. Next year, the Turner Prize will, for the first time, be awarded outside London at the Liverpool Tate Gallery to coincide with the Capital of Culture celebrations. Winning the title has raised the region’s profile nationally and internationally. The £920 million Grosvenor development is the single most important component in the regeneration of Liverpool city centre. With 1 million sq ft of retail space for flagship department stores, 90 new shops and another 1 million sq ft of ancillary leisure and residential development, Liverpool One will create 4,500 jobs and catapult Liverpool into the top five of UK retail destinations. The region hosts global sports events and facilities such as the Aintree Grand National, the Open Golf Championship at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake last year and Royal Birkdale in 2008, two top football clubs with Liverpool FC the Champions of Europe in 2005, major race meetings at Haydock and Chester and the Tall Ships 2008. Tourism is already the fast-
est growing sector of the Merseyside economy. The impact of Capital of Culture will create 13,500 new jobs, attracting in excess of 11 million visits to Liverpool and a forecast visitor spend of £550 million in 2008. Other outstanding tourist jewels in the North West are set to benefit, too, including Chester,
Passengers at Liverpool airport have passed the 5 million mark the Lake District and the Snowdonia National Park. A new cruise liner facility at the Pier Head will bring 40 big ships into the Mersey a year, opening up new premium international visitor markets for the city and the North West. Residential developments are starting to breathe new life into tired but inherently spectacular old buildings. Liverpool has three universities and tens of thousands of students, many from overseas, are reinventing the urban centre by introducing a cool atmosphere in bars, restaurants and clubs.
The city is known across the world for its musical heritage, founded on its most famous sons, The Beatles. Today, the music scene continues to thrive and, mixed with the warmth of its people and their “Scouse” wit, gives Liverpool its unique brand. Passenger numbers at Liverpool John Lennon Airport have increased eight-fold since 1997 and broke the 5 million annual passenger mark in February 2007. Liverpool’s rise to pre-eminence was based on the role of the port in the development of world trade. Today,the Mersey Ports are a national asset, handling about 40 million tonnes of cargo per year. The Port of Liverpool supports the growing container trade between the North of England and the rest of the world. It is the largest Free Zone in the UK and is strategically located within 60km of the largest population and export-generating region of any UK port outside London. Merseyside’s future is most certainly set fair. Robert Hough is deputy chairman of Peel Holdings
WHEN you realise that Manchester University is the most popular destination for UK students, it becomes clear why the region is well on the way to matching the intellectual firepower of the South East and Oxbridge. The other regional heavyweights in the academic stakes are Liverpool and Lancaster. Manchester received the most applications — 59,522 — for its undergraduate courses starting last September, statistics from the Universities Central Admissions Service reveal (Manchester Metropolitan University is No.5 on the list). When Alan Gilbert arrived in the city as vice chancellor from Melbourne in 2004, his objective was to make Manchester one of the world’s finest universities by 2015, ranked among the world’s top 25 research institutions. He is in the happy position of starting with some formidable foundations for his ambitions since there are 22 winners of Nobel prizes among current and former staff. Furthermore the university can
claim a crucial role in two of the greatest advances of the 20th century. The nuclear age was born in Manchester with Ernest Rutherford’s pioneering research that led to the splitting of the atom, and the computer revolution began in the city in 1948 when a machine, known as The Baby, built by Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams, ran its first stored programme. The university is also involved in the biggest capital spending programme — £630 million — in British higher education, aimed at attracting the best international scholars and students. Over at Liverpool University, Drummond Bone, the vice chancellor, points to two powerful research institutes at Liverpool that are at the cutting edge of today’s science. They are the National Centre for Zoonosis Research, which investigates diseases transmissible between animals and humans, and the Cockcroft Institute, an international centre for research in accelerator science and technology. DAVID WATTS
PAUL COUSANS
Top spot: Manchester University had 59,522 applications last year
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Millionaires from antibody research Lisa Melton finds how a Manchester husband and wife team tackled infectious diseases RUTH Matthews and James Burnie — a husband and wife academic team — have developed a novel antibody-based therapy to combat potentially lethal microbes, including the MRSA superbug. Their unorthodox approach to treating life-threatening infections has also made them millionaires. The couple, both professors and medical doctors, started out at the University of Manchester 26 years ago. Their quest was to decipher why some people are more susceptible than others to infections. “We looked at the blood of people who survived infectious disease and those who didn’t,” says Burnie, chief executive of NeuTec Pharma, the biotechnology pharmaceuticals company set up by the couple. “What we found is that those who live have antibodies against a protein called heat shock protein 90, those who die, don’t have the antibody." It soon became clear that the university professors were onto a finding of enormous potential value. Their discovery may signal a new era in the treatment of infectious diseases. To take their idea to
market, the researchers became entrepreneurs and set up NeuTec in 1997. Their strategy relied on identifying those naturally occurring antibodies from patients who recover from an infection. Those antibodies, part of the body’s immune defence mechanisms, served as the blueprint for Matthews and Burnie to generate “genetically recombinant antibodies” , known as grabs. Next they asked whether those grabs could help infected patients become survivors.
‘It’s a big difference. That’s what makes it such an attractive drug’ The work progressed well. A pivotal clinical trial showed that the drug Mycograb, designed to target fungal candida infections, when combined with a conventional anti-fungal treatment, dramatically cut the number of deaths from yeast infections. With conventional therapy for systemic candidiasis, one in five patients
die; adding the grab antibodies reduced deaths to one in 25. “It’s a big difference. That’s what makes it such an attractive drug,” says Burnie. The yeast candida albicans is the most common species in the human gut. Most of the time, it is usually harmless but it can cause a range of trivial infections, including vaginitis. But if this organism invades the blood, the infection can be deadly. Patients with compromised immune systems, such as those with HIV/ Aids or undergoing organ transplants are especially at risk, as are babies born severely under weight. Yeast can be difficult to treat. “Fungal infections are quite frequent in intensive care units. Existing treatments are effective but can be very toxic," says Professor Tom Evans, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Glasgow. “Mycograb is targeting a genuine problem. Their product shows promise.“ Interest in NeuTec’s antibody-therapy soared and the company was floated on the stock market. Last summer Novartis, the
In focus: Ruth Matthews and James Burnie developed a therapy to combat microbes, including MRSA
Swiss pharmaceutical multimational, bought the start-up company for £304 million, earning the investigators a £21 windfall and £13 million for the University of Manchester, which helped Matthews and Burnie to commercialise their
research. The company is also developing Aurograb, a grab aimed at the MRSA superbug. This strain of bacteria has become endemic in hospitals around the world and bloodstream infections often have proved lethal.The need for
more effective therapies to tackle deadly infections, such as MRSA, is urgent, but it can take years to develop new antibiotics. The hope is that NeuTec’s novel pharmaceuticals may avert the impending threat.
Liverpool institution aims to be best in Europe BARRY GREENWOOD
IT WAS an unusual project for the day — local businessmen led by shipowner Sir Alfred Lewis Jones set up Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine. Founded in 1898, it was the first institution of its kind. Within a few years, numerous expeditions were launched to the tropics. “The school was set up to understand tropical diseases and our mission has not changed since,” says Professor Janet Hemingway, the school’s director, “We are still at the forefront of understanding and treatment of diseases as we were then and we are still industry-friendly.” A new centre for tropical and infectious diseases is due for completion by the end of this year, which will double the school’s size as well as significantly boosting Merseyside’s developing biotechnology industry. ”We are aiming to become the premier school of tropical and infectious diseases in Europe,” says Hemingway. In the past four years the institution has increased its turnover by £16 million and hopes to double that within the next five years boosted by income from three large research projects. Two are being funded by the Bill & Melinda
Vital job: Amanda Ball, laboratory manager at Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine, who works with mosquitoes and tsetse flies
Gates Foundation — one aimed at eradicating sleeping sickness caused by the tsetse fly; the other to develop safer, and more effective insecticides to control mosquitoes. Professor Mike Lehane, who is heading the fly project, is focusing on what odours flies do and do not like to de-
velop better attractants for insect traps and more effective repellents. “Tsetse control currently relies on insecticides, which are usually delivered by aerial or ground spraying but this is costly, raises environmental concerns and is inefficient,” he says. “Protection by personal repellents would re-
duce the individual’s dependence on government or donor-funded interventions.” His team proposes to first identify the smells that attract and repel the blood-sucking insect, then discover which molecules are detected by the fly’s antennae. The work is crucial: five major species of
tsetse fly transmit the disease in more than 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which puts millions of people at risk. The mosquito project is dear to Hemingway’s heart. Originally a geneticist by training, she says, “I wanted to do something that was economically and socially impor-
tant.” Controlling mosquitoes has been the key to controlling malaria, but mosquitoes are developing resistance to insecticides. “We need new insecticides that are up to the task and are safe for humans and the environment.” Malaria affects 40 per cent of the world’s population in more than 100 countries. If untreated, it can prove fatal. Hemingway believes that part of the school’s success is due to its innovative approach — by involving partnerships with industry and other organisations and by applying its work to have the maximum impact. “For instance, we can deal with malaria from bench to bedside by developing new drugs, looking at how drug resistance develops, developing government policy and examining the effectiveness of those policies in practice.” It is fitting that the institution has been awarded this grant. Sir Ronald Ross, who joined the school in 1899, became the first British winner of a Nobel prize in medicine when, in 1902, he was recognised for his discovery that malaria is carried by mosquitoes. Scientists at the school then went on to develop the first drug to treat malaria. SANJIDA O’CONNELL
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BARRY GREENWOOD
Collaboration proving to be a success story IT MAY come a surprise to many that diseases of the circulation are the leading cause of death in the UK. One of the more radical ways of treating these kinds of diseases is to use synthetic material as a scaffold and seed this structure with cells to grow new arteries, Sanjida O’Connell writes. This is one of the areas of research being undertaken by the UK Centre for Tissue Engineering in Liverpool. The centre was set up as a collaborative venture between Liverpool and Manchester universities. “We had complimentary expertise,” says David Williams, the centre’s director, “so we put in a bid together seven years ago to collaborate on an interdisciplinary approach to tissue engineering.” The original grant to fund the venture runs out this sum-
‘We haven’t cracked it, but we have made a lot of progress’ mer, but Williams is confident that the centre will continue to expand. One of the most exciting areas of development since the centre’s inception, the professor says, has been in the area of cartilage growth. Currently if the disc in the spinal cord degenerates, one solution is to fuse neighbouring vertebrae together. Now a team at the centre has made considerable progress in growing cartilage to replace the disc using the patient’s own cells. “We don't work from embryonic stem cells,” says Williams, “We work with adult stem cells either from bone marrow or blood or fatty tissue. Much of our research has been trying to persuade these adult stem cells to differentiate into the type of tissue we’ve
been looking for; for instance, by differentiating into the kind of cells that produce cartilage. We haven’t cracked it, but we have made a lot of progress.” Other research at the centre that has progressed dramatically is in the field of tissue engineering of skin, led by Mark Ferguson, a professor at Manchester. Each year people undergo surgery that leads to scarring. The Manchester team has been looking at how age, sex and disease can affect wound healing as well as developing good skin grafts. Collaboration is what has made the centre so successful: Williams has spent almost 40 years designing materials for medical applications such as replacement hip joints and heart valves, but he works alongside mechanical engineers, biochemists, cell biologists and geneticists. “This is a really exciting area,” he says. “New research is published almost every day and we’re constantly achieving major developments in our ability to treat disease. “We’re very limited in terms of what we can achieve using synthetic materials,” says Williams. “What we really need to do is to extend the science so that we can regenerate tissue rather than replace them with synthetic structures. For instance, we’re very good at replacing hips and knees with synthetic materials, but you can’t use synthetic material to replace nerve tissue in the spine or brain, so in neuro-degenerative diseases, we can’t do much. “But what we can now start to offer is a combination of cells, materials and a variety of biomolecules, such as growth factors, in combination with gene therapy to allow degenerated nerve to regenerate. And that’s the real goal — to reconstruct the body where we have no current therapies.”
Practising what they preach: Nick Higgins, left, and Paul Kemp of Intercytex, who tried its hair-restoring product on himself
Straightforward idea to resolve age-old problem Toby Murcott meets a man taking action on his thinning locks YOU have to get close to Paul Kemp to see his tattoo, but if you look hard a small dot is visible at the top of his head. Not quite in the “I Love Mum” category, instead it marks the point where Kemp was injected with his own hair cells taken from his head and multiplied in the laboratory. The hope was that they would grow into new follicles and replenish his thinning locks. It is hard to tell from a casual look as Kemp’s pate, but he is adamant that the treatment works and new hairs had appeared. A single experiment is evidence of very little which is why Intercytex, the company formed by Paul Kemp, is conducting clinical trials to test its effectiveness. Preliminary results are looking interesting. The volunteers have had new hair growth that has remained for up to six years. It is clearly going to take time to know whe-
ther the hairs will last a lifetime or whether repeat treatments will be required. There are also interesting questions to be answered about how to administer the treatment. So far tiny drops of cell suspension have been injected in a fine mosaic from a specially developed microsyringe. This is a laborious process, although Intercytex is working on developing a robot to do the injecting. There is another intriguing possibility. It might be that, once injected, the cells can make their own way to damaged or dormant follicles and spring them back to life. This would make the injection process much quicker. The principle behind the treatment is straightforward. A few hair follicles are removed from a patient’s head. The cells responsible for producing hairs are isolated, grown and multiplied in the
laboratory and then injected back into the scalp. The practice is, of course, more challenging. Cells are fragile and keeping them healthy requires expertise, which Kemp has been developing over the past two decades and is exploiting at Intercytex. The company’s hair regeneration technology, ICX-TRC, is perhaps its most eye-catching development. Intercytex has three other products in the pipeline, all based on growing human cells in the laboratory — skin replacement, facial rejuvenation and wound repair. The last is in phase three trials, the final stage before applying for a licence to market. Nick Higgins, chief executive at Intercytex (Kemp is chief scientific officer), describes, almost wistfully, how conventional pharmaceuticals can be stored for a couple of years or so. However, the living cells that are Intercytex’s
speciality have a shelf life of just three weeks. As a result, Higgins says, the business compares better with sandwichmaking than drug manufacture. The cells have to be prepared fresh and then shipped under exacting conditions to the customers. If they are not used within time, they have to be discarded. It is here that Intercytex’s decision to base its manufacturing plant in Manchester comes into its own. Proximity to the airport and experienced local shipping agents means Intercytex can be confident that its delicate progeny will make it safely to its customers. Being in Manchester has other benefits too. Aside from the city’s thriving university, the North West has a tradition of excellence in biotechnology so there is no problem recruiting skilled staff, and keeping them is helped by being situated in a lively city.
BARRY GREENWOOD
Drug that helps lessen scar damage
Life’s work: Mark Ferguson has made a scarring breakthrough
BABIES in the womb do not scar. For Mark Ferguson, chief executive of Renovo, this is a crucial observation. Unborn babies are growing all the time yet they emerge blemish free rather than covered in stretch marks, he says. Working out just what is going on when scars are formed, or not as in unborn babies, and how to prevent them is Ferguson’s life’s work. It is also the major business of Renovo, the biotechnology company he cofounded with Sharon O’Kane. Scars can prevent nerves from repairing themselves properly after an accident resulting in loss of control or
sensation. Scars can also form over joints and prevent them moving properly. And for the people who are prone to a particular type of scar called keloid, skin damage can lead to large growths — scarring out of control. Scarring has a huge psychological impact. Ferguson points out that people have a strong reaction to scars. A man with facial scars is likely to be seen as a thug, for example. For 20 years Ferguson has been teasing out what happens as a scar forms and developing drugs to minimise them. Renovo currently has four in development, three to reduce scarring and one to im-
prove wound healing. The most advanced drug, Juvista, has been tested in more than 1,500 patients and the results are promising. It reduces the appearance of the scar, lessens reddening and swelling and promotes better pigmentation. Now here is the clever bit — it seems to work for almost everyone. As a result Ferguson is aiming Juvista at anyone who goes into hospital. He believes many people will be prepared to pay around £150 for a oneoff injection to reduce the scarring. It is easy to see how this could catch on with cosmetic surgery and Ferguson believes that health insurance
schemes will be prepared to pay for accident and trauma patients. Renovo needs highly specialised employees and Manchester, says Ferguson, is the perfect place. There are major research-based universities in the area, such as Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster. A further advantage of the North West for Renovo is the area’s communications infrastructure. Renovo is an international company that conducts clinical trials around the world and the local air, rail and road links allow him and his staff to get to where they need, when they are needed. TOBY MURCOTT
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A hothouse of medical research NWDA
Lisa Melton reports on the fruits of the region’s successful campaign to woo biotech firms MORE than 50 years of biotech history have left their mark in the North West. The region recently set out to become as hospitable as possible to high-tech and biotech companies, which is now paying off. One high-tech facility, the National Biomanufacturing Centre (NBC) at Speke, near Liverpool, has attracted many small companies and start-ups. It opened last year to help scientists with bright ideas to make the transition to new medicines. “There has been much interest from countries such as Canada and Australia that want to emulate what the UK has done to get a similar service,” says Dr Derek Ellison, business development director for Eden Biodesign, the centre’s operator. For most young companies funding is the number one hur-
Sugar therapeutics could advance the fight against Alzheimer’s disease dle to commercial exploitation. Venture capitalists are reluctant to invest without proof that the product works. Ellison says: “Small companies face a chicken-and-egg situation. Investors want data but there is no data without investment.” Now they can apply to the North West Regional Development Agency for grants of up to £68,000 to use Speke’s facilities. The NBC project is the result of £34 million of public money. A £3 million investment of government money helped to spearhead the development. Dr Linda Magee, who leads
Bionow, the North West Regional Development Agency’s biotechnology programme, says: “That the DTI committed at an early stage was pivotal for the rest of the project.” Eden BioDesign has contributed £2 million to the upkeep. Building work started in 2004 on a 60,000sq ft plot on the Estuary Commerce Estate near Liverpool. Its state-ofthe-art facilities are designed to tackle many biopharmaceutical products from molecules to whole cells, mammalian, microbial or viral. By last summer the equipment was installed and validated to comply with EU and US quality guidelines for clinical material. The NBC was ready to go. Onyvax Ltd was first to take advantage of the NBC services to pursue a new vaccine to treat ovarian cancer. The London company, with financial support from the Access Fund, approached the centre to grow cells for use in its tests. Dr Stephen Ward, head of process development, says: “The cells that are given to the patients stimulate their immune systems to control the spread of cancer. Companies like ours need access to specialist manufacturing services to produce this material.” At the University of Liverpool, Dr Roger Barraclough and collaborator Professor Philip Rudland have identified a protein that prompts cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. This is an important discovery because this protein might, in the long-term, prove a suitable target for therapy, to halt the metastatic spread of breast tumour cells. Barraclough also foresees
Translating bright ideas into new drugs: the North West is a powerhouse of medical research
more immediate clinical applications for this key protein. “It could become a marker for disease, to allow doctors to diagnose cancer more accurately.” To study the protein in more detail, the researchers needed large quantities of a specialised molecule. He says: We gave the NBC the biological materials it needed and it scaled up the production.” As conventional antibiotic drugs lose the fight against infections, bioprospectors are trawling the oceans in search of useful new compounds. The Biotech firm Aquapharm,
from Oban, Scotland, is now developing one of the first marine pharmaceuticals to fight drug-resistant micro-organisms, including the notorious hospital “superbug”. Dr Dorothee Gotz, R&D manager at Aquapharm, says: “We are running out of antibiotic agents for hospital-acquired pathogens, so the need for new anti-infectives is urgent.” The biotech firm harvests antibiotic-producing bacteria from open waters, marine sediment, seaweed, or by scraping off surface slime from rocks. A highly promising marine
antibacterial protein has entered development at the NBC. “Eden Biodesign has taken over the job of growing cells and isolating the enzyme. They are supplying us with big amounts to test to see if it is a viable product,” says Gotz. Sugar therapeutics could advance the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, says Dr Bill Primrose, chief executive of IntelliHep. With Eden Biodesign’s strong manufacturing expertise, the Liverpool start-up is tweaking heparin, a bloodthinning sugar, into a new therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.
Celebrating 50 years of saving lives NWDA
ASTRAZENECA’S new cancer research building, all chrome, sandblasted glass and sandstone, is a high-tech contrast to the history of its site. It is based in Alderley Park, Cheshire, which was mentioned in the Domesday book of 1087. In 1592 it became the family seat of the Stanley family. But where the family once strolled in the 400-acre park, AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical group, now has an R&D site with 4,500 staff and a further 2,500 in the Macclesfield area. Although Alderley Park carries out research into infection, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and inflammatory illness, its real focus is as a research centre for cancer. Sir James Black received the Nobel prize in 1988 for betablockers, an adrenaline receptor-blocking drug that is used
High-tech work: an AstraZeneca researcher at Alderley Park
to treat heart disease. Dr John Stageman, vice-president for biopharmaceuticals at AstraZeneca, says Black put the company (formerly part of ICI) on the map. “Since then we have developed a string of world-leading
cancer medicines, including Nolvadex and Arimidex, which have become gold standard treatments for breast cancer.” The company has invested £500 million in the North West in the past few years, in-
cluding £60 million on the Cancer Research Centre and £58 million on a Centre for Advanced Lead Discovery where compounds to create new medicines are identified. The result of this level of investment is that of the 4,500 people at Alderley Park, 3,500 are scientists, one in ten of whom has a PhD. AstraZeneca is hoping to create more new and innovative medicines by focusing on biologically-based therapies, as well as conventional drugs. Cancer cells are normal cells that are out of control, growing, changing and developing into tumours that then require nutrients and will rewire the bodies’ blood vessels to feed them before, at a late stage of illness, breaking off into cells that form tumours elsewhere round the body. One suite of drugs developed by AstraZeneca focuses
on antibodies, which can work by breaking down this chain of events anywhere in the cycle, from inhibiting the cell’s rampant growth to preventing new blood vessels from forming through to stopping the invasion of the body by cancerous cells. Other drugs have been developed, which focus on signal processing, a critical part of cancer cell division. For instance, a new drug, ZD6474, currently still undergoing trials, blocks two key signalling cancer pathways, VEGF and EGF, thus shutting down tumour blood vessel development and tumour growth. This year the company celebrates 50 years in Chesire with a series of events themed around science and innovation marking its contributions to patient health.” SANJIDA O’CONNELL
THE TIMES 19 MARCH 2007
Science campus will lead the world IF ALL goes to plan, the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus will become the sound stage for films that scientists hope will show the processes of life at work at very high speed. This heady promise comes from the Fourth Generation Light Source or 4GLS. It is a new particle accelerator being developed at the Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire. The 4GLS promises to provide researchers with a range of different lights and ultra-high speed recording equipment able to capture 10,000 billion frames a second. Daresbury has been home to a machine that does this for more than 20 years, the Synchrotron Radiation Source. But the light that the 4GLS emits will strobe rather than be continuous. With a strobe, you can take snapshots in rapid succession. In this, 4GLS is ahead of the world. Peter Weightman, chairman of the 4GLS steering committee, believes 4GLS could help answer one of life’s big mysteries, the self assembly of biological molecules. He believes 4GLS will be able to record this as it happens. The technology will have applications in other areas such as watching how fuel burns in a jet engine or how electrons behave in chips. Funding has not been confirmed but the project team expect to get a prototype up this summer and are hoping this will lead to the investment. But there is much more to this scientific enclave than the 4GLS. The Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus has been set up with funding from the NWDA to turn scientific innovation into economic wealth. John Leake, general manager, insists that it is more than just another science park. There is the innovation centre that offers office, lab and workshop space to SMEs and start-ups. Leake and his team provide managerial support and help with funding applications. The Daresbury laboratory provides expertise in computing, electronics and instrumentation alongside its research. Tip Chip was founded by Austen Bradley to develop novel medical diagnostics. He says he could not have got off the ground without Daresbury’s facilities. Rapiscan Systems has a research company, CXR Ltd, that is developing a 3D scanner for faster, more accurate airport baggage screening. Director Ed Morton says that support from Daresbury is tremendous. TOBY MURCOTT
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Polymath seeks to limit brain damage Toby Murcott profiles a Manchester dame who left London’s bright lights to return to her roots BY HER own admission Nancy Rothwell gets bored doing just one thing — just as well, as she is a leading brain trauma researcher, vice-president of research at Manchester University, a prolific public speaker, a passionate advocate for science, a writer and broadcaster and she sits on numerous committees and panels. Professor Dame Nancy
She says the basics of biology research are the same as for music and maths Rothwell FRS is also a serial collector of accolades. She won the Pfizer award for research in 2003, was made a dame in 2004 and is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. But the one that clearly matters most was being elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Joining this elite group is one of the highest recognitions for a scientist — an acknowledgement that your work ranks with the very best. The central thread of her research is understanding how brain cells are damaged in a variety of different diseases and how to reduce the devastation such damage brings. Strokes, the third highest killer in the West, is top of the list. Rothwell and her team are putting on trial a drug that they hope can lessen the damage that a blocked blood vessel in the brain produces. The principle is deceptively simple. A chemical called inter-
leukin-1 is released at the trauma site as part of the defence against infection. However, it also brings with it an unwanted side-effect — it damages brain cells. The drug blocks its activity. It is already used for arthritis and preliminary tests suggest that it is safe to use in brain injury. Rothwell is, however, cautious. There is a long way to go, she says. Friendly, direct and sharpwitted, Rothwell manages that rare trick of enjoying her intellect without putting anyone down. This goes some way perhaps to explaining her success as a shaper of scientific research. She looks after all of the research undertaken at the University of Manchester — all of it, in every discipline. She believes that the basics of research are the same as for music, maths and molecular biology — employ creative researchers and support them. She also suspects her A level in art helps to span disciplines, giving her an inkling of the artistic creative process. Her public image has been both raised and coloured by her preparedness to speak out on animal research. It arose from her honesty about, and passion for, science. Whether people like it or not she says, she makes it very clear that she would rather not conduct animal research, but animals are important in research, particularly on human diseases. Perhaps disappointingly, Rothwell has no clear formula for success in research. Her own career was not mapped out. After A levels she had to
choose between art, maths and biology at university. She rejected art on the basis that she was not good enough to make a living out of it and maths was too boring. Her choice of university was based on its proximity to London’s Kensington High Street, an exciting place to be in the seventies. A doctorate followed her first class degree and then she was awarded a Royal Society fellowship. This award allowed Rothwell to return to her roots in the North and she is thrilled by Manchester’s transformation over the past 20 years. Rothwell liaises with many local businesses and organisations and unprompted sings the praises of the North West Regional Development Agen-
Passion has a key role. Treating a research career like a job does not work cy, a body she says has been hugely supportive of the university's research agenda. It is hard to get a clear picture of how the young researcher matured into the respected polymath. Ability and her desire to seek new challenges play a part. Passion, too, has a key role. Treating a research career like another job just does not work, she says. Bombarded by requests to visit schools, she gives priority to those from disadvantaged areas. “If just one pupil now thinks about science as a career, that will be a success.”
Pondering brain damage from Alzheimer’s: Nancy Rothwell is working on a new drug that it is hoped will lessen the damage that is produced by a blocked blood vessel in the brain
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Star billing for BBC in a brave new world David Watts looks at the plans to build a new interactive city on the outskirts of Manchester THE North West is launching a new era with mediacity:uk, a bold development in Salford that will change the face of the media and creative sector. The BBC is expected to be the anchor tenant for the venture and will be key to attracting a broad range of other creative and media firms into the development that will offer residents everything they want in a residential area including schools, a walk-in NHS facility and a variety of entertainments. The corporation aims to take up residence by 2011. Mediacity:uk will be unique in Britain — the first city of a new breed: “They are a new phenomenon,” says Felicity Goodey, chief executive of mediacity:uk. “What they have in common is that they are major developments that attract and
retain creative people. “They are not business parks or science parks. They are places where people live work, research, learn and play, and are major visitor destinations in themselves.” For the BBC, which is planning to move a number of departments to Salford, it will be a sea change representing a new approach to the way the corporation works and an opportunity to maintain its position and enhance its status in terms of the global digital revolution. Furthermore the BBC aims to achieve all this more cheaply than it does now. “This is a huge departure from anything that they have done in the past,” says Goodey. “At the BBC they’re now saying how can we benefit from this major transforma-
Manchester joins Dubai, Copenhagen, Singapore, Zaragoza and Shanghai by creating new cities on their doorsteps
tional development,” says Bryan Gray, chairman of the North West Regional Development Agency. “They themselves want to use the opportunity to transform the way they work and the relationship with
This is the future for many BBC employees — an artist’s impression of the corporation’s new offices
their suppliers and content providers.” A whole range of media industries, he says, now want to move to the region to base themselves close to the corporation. “The BBC’s view is this project has started now. It starts today as we start planning for the cultural and technical changes that mediacity allows us to embrace.” The corporation will move into a new, purpose-built building offering a chance to break away from the 1920-30s DNA of Television Centre in White City with its circumscribed pattern of self-contained offices. One BBC executive noted that a building can shape the way an organisation operates and this had become the case with the way the corporation functioned on the White City site. “It is commercially as well as creatively compelling,” says another BBC executive, as the corporation will merely rent space and bear no financial burden in the construction, which will be undertaken by Peel Holdings. The initial investment for phase one of mediacity will be £350 million, excluding the cost of the land. Overseeing the project will be an experienced team that was involved in the redevelopment of London’s Docklands and Liverpool’s Albert Dock. For Greater Manchester the BBC is the juicy worm with which they hope to attract numerous other news, media and creative organisations hoping to benefit from the presence and the synergies of such a key generator of contract work and opportunities. It is hoped that at least five
local radio stations will take up space in the building along with digital and video arts firms, computer software companies and other companies. They will be able to take advantage of a state-of-the-art studio block and other facilities that are currently nowhere available in such a focused and concentrated form. There are hopes for the provision of more than 15,000 jobs when the city is fully developed. Among the concerns looking at the prospect of taking up tenancies in this brave new world is the University of Salford, which has the largest arts
‘It is very much targeted at inviting the public to come and play’ and media faculty in the country. The university was already embarking on plans for a £60 million new facility on a site that it had just acquired when the opportunity to become part of mediacity:uk arose. If negotiations for the university to take space are successful, Salford will bring more than 4,000 students on site. The local council, meanwhile, is moving ahead with plans to complement the university’s presence with a specialist media academy. Another centre of expertise will most probably be a virtual training institute and research and development centre, both of which will play a role in linking universities and other centres of excellence across the north of England.
But mediacity:uk’s planners and developers emphasise that the new development has also to play a strong role as a centre of entertainment, not only for those who live in the region, but also for visitors. So the newest star in the Greater Manchester city firmament will have a central piazza that will be twice the size of Trafalgar Square and will aim to attract millions of visitors annually. It is planned that at least 30 major events will be held in the piazza every year. To ensure that nobody visiting mediacity:uk will ever have reason to be bored, all of the public areas will have digital connections to make them interactive. There will be huge video screens and video walls wired for interaction — “to make it a fun place,” says Goodey. “It is very much targeted at inviting the public to come and play.” So far Greater Manchester has other competitors in this era of new cities — but no peers. Zaragoza, Copenhagen, Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai have special new cities planned or under way, but none is wired into the media future in the way of the Salford project. Shanghai’s new city will be built on the shores of the East China Sea that will effectively give it a new port to complement the great port of Shanghai — “two ports, one city” as the Chinese like to put it. In Singapore, the city state is investing in the multi-millionpound Biopolis project, a new medical city that is designed to put Singapore in the front rank of world medical research.
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Silicon Canal takes pride of place in PlayStation success
PATIENCE PAYS DIVIDENDS FOR MERSEYSIDE’S LIME PICTURES
Reynolds: “slow process”
AT A recent programme planning meeting in London a questioner asked a Channel 4 executive how many production companies were pitching genuine new media content to the network. There were only three, two in London and one from Merseyside — Lime Pictures, whose chief executive, Carolyn Reynolds, is one of the key members of the Merseyside showbiz aristocracy. Her CV reveals a long association
with Coronation Street. Reynolds wrily notes that despite the drive to get the BBC to put more money into television programmes made in the regions, she is only now about to land a significant new commission — two years on from the initial pitch to the corporation. “It’s a long, slow process but at least we have kick-started it.” Lime Pictures was founded by Phil Redmond to make Brookside for Channel 4 and
production continued for 21 years. Hollyoaks began in 1995, initially airing just once a week but working its way up to five episodes a week from 2003. Lime’s contract to produce Grange Hill for the BBC runs through to its 30th anniversary next year. The drive for new media content is spreaheaded by the company’s Conker Media division, which is targeting cable and regional clients. DAVID WATTS
THE hugely successful launch of Sony’s PlayStation3 gaming console in America and Japan was based solidly in the North West. The region’s software skills created the two games — F1 Championship Edition and MotorStorm — which became instant hits powering the new games machine to global acclaim and boosting expectations of the launch of PS3 in Britain on Friday. Michael Denny, vice-president, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, based in Liverpool is delighted with the company’s 12-year record of achievement: “In terms of the worldwide industry we have some really market-leading companies and between us we produce the finest videogames ever made.” The company develops some games in-house, as with F1, and contracts others out to local companies clustered along Silicon Canal, the North West’s equivalent of Silicon Valley. Denny seeks a balance between inside and outside productions. Sometimes externally created games are more experimental, he says, and that, as in other creative industries, the really imaginative personalities like to run their own companies. Among local studios working with Sony are Evolution Studios, Bizarre Creations and Travellers’ Tales. Sony Europe also has responsiblity for quality control of the company’s games worldwide and the plant is usually busy 24 hours a day with up to 300 people as young gamers test Sony’s products in search of glitches. “We want them to play the games and do things to them that would not normally be
done to see if they crash,” says Denny. For anybody wanting to become a games expert, this is a good place to start. “They can get experience as they learn how the games are made and may be get into production and the actual creation of the games. “We’re talent hungry,” Denny says as he expands on the new horizons opening up around gaming and the rapidly expanding concepts of community online gaming, which he feels will attract people, especially women, who feel that gaming is not for them. “We used to have very short sales cycles in which a game would sell all it was going to sell in six months,” he adds. Now the picture is very different. “The future of video-gaming is about the network and building communities. The disc will be the start of a business, the start of a ser-
‘We want them to play the games and do things to see if they crash’ vice that we have to monitor and provide new content regularly online. We feel that the online, digital supply of games and content and playing is absolutely the future.” Denny welcomes the opportunities to tap into new lines of talent that will come with the full development of Greater Manchester’s mediacity:uk. It will help Sony to move in the direction it needs to go with the higher quality imaging available through high definition television moving gaming closer to cinematic quality. DAVID WATTS
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PETERADAMS/CORBIS ADAMS/CORBIS PETER
The big and small ideas to replace fossil fuels The North North West West isis looking looking at at The ambitious plans plans for for renewable renewable ambitious energy, reports reports Toby Toby Murcott Murcott energy, THERE isis aa caravan caravan park park inin THERE Cumbriawith withaasecret secret— —itithas has Cumbria hidden power power station station asas aa aa hidden neighbour. The The small small hydrohydroneighbour. electricpower powerstation stationininGlenGlenelectric riddingproduces producesenough enoughelecelecridding tricitytotopower power300 300homes. homes. tricity Controlled remotely remotely from from Controlled Manchesterthe thestation stationsimply simply Manchester sits sitsthere, there, virtually virtuallysilent silentininaa converted converted barn, barn, extracting extracting
TheNorth NorthWest West The hasmany manynatural natural has resourcesand and resources plentyof ofexpertise expertise plenty carbon carbon free free electricity electricity from from the therain-soaked rain-soakedhillside. hillside. Cumbria Cumbriaand andthe theLake LakeDisDistrict trictcould couldhave havebeen beenmade madefor for hydropower. hydropower. High High rainfall rainfall on on steep steepslopes slopesprovides providesfast-flowfast-flowing ing water water able able toto turn turn aa vast vast number number ofof turbines turbines — — but but there there isis aa problem. problem. Installing Installing hydroelectric hydroelectric schemes schemes across across the theLake LakeDistrict Districtmakes makessense sense from from aa clean clean energy energy perspecperspective, tive, but but itit would would turn turn the the national nationalpark parkinto intoan aneyesore eyesore ininthe theeyes eyesofofmany. many. This This conflict conflict between between the the need needtotoreduce reducefossil fossilfuel fuelconconsumption sumptionand andthe thepreservation preservation
ofofthe theenvironment environmentdominates dominates renewable renewable energy energy debates. debates. And Andthat thatisisbefore beforeeconomics, economics, reliability, reliability,sustainability, sustainability,planplanning ningimplications implicationsand andtechnotechnological logical know-how know-how are are taken taken into intoaccount. account. George George Aggidis, Aggidis, professor professor ofof engineering engineering atat Lancaster Lancaster University, University, isis hoping hoping toto ease ease the thecontroversy. controversy.He Heisisheading heading aa team team developing developing aa tool tool toto help help anyone anyone considering considering aa hydroelectricity hydroelectricityscheme. scheme. The The idea idea isis toto produce produce aa website website that that anyone anyone can can visit visit and and enter enter the the details details ofof their their proposed proposedgenerator. generator.The Theinforinformation mation will will be be processed processed toto produce produceaareport reportdetailing detailingjust just what what needs needs toto be be done done toto make make itit viable. viable. The The aim, aim, says says Aggidis, Aggidis,isistotomake makeitituseful usefulfor for everyone everyone from from aa farmer farmer hophoping ingtotoexploit exploitaastream streamtotopolipolicymakers cymakers developing developing largelargescale scalepower powergeneration generationplans. plans. The The backing backing for for Aggidis’s Aggidis’s project project comes comes from from the the Joule Joule Centre Centrefor forEnergy EnergyResearch, Research,aa partnership partnershipofofNorth NorthWest Westuniuniversities, versities,commercial commercialorganisaorganisations tions and and the the Northwest Northwest ReRegionalDevelopment DevelopmentAgency. Agency. gional NickJenkins, Jenkins,Joule’s Joule’sdirecdirecNick tor, says says the the centre’s centre’s funding funding tor, —£5 £5million millionover overfive fiveyears years— — —
Greendilemma: dilemma:the theLake LakeDistrict’s District’shigh highrainfall rainfalland andsteep steepslopes slopesare aremade madefor forhydropower hydropowerbut butthe theassociated associatedplant plantwould wouldbe bean aneyesore eyesore Green
aimedatatboth bothenergy energysupply supply isisaimed andconservation. conservation. and The first first round round early early last last The yearfocused focusedon onwhat whatJenkins Jenkins year callswet wetprojects, projects,hydropower, hydropower, calls wavepower powerand andsuch suchlike. like.The The wave secondround roundconcentrated concentratedon on second reducing demand demand and and has has reducing fundedprojects projectssuch suchasasaamathmathfunded ematical technique technique toto work work ematical outthe themost mostefficient efficientways waysofof out managing electricity electricity demand demand managing andexploring exploringthe thebest bestway wayofof and using low-power low-power alternatives alternatives using lightbulbs. bulbs.The Thethird thirdcall callfor for totolight fundingisisunder underway waywith withthe the funding themeofofenergy energysupply supplytechtechtheme nologies— —how howtotomake makeand and nologies distributerenewable renewableenergy. energy. distribute The North North West, West, says says The Jenkins,has hasmany manynatural naturalrereJenkins, sources toto exploit exploitand and aa conconsources centration ofof expertise expertise inin the the centration
local universities universities and and indusinduslocal tries. The The grants grants awarded awarded by by tries. theJoule JouleCentre Centrerepresent representjust just the fraction ofof the the research research inin aa fraction theregion. region. the There are are studies studies under under There way into into tidal tidal power power inin the the way
Tidalpower powerhas hasthe the Tidal potentialto toprovide provide potential 15-20per percent centof of 15-20 theUK’ UK’sselectricity electricity the Merseyestuary, estuary,offshore offshorewind wind Mersey farms,wave waveenergy energyand andthe theimimfarms, pactofofair airtravel. travel.Jenkins Jenkinshimhimpact selfisisinvolved involvedininresearch researchinto into self largewind windturbines turbinesand andaafloatfloatlarge ing wave wave power power device device called called ing theManchester ManchesterBobber. Bobber. the Aggidis’s group, group, meanmeanAggidis’s
while, isis developing developing the the PS PS while, Frog, an an intriguingly intriguingly named named Frog, alternativewave wavepower powerdevice. device. alternative There are are also also ambitious ambitious There plans toto extract extract energy energy from from plans the tides. tides. Richard Richard Burrows, Burrows, the professorofofenvironmental environmentalhyhyprofessor draulicsatatLiverpool, Liverpool,isistrying trying draulics workout outhow howmuch muchelectricelectrictotowork ity tidal tidal power power can can be be harharity nessedininthe theeastern easternIrish IrishSea. Sea. nessed Themost mostcontroversial controversialtidtidThe power schemes schemes are are known known alal power thebarrages barrages— —huge hugedams dams asasthe thatfill fillup upwith withwater wateratathigh high that tide and and then then release release water water tide through turbines turbines asas the the tide tide through ebbsaway. away.They Theyare, are,says saysBurBurebbs rows, probably probably the the most most effieffirows, cientmethod methodofofcapturing capturingtidtidcient energy but but they they also also have have alal energy bigenvironmental environmentalimpacts. impacts. big Themost mostcommon commonconcern concern The
thatthey theywill willdamage damageimporimporisisthat tanthabitat, habitat,particularly particularlybirds. birds. tant But tidal tidal barrages barrages could could also also But protect coasts coasts from from some some ofof protect the the effects effects ofof global global warming warming by by acting acting asas flood flood barriers. barriers. They Theycould couldalso alsoprovide provideaddiadditional tionalcrossings crossingswith withroads roadsrunrunning ningalong alongthe thetop. top.Burrows Burrowsisis also also exploring exploring alternatives alternatives toto barrages, barrages, such such asas placing placing turturbines bineson onthe theseabed seabedwhere wheretidtidalalcurrents currentsare arefast. fast. Burrows Burrows says says tidal tidal power power has has the the potential potential toto produce produce between between1515and and20 20per percent centofof the UK’s UK’s electricity. electricity. Couple Couple the this with with hydro, hydro, wind wind and and this wavepower powerand andthese thesetechnoltechnolwave ogies have have the the potential potential toto ogies makeaasignificant significantdent dentininBritBritmake ain’s ain’sreliance relianceon onfossil fossilfuels. fuels. 11www.joulecentre.org www.joulecentre.org
One happy family says ‘it’s great up North’ MARKSUMNER/MERCURY SUMNER/MERCURYPRESS PRESS MARK
LivingininStyal: Styal:Neil Neiland andTiffany Tiffanywith withchildren childrenJake Jakeand andJessica Jessicasoon soondecided decidedthey theywould wouldstay stayfor forgood good Living
WHEN WHENNeil Neiland andTiffany TiffanyHenHenry rytold toldfriends friendsthat thatthey theywere were moving movingfrom fromHenley HenleytotoManManchester chesterthe theattitude attitudewas was“why “why on on earth earth would would you you want want toto go gothere?” there?”They Theyadmit admittotoharharbouring bouringaafew fewpreconceptions preconceptions ofoftheir theirown ownas asthey theyrelocated relocated with with two two young young children children toto Styal, Styal, Cheshire. Cheshire. Six Six years years later, later,they theywould wouldnot notreturn. return. Neil, Neil,43, 43,has hasbuilt builtaamarketmarketing ing company company specialising specialising inin the theretail retailand andfinancial financialsectors sectors and and has has put put exhausting exhausting days days commuting commuting between between OxfordOxfordshire shireand andLondon Londonbehind behindhim. him. The Thefamily familyhas hasthrived thrivedininthe the rolling rollingCheshire Cheshirecountryside. countryside. They Theymoved movedtotoaasemi-rural semi-rural suburb suburb renowned renowned for forQuarry Quarry Bank BankMill, Mill,aa19th-century 19th-centurymill mill where where apprentices apprentices worked worked from from dawn dawn toto dusk dusk atat their their looms loomsand, and,on ontheir theirone oneday dayofof rest, rest,were weremarched marchedtotochapel. chapel.
These Thesedays daysthe themill millisisaavisitor visitor attraction attraction atat the the centre centre ofof aa National NationalTrust Trustcountry countrypark. park. Tiffany, Tiffany, 40, 40, said: said: “I“I was was quite quite nervous nervous about about coming coming up upnorth northtotoManchester. Manchester.IIdid did not notknow knowaasoul. soul.Now, Now,ititisisdifdifficult ficulttotoremember rememberthat thattime. time. After After six six years years we we call call itit home. home.We Wehave haveestablished establishedaa wide widecircle circleofoffriends. friends.“When “When IIarrived arrivedwith withtwo twosmall smallchildchildren renIIfound foundpeople peopleapproachapproachable ableand andhappy happytototalk. talk.Even Even atat the the checkout checkout atat Tesco Tesco people people strike strike up up aa conversaconversation. tion.IIwas wasnot notused usedtotoititbut but have havecome cometotoappreciate appreciateit”. it”. The The move move north north came came about about when when Neil Neil became became aa group group marketing marketing director director inin Wilmslow. Wilmslow. AA year year later later he he judged judged itit was was right right toto go go itit alone. alone.He Hesays: says:“When “Whenwe wededecided cided toto set set up up aa business business aa year year after after we we arrived, arrived, itit was was
driven driven by by the the desire desire toto stay stay here. here. Within Within aa year year we we had had gone gone from from not not being being tied tied toto this thispart partofofthe theworld worldtotowantwanting ingmost mostdefinitely definitelytotostay.” stay.” Neil Neil and and aa partner partner set set up up Linchpin Linchpin Marketing Marketing inin 2001. 2001. The Thebusiness, business,which whichemploys employs seven seven people, people, isis an an affinity affinity marketing marketing agency agency brokering brokering deals dealsbetween betweenorganisations. organisations. He He adds: adds: “This “This isis aa good good place placetotobe. be.We Weare arenot notaalocal local or orregional regionalmarketing marketingagency. agency. Our Ourclients clientsare arenational nationalorganorganisations isationsjust justas aslikely likelytotobe beinin Bournemouth, Bournemouth, South South Wales Wales or orCambridge Cambridgeas asininLondon. London. “It “It has has never never cropped cropped up up with with aaclient clientthat that they they are areinin the the South South and and we we are are inin the the North. North.Meeting Meetingaaclient clientface facetoto face faceisisless lessimportant. important.AAlot lotofof work work can can be be done done via via e-mail e-mail or orconference conferencecalls.” calls.” RUSSELL RUSSELLJENKINS JENKINS
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New York sets up shop Liz Loxton on why a top US bank has opened up in Manchester OPENING UP an office from scratch is not the Bank of New York’s usual tactic. The venerable institution is better known for acquiring teams and offices. In September 2005, however, the bank opened for business on Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens. The Manchester office handles specialist financial services for global clients and specialises in securities servicing — the settlement and management of equity investment portfolios for pension funds, insurance companies and investment funds. Jackie Williams, head of operations, says that for this critical and high-value line of business, the bank wanted to put its stamp on a new group of people. “We took the opportunity to look around. And Manchester came up as a clear favourite.” Today the Manchester operation has 430 staff, up from 120 when it opened, and Williams aims to reach 730 by the end of this year. She says the bank has been delighted with high-calibre local candidates. With four universities within easy reach, the bank has the pick of “literally hundreds of graduates in the kind of degree subjects we’re interested in,” Williams says. For Manchester, the arrival of the Bank of New York is significant. While the city already had a good spread of established banks — some 60 players — none were providing securities servicing, so the move helped create a sense that the
Burning the midnight oil: Bank of New York’s stylish offices at 1 Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
region could provide more than just the bedrock of mainstream banking and financial activity. The bank has reinforced that impression. Its recruitment drive this year is all about setting up another niche operation to handle fund accounting and reporting for asset managers. These specialist services complement Manchester’s already thriving business banking sector. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), for instance, provides banking services for many of the FTSE 250 companies that have headquarters in the North West. Richard Topliss, an RBS executive, says the bank prides itself on being able to support any client wanting to access asset, debt, equity or syndicated finance out of Manchester, without recourse to London expertise. “The region has ever increasing self confidence,” he says. “We have a
great focus on aerospace, food manufacturing and indeed financial services locally.” Paul Smith, of Bank of Scotland Corporate, echoes those sentiments, pointing out that the growth of Manchester and Liverpool airports means that few international destinations
Pool of talent
18,590
The number of students in Greater Manchester
37,923
The number of students at North West universities
54,253
The number of students within one hour’s drive Source: Midas
are out of reach. For overseas companies with subsidiaries based in the region, 70 per cent of those subsidiaries can fly direct to their parent companies, whether in Europe or America. “The North West is a very attractive, buoyant place for businesses to be based,” Smith says. “The city has worked very hard over the last ten years to promote the idea that we have the professional abilities here to service the larger deals and clients.” Midas, Manchester’s inward investment agency, wants to attract more American banks to the region and says that proof of the city’s vibrancy as a financial centre lies in the Bank of New York’s growth. Certainly Jackie Williams has no qualms about endorsing the skills and professionalism that she has found. “We’re developing a real centre of excellence here.”
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Half-price fees prove to be a strong incentive TWO hours from London by train, flights from Manchester Airport to 190 international destinations and 220,000 professional and financial staff — the stage is set for Manchester’s transformation from industrial to financial heartland. The region’s lawyers, accountants and entrepreneurs with the backing of big financial institutions and private equity houses are promoting hard the North West’s dealmaking and capital markets expertise. They have some big deals to point to, notably the sale of the Caudwell Group to two private equity houses for £1.5 billion last year. The deal was brokered by Manchester corporate financiers at NM Rothschild with legal advice from Manchester’s Eversheds office. Eversheds, DLA Piper and Addleshaws all provide advisory work for private equity deals in Manchester and the city offers not just expertise, but great value for money, says Daniel Hall, head of corporate finance at Eversheds. At £350 per hour, fees are half those of London equivalents. That is a persuasive argu-
ment for deals with a value of £100 million-plus. There were 28 private equity deals of more than £100 million involving North West companies last year. The total value of deals that year was £19.7 billion, against £10.9 billion in 2005. The city also has a thriving AIM advisory community, including the only group of AIM Nomads — nominated advisers — outside London. Frank Shephard, partner in Halliwells corporate finance division, says: “Not all the regions raise public equity as well as you see in Manchester.” Pete Clarke of ISIS Equity Partners, adds: “There is a real centre of excellence here.” The Big Four accountants have a presence in Manchester along with national firms, BDO Stoy Hayward, Grant Thornton and Baker Tilly, — named AIM Accountant of the Year by Growth Company Investor four years running. According to Baker Tilly independent research, 23 North West companies were admitted to AIM in 2006 raising £254 million. LIZ LOXTON
Well covered
Liverpool move
CHUBB Insurance, the US company, has a one-stop -shop policy for directors’ and officers’ cover, professional indemnity, pension fund liability and business interruption. Hiscox Insurance, which opened in Manchester in January, is targeting the city’s emerging professions such as business consultancy and media with similar cover.
MANCHESTER is not the only city in the region making waves in the financial world. Panmure Gordon, the stockbroker, is opening an office in the heart of Liverpool, with a research team recently migrated from Numis. Tim Linacre, the chief executive, says that the city has huge potential in the small and mid-cap business area.
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BAe takes to the skies with not a pilot in sight BAE Systems is best known for its tanks, ships and aircraft, such as the multi-national Typhoon, Nimrod MRA4, Tornado, Harrier and the Joint Strike Fighter, all of which are, or will be, products of its North West operations. But in an era of increasingly smart-warfare, the company’s role is changing, a fact recognised by the name chosen when Aerospace British merged with Marconi to create the current business. Today, BAE Systems’ operations at Warton and Salmesbury in Lancashire are worldleading centres of innovation and technological excellence in systems development. The company is a major employer in the North West with 8,000 people on its books and thousands more in its supply chain. One of the company’s primary areas of focus is the race to provide UK forces with the edge in autonomy and the ISTAR (information, surveillance, tracking and reconnaissance) as well as networks and information systems. BAE Systems were relatively late into the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) race but since it entered the field in 2002, it has made progress. One of its projects is HERTI ( High Endurance Rapid Technology Insertion). The UAV takes off with the click of a mouse and, when it lands later after 25 hours of operations, another click switches it off. It has been flying its test missions in the skies above Scotland and Australia. PETER DAVENPORT
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Crewe car that the world wants Bentley is the choice across the globe, reports Peter Davenport HARNESSING Bentley’s traditions of quality, outstanding engineering and craftsmanship to innovative, contemporary design has been the key to the worldwide success of a marque that is a flagship of manufacturing excellence in the North West. Last year the company, which is based at Crewe, recorded the best annual sales and production figures in its 88-year history. Output reached 10,087 cars, with global sales in excess of 9,200. The success was led by the impressive first full-year sales of the Continental Flying Spur, which topped 4,500 deliveries worldwide, a performance that was reinforced by the unprecedented launch of two convertible models in a single year — the Continental GTC and the Azure. With entry prices for the Continental GT, known as the Baby Bentley and the most successful car in the company’s history, starting at £117,500, and rising to £222,500 for the convertible version of the Azure, these are not cars for the masses. But there are increasing numbers of people around the globe who want to own a Bentley and have the financial clout to buy one. America, Bentley's biggest market, accounts for more than 40 per cent of sales, fol-
The convertible version of the Bentley Continental GT, whose modern and sporty styling has won a new, younger market
lowed by Britain and mainland Europe. Bentley Motors was founded in 1919 and has been producing hand-assembled cars at Crewe since 1946. The history of the firm has been peppered with more twists and turns than a grand
prix circuit, including receivership, recession and redundancies but throughout it all the company has retained a commitment and belief in engineering excellence, design innovation and craftsmanship. Volkswagen acquired the company and site for £470 mil-
Bentley factfile 0 1919: Bentley Motors founded by W.O. Bentley. 0 1946: Production started in Crewe. 0 1998: Owned by Volkswagen AG. £500 million investment in Crewe operations since acquisition . 0 2003: won the Le Mans 24-hour race after five earlier victories in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. 0 2006: the best-ever year for production (10,087 cars) and sales (more than 9,200) in company’s 88-year with history. The “Baby Bentley”, the Continental GT, becomes its most successful car.
lion in 1998 and over the past nine years has pumped in a further £500 million of investment to develop the plant into a world-leading car manufacturing centre. To provide the capacity to cope with the high levels of initial order volumes for the Continental Flying Spur, the temporary final assembly of a limited number of the models was carried out in Dresden. However, that arrangement finished last December and now all Bentley production is carried out at its historic home of Crewe. Bentley’s hallmarks of quality include superb engineering, powerful performance, luxurious leather and the finest wood veneers. But it was the launch of the Continental GT coupe in 2003 with its modern, thrusting and sporty styling
0 1977: British Aerospace (BAe) is formed as a nationalised entity by the merger of British Aircraft Corporation and other planemakers. 0 1999: After unsuccessful diversifications, the company focuses on the core business of defence and aerospace. BAeE Systems created with the merger with GEC Marconi Electronic Systems. 0 2005: BAE Systems acquires United Defence Industries and becomes the seventh leading supplier to the US Department of Defense. Sales exceed £12 billion. 0 2006: BAE Systems sells its 20 per cent stake in Airbus to EADS signalling its commitment to its core defence business. IT employs 88,000 people.
that took the Bentley appeal to a new — and younger — generation of aspirational, image conscious owners around the world. From Beijing to Bombay, from Seoul to Silicon Valley, the model has become the transport-of-choice for successful individuals who prize the blend of traditional values with contemporary design and breathtaking performance. This year the convertible version of the Continental GT collected two highly regarded awards within months of its international launch. It is not just the Bentley name and all that it conveys that is so important to the manufacturing status of the North West. The company employs 4,000 people at Crewe and impacts on the lives of tens of thousands of others through its network of suppliers.
Pilkington in the forefront of Europe’s MIKE FRISBEE
BAe factfile
THE TIMES 19 MARCH 2007
A NEW EU Directive that will come into force later this year is expected to revolutionise the way homes are bought, sold and rented in the UK and boost the demand for “intelligent” energy-saving glass. It amounts to good news for Pilkington, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of float, coated, rolled, laminated and toughened glass products. Its innovative K Glass reflects heat back into a property, reducing energy wastage while letting in the sun’s heat. Energy performance certificates will be introduced as part of the EU’s energy performance of buildings directive, legislation that comes into force in June and which will have significant implications for the specification of energy-saving products, including energy-efficient glazing. The certificates will rate the energy performance of each property on a scale of A to G. They will also highlight to potential buyers how a
home’s energy efficiency can be improved to bring savings on energy bills. As governments and consumers become increasingly cost-conscious on energy, the development builds on a similar rating scheme for windows used by the glazing industry. Window energy ratings (WERs) give consumers the opportunity to make informed choices about the types of windows installed in their homes. About 20 per cent of the heat in a house can be lost through single-glazed windows. By fitting new double glazing, such as insulating glass units containing Pilkington's K Glass, the loss can be reduced by 50 per cent, bringing savings of up to £100 a year on the energy bills of an average three-bedroom home. Products from Pilkington have played an important part in creating an industry first. The industry body, the
British Fenestration Rating Council ( BFRC) has awarded the first ever A-rated window under the WER scheme to a product using the firm’s K Glass and Optiwhite products. They were used by Piper Double Glazing to develop a triple-glazed sealed unit that was the first to achieve the highest energy efficiency grade. Innovation has been a constant theme for Pilkington since the business first started in 1826. Last year, Pilkington was acquired by Nippon Sheet Glass to create one of the world’s largest companies in the flat glass industry with 36,000 employees, manufacturing operations in 26 countries an annual sales of £4 billion in 130 countries. In the UK, Pilkington has a workforce of 1,100 at its headquarters in St. Helens, which is the home of its three UK float manufacturing lines, as well as a network of 23 branches nationwide. PETER DAVENPORT
Hot stuff: a rolled-glass plant at Pilkington’s St Helens factory
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Class act at Halewood Peter Davenport on how two into one works in Merseyside IN THE more than 40 years since Ford began operations at its Halewood plant, more than six million vehicles have rolled off the production lines. The company has had to continually invest and innovate to ensure that the Merseyside facility remained a premier manufacturing location. Such innovation is evident by the achievement of having the award-winning Land Rover Freelander 2 and Jaguar XType travelling down the same production line although the vehicles have different architecture and no shared components, a world first in the automotive industry. Manufacturing two completely different models on the same line has only been made possible by a multi-million pound investment and introduction of new and radical systems and processes. “Halewood Operations was the ideal choice for the all new Freelander 2,” says Thomas Klein, Halewood operations director. “The plant has already proved it could build high quality luxury vehicles with the Jaguar X-Type and has received a great deal of external recognition for quality and lean manufacturing achievements.” Preparing to build two completely different vehicles along the same production line was a huge challenge, Klein says.
“Our success has been achieved through a winning combination of a dedicated and committed workforce, a total focus on quality and a willingness to change and be flexible.The result is a world class plant and two world class products.” Halewood Operations is a big employer on Merseyside with around 2,500 employees based at the 300-acre site. But its impact on the regional economy is much wider. There are 283 suppliers for Freelander 2 alone, for example, providing 3,250 individual parts for each vehicle, none of which are shared with the X-Type. Twenty-four of those suppliers are based in the North West, creating and supporting hundreds of additional jobs. Six suppliers operate dedicated feeder plants on a supplier park next to Halewood. They include JCI, which provides seats; Visteon, instrument panels; and Decoma, bumpers. Halewood’s transformation began in 2000 when, after almost 40 years of producing Ford vehicles, Jaguar took over the site. A significant investment programme turned the plant from a mass-production assembly operation to a world-class manufacturing facility focused on premium models. The decision to produce
World first: a Land Rover Freelander 2 and a Jaguar X-Type go down the same production line though they share no components
the two distinctively different vehicles on the same production line held out significant cost and efficiency benefits, but also posed a major challenge for the internal logistics team in managing parts delivery and storage in the limited space available. Innovations introduced include a lineside flow-racking
system and the creation of permanent locations around the site for every part number required in the manufacturing process. All stock can be delivered lineside on a “just in time” basis, managed by the use of a control system using radio frequency technology. When production operators need more parts, they sim-
ply press a call button to send an electronic request to the relevant part location. With thousands of models destined for the export market, moving them quickly and efficiently to their point of departure is a major logistical operation. Freelander 2 alone is being exported to 148 markets worldwide. A purpose-built railhead
Halewood factfile 0 Ford manufactured cars at Halewood for almost 40 years 0 1990: New Escort launched following £600 million of investment 0 1991: Halewood's five millionth vehicle produced 0 1993: Halewood becomes first plant in Europe to achieve ISO9000 0 1998: Halewood wins
energy-saving drive Pilkington facts 0 Founded in 1826 0 Headquarters in St. Helens 0 Member of the NSG (Nippon Sheet Glass) group since June 2006 0 One of world’s largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products 0 Combined annual sales of NSG/Pilkington are about £4 billion 0 Ownership/interest in 50 float lines on five continents 0 Annual output of 6.4 million tonnes of float glass 0 36,000 employees worldwide 0 Manufacturing operations in 26 countries 0 Sales in more than 130 countries 0 Float process, invented by Sir Alastair Pilkington in 1952 is now the world standard for high quality glass manufacture 0 Inventors of the world’s first self-cleaning glass
manufacturing contract for Jaguar X-Type 0 2000: Last Ford Escort produced on July 21 0 2001: First Jaguar X-Type rolls off production line 0 2002: First Jaguar X-Type diesel is produced 0 2002, 2003, 2004: Ford auditors rate Halewood “Best body and assembly operation in the world”
0 2003: first Jaguar X-Type Estate is produced 0 2004: Halewood wins “Environmental Business of the Year” award in recognition of reductions in consumption of energy, raw materials and water 0 2005: 250,000th Jaguar X-Type produced 0 2006: first Freelander 2 produced in October
was constructed in 2001 and can cater for four specialised trains transporting up to 360 vehicles a day from the plant. It handles more than 65 per cent of all models intended for export. According to Jaguar, transporting Freelander 2 vehicles by rail reduces road traffic by 51,000 lorry journeys a year, the equivalent of 9.8 million miles per year and delivers a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by some 13,200 tonnes annually. For three consecutive years, Halewood received the highest score in a worldwide process audit of all Ford owned plants, helping to set global benchmarks for the company. In recognition of this, a learning academy was opened at the plant and so far it has helped to train hundreds of managers from across Europe.
University security challenge IN A world where airline travel has never been more popular and risk of terrorism a danger, the forecast rise in UK passenger numbers from 200 million in 2003 to 500 million in 2030 only serves to emphasise the need for fast, accurate and reliable systems to screen the millions of items of baggage that accompany those passengers. Multiply the figures on a world basis and while the problem looks daunting, the commercial opportunity is huge. CXR, a technology company based at East Manchester’s science and technology business centre, One Central Park, is pioneering new 3-D scanning techniques that it is confident will change the face of airline baggage screening. It is a subsidiary of Rapiscan Systems, a division of OSI Systems, a leader in security inspection utilising X-ray and gamma-ray imaging and advanced threat identification techniques such as neutron and diffraction analysis. Its products are sold into
Cutting-edge partners: Ed Morton, right, of CXR, and professor Bill Lionheart of Manchester University
four key market sectors; baggage and parcel inspection, cargo and vehicle inspection, hold baggage screening and people screening. There are more than 50,000 of its systems installed around the world. CXR works on real-time tomography, which involves scanning objects in slices to provide accurate images, for example, of items in suitcases. Last year it opened a hightech research facility on the business park to be near the
University of Manchester, its partner in a £750,000 research project aimed at improving air passenger safety by providing fast, accurate 3D X-ray baggage images. The university was able to help the firm to recruit eight specialist engineers from the North West, including five of its own graduates. The fact that Manchester Airport is nearby and a user of Rapiscan Systems, was another benefit. PETER DAVENPORT
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THE TIMES 19 MARCH 2007
IAN LAWSON PHOTOGRAPHY
Infinitely varied but very neatly contained Paul Driver remains in awe of Manchester — the city that captured his heart as a child THE very word Manchester for me suggests life . From earliest childhood I heard those syllables, although we generally spoke of town. Going to this place from my home in Salford was synonymous with excitement. The bus journeys were an endless education, and the arrival in the bustle of the old Market Street — the bus moving so slowly that I could gaze into every shop-window — gave me no reason to doubt that this was the centre of the universe. Manchester was infinitely varied but at the same time marvellously contained. You
could walk everywhere, even as a child. And so it remains. Market Street has changed drastically. It was seriously “Arndaled”, even if it has begun to recover from the outbreak of yellow tiles. Nor is Piccadilly Gardens the private refuge it once was. (The construction of the Arndale Centre in the 1960s was controversial because it replaced a rich variety of Victorian facades.) But the city’s expansion has not spoilt the essential cosiness of the place, the sense it gives of being on a human scale; of providing what the writer Simone Weil, thinking
BRIGITTE BOTT/ALAMY
Hallé home: Bridgewater Hall, the orchestra’s stunning new base
Bon appetit: the centre of Manchester takes on a Mediterranean look in summer as shoppers eat al fresco in Deansgate Locks
of the oppression of new concrete cities, charmingly called a humus — “a living, warm environment, full of companionship in which the uprooted can live and find their salvation”. Leaving theology aside, though the always active cathedral is one of the glories of the place, Manchester is surely an admirable city for the relocated. It seems to be growing facilities all the time. It astounds the sceptical native with its profusion of new apartment buildings. Who are the people who are evidently crying out to live here? How can all these spaces be filled? But they are. And more modernist blocks go up in the stylish dockside development of Salford Quays, and more of the old textile warehouses are converted into debonair lofts. What used to be the dull (Knott Mill) end of Deansgate is now the site of the North West’s most visible and extraordinary building, the Beetham Tower, a visionary glass structure of such height and apparent fragility (the next wind must surely blow it over) that one cannot quite believe it is there. However, it contains that most solid of entities, a Hilton Hotel, and we know it will not really topple because the archi-
tect himself lives in the penthouse. Bars, cafés and restaurants naturally proliferate in the wake of such developments, and Manchester has some outstanding shops — a Vivienne Westwood boutique tucked away near what used to be the Bank of England of the North; a spacious portmanteau building containing both a Marks & Spencers and a Selfridges; and one of the biggest, pleasantest, best-stocked Waterstone’s. Near Waterstone’s on Deansgate is the North West’s
most distinguished music shop, Forsyth’s, still in the same premises, with their distinctive Moorish windows, after 150 years. If you weary of the Mancunian pace of change, all you need do is enter the showroom, where classical music blends with the tinkle of pianos being tuned, to be wafted back to the 1950s. Music has long been among the city’s attractions. The country’s first permanent professional symphony orches-
tra, the Hallé, gave it first concert here in 1858 and is playing better than ever, based at the purpose-built Bridgewater Hall. The excellent BBC Philharmonic performs there too, and the smaller-scale Manchester Camerata. Between Bridgewater Hall and the public spaces of the Royal Northern College of Music, musical activity in Manchester is more bustling than in any British city after London. As if to underline the fact, an ambitious biennial music festival starts up this summer. The other arts are far from neglected: the City Art Gallery is a superb, modernised establishment; the Royal Exchange Theatre and Library Theatre companies are long-proven and adventurous. The latter is home to the Central Library, which with its British Museum-style round reading room, is itself a great Manchester asset. At the Lowry centre in Salford Quays, opera, theatre and ballet flourish alongside the visual arts, while on the opposite bank of the Manchester Ship Canal sits Daniel Libeskind’s resplendently fractured Imperial War Museum of the North. The list begins to sound boastful. But the area has benefited hugely from cultural initi-
0 Yang Sing: became the first “ethnic” restaurant awarded a pestle and mortar by the Good Food Guide for its Cantonese fare. The restaurant has a new 1930s Shanghai-style decor and can offer everything from snacks to banquets. 34 Princess Street (0161) 236-2200 www.yang-sing.com
0 Juniper: with its single Michelin star this is the place to be seen on a night out from Manchester or the Cheshire commuter belt. Gordon Ramsay says that it is a powerhouse of the North. 21 The Downs, Altrincham, Cheshire (0161) 929-4008 www.juniper-restaurant.co.uk
What was the dull end of Deansgate now houses an extraordinary tower
atives, and the BBC’s plan to move 1,500 employees to the Quays can only be a further stimulus to improvement. Of course, there is more to the city than culture. Not far along the canal from the museum is Old Trafford, and if Manchester is a wonderful place for sport, it now promises, since the award of a supercasino, to be a wonderful one for gambling, too. The city has travelled far from its abject industrial image, yet many of the mill buildings survive, not all of them “suitably” trans-
The tram system in parts follows tracks used in the last century formed, and a sense of community is palpable. The construction of a tram system that in parts follows the tracks used in the early part of the last century provides a touching image both of the continuity and “liveability” of Manchester, for trams are the most comfortable kind of transport. You can get around in this city and more than get by in it. Paul Driver is the author of Manchester Pieces
WHERE TO STAY, EAT AND DRINK IN MANCHESTER 0 The Lowry Hotel: Rocco Forte’s hotel is the first five-star offering in the area and the first to join the prestigious The Leading Hotels of the World group. A contemporary building in the Chapel Wharf area. 50 Dearmans Place, Chapel Wharf. (0161) 827-4000 www.thelowryhotel.com
0 Hilton Manchester Deansgate: You can spot the building from miles away — the Beetham Tower, the city’s newest landmark. The hotel is in the lower 23 floors. Nearby is everything you need in a city including two great soccer clubs. 303 Deansgate (0161) 870-1643 www.hilton.co.uk
0 Great John Street Hotel: If you like a butler at your beck and call this is for you. It has ultra-modern glitz on a old school house. Meeting rooms are styled the girls’ and boys’ classroom and there are rooms and a terrace for entertainment. Great John Street,Castlefield (0161) 831-3211 www.greatjohnstreet.co.uk
0 Lounge 10: it would be easy to miss this little gem with its bland exterior. Inside you will find three floors of glamour and sophistication reminiscent of a 19th Century Parisian nightclub with red velvet and crystal chandeliers. 10 Tib Lane (0161) 834-1331 www.lounge10manchester.co.uk
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HUGH ROUTLEDGE/TNL HUGH ROUTLEDGE/TNL
Confessionsofofaaglory gloryhunter hunter Confessions A Liverpudlian without a would AS AASLiverpudlian without a We We would sometimes sometimes parkpark in in Manchester friends Manchester and and my my friends the and red and halves ratesrates the red blue blue halves of city the Icity I always thought scouse accent, I probably scouse accent, I probably talk talk attending a were her her drivedrive whenwhen attending a were of the always thought it it divided to which divided as toaswhich was was should be more impressive. about where about where I wasI was bornborn moremore match. There was was a price to to match. There a price be more impressive. It It the better to shop. I sup-should the better placeplace to shop. I supwhere pushed People usually thanthan most.most. People usually pay pay as she and and my my cousins as she cousins was was where I wasI was pushed in a in a Manchester had some posepose Manchester had some de- dethe place where clever. thinkthink theythey are are beingbeing clever. werewere Evertonians and and they they Evertonians prampram and and the place where I I shops but as a Icity I could cent cent shops but as a city could would of the am of fan ofwould TheyThey learnlearn that that I amI fan moan that that on aon point of of would moan a point would hearhear the the roarroar of the barley believe anyone barley believe that that anyone crowd I could Liverpool Liverpool FC FC and and thenthen principle they they never usually let let principle never usually whenwhen I could not not get get would plump for Manchester.crowd would plump for Manchester. Anfield. It will pounce. a glory pounce. “So “So you you are aareglory Liverpool fans fans use their drive.drive. Liverpool Liverpool use their Anfield. It will soonsoon be be Liverpool a freshness, a into has ahas freshness, a into the of sitea of a new football hunter,” proclaim. “What The The hunter,” theythey proclaim. “What city was fasci-fascicity endlessly was endlessly the site new football sta- staconstant breeze the Merconstant breeze fromfrom the Merto outsiders made you support Liverpool?” made you support Liverpool?” nating to me grew up. Ifup. Ifsey and nating to as meI as I grew and and to outsiders it it sey and the sort of beauty the sort of beauty you youdiumdium would natural I delight in telling I delight in telling themthem I wasI was we were on aon tripa to we were tripthe to town the town would seemseem natural and and cer- cerget from a city on the onlyonly get from a city on the “Onhead, me head, “On me tainly economical if two the two in city the city brought bornborn in the and and brought centre I would actually looklook centre I would actually tainly economical if the water. I would water. I would starestare and and starestare Alyson up on son”:son”: Alyson football shared up Belmont on Belmont in the RoadRoad in the forward to the moment a at forward to the moment a the football clubsclubs shared it. it. at Liver the Liver on Liver the Liver birdsbirds on the RuddRudd has ahas a district is Liverpool district of Anfield. of Anfield. scruffy boy demanded car proscruffy boy demanded car prothis this is Liverpool and and building; and have people But But building; and have met met people littlelittle help help never happen. There family moved My My family moved awayaway tection money fromfrom my dad. tection money my dad. that that will will never happen. There refuse to believe sincesince whowho refuse to believe Arsene whenwhen fromfrom Arsene is enough space, thank goodstill small but notHe was I wasI was still small but not happy to pay said said He was happy to and pay and space, thank goodreally do watchis enough LiverLiver birdsbirds really do watch Wenger Wenger whilewhile for clubs the clubs to face so that far that we not did not so far we did drivedrive the the car car would be be better would better ness,ness, for the to face up up the city. overover the city. awaiting awaiting the theinto into to their of regeneraLiverpool weekend. Liverpool everyevery weekend. looked if in lefta in a The The looked afterafter thanthan if left to their ownown kindkind of regeneradisappointing onlyonly disappointing call from call from alone. ofaunts my aunts directly OneOne of my livedlived directly car park. My home tion tion alone. car park. My home backback thenthen is, Stanley placeplace was, was, and and is, Stanley Anfield Anfield ALYSON RUDD ALYSON RUDD opposite Liverpool’s stadium. opposite Liverpool’s stadium. in between Liverpool was was in between Liverpool and and Asgarden the garden Park.Park. As the that that sepa-sepa-
Liverpool’syear yearof ofliving livingdelightedly delightedly Liverpool’s TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS
JOHN COGHILL/AP JOHN COGHILL/AP
Lynne Walker says city Lynne Walker says thethe city willwill certainly title certainly livelive upup to to thethe title of of European Capital Culture European Capital of of Culture A REMARKABLE face-lift A REMARKABLE face-lift is is dies dies who who lounge exhibited in in lounge exhibited already taking on the already taking placeplace on the the decorous surroundings of of the decorous surroundings streets of Liverpool as it as warms streets of Liverpool it warms neighbouring Port Port Sunlight’s neighbouring Sunlight’s up for exposure up its foryear-long its year-long exposure LadyLady LeverLever Gallery — and Gallery — the and the as European Capital of Culas European Capital of Culinfluence of railways on art, influence of railways on ilart, ilture ture for 2008. An initial £95 £95 for 2008. An initial lustrated in work by Turner, lustrated in work by Turner, million programme of more million programme of more Monet, Van Van GoghGogh and and Hop-HopMonet, thanthan 70 events has has beenbeen an- an70 events per. per. as well as a as focus on Le as well a focus on Le nounced, withwith the the Liverpool nounced, Liverpool Corbusier, the architect. Corbusier, the architect. Culture Company pulling to- to- The The Culture Company pulling Everyman Theatre is is Everyman Theatre gether a wide variety of music, gether a wide variety of music, hoping to secure Warringtonhoping to secure WarringtonDENIS O’REGAN/AP DENIS O’REGAN/AP dance, fashion, film,film, literature, dance, fashion, literature, bornborn PetePete Postlethwaite to to Postlethwaite science, theatre and visual arts. arts.play play science, theatre and visual his first KingKing LearLear while, his first while, TateTate Liverpool will will present Liverpool present up the the Playhouse bill bill uproad, the road, the Playhouse includes a new version of of includes a new version Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design Three Sisters, set inset in Chekhov’s Three Sisters, and Modern Life in Vienna 1900.1900.Chekhov’s and Modern Life in Vienna As aAs spin-off, the Royal Livera spin-off, the Royal LiverLiverpool in 1948. Liverpool in 1948. Towards the the end end of next Towards of next year year the city Shipping the launches city launches Shipping Lines,Lines, a literary festival in in a literary festival which Roger McGough leadsleads a a which Roger McGough distinguished line-up of poets distinguished line-up of poets and and writers. AfterAfter the opening writers. the opening of Liverpool FilmFilm Studios last last of Liverpool Studios year year , four, four locallocal filmsfilms are curare curpool pool Philharmonic Orchestra Philharmonic Orchestra rently in production. FilmFilm Arts Arts rently in production. Aspects of Liverpool: seared of celebrates red celebrates the club winning Aspects of Liverpool: a seaa of the club winning offersoffers two two Viennese balls.balls. Viennese and Creative Centre is hosting and Creative Centre is hosting the European a familiar returns to Cavern the Cavern the European Cup;Cup; a familiar faceface returns to the ClubClub Under Vassily Petrenko, its its Under Vassily Petrenko, a new media festival. a new media festival. and ships tall ships will homage pay homage its maritime history and tall will pay to itstomaritime history nextnext year year young Russian conductor, the the Great young Russian conductor, moments of EuroGreat moments of Euroorchestra has lined up aup series orchestra has lined a series peanpean football will will be set football be to set to of new works including a Requiof new works including a Requimusic by Michael Nyman, and and music by Michael Nyman, Albert Dock. During the year Albert Dock. During the year 1,5001,500 listedlisted buildings. The The buildings. nextnext month afterafter a £23a million month £23 million brates its green environment brates its green environment in Year of Gardens; Lancashire in Year of Gardens; Lancashire em by Tavener, in LiveremJohn by John Tavener, in Livera floating stagestage spectacular at at a floating spectacular therethere will will be be many otherother many Royal LiverLiver Building on the Royal Building on the restoration. Another famous restoration. Another famous Blackpool culinary and and Blackpool theirtheir culinary pool’s Metropolitan Cathedral. pool’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Albert Dock, will celebrate Liv- LivAlbert Dock, will celebrate events including the the Mersey events including Mersey waterfront at Pier HeadHead is is waterfront at Pier building, the the Adelphi Hotel, building, Adelphi Hotel, heritage in Taste Lancashire; in Taste Lancashire; Sir Simon Rattle makes a re-a reSir Simon Rattle makes erpool’s dockside regeneration erpool’s dockside regeneration RiverRiver Festival, Grand National Festival, Grand National among the the mostmost famous St. St. among famous will be in a in new willimmortalised be immortalised a newheritage Cumbria andLake the Lake District Cumbria and the District turn turn to his city city to conto home his home to conand and popular music heritage. popular music heritage. Festival and and the Lantern Pa- PaFestival the Lantern George's Hall,Hall, one of George's onethe of most the most musical. CitiesCities on the ex- exmusical. onEdge the Edge up an foradrenalin-raisan adrenalin-raisgear gear up for duct duct the RLPO and and will bring the RLPO will bring The The 20082008 Tall Tall Ships’ RaceRace Ships’ raderade for for the the Chinese NewNew Chinese famous neo-classical buildings famous neo-classical buildings plores linkslinks between Liverpool plores between Liverpool of Adventure ing ing YearYear of Adventure and and his Berlin players to Philharhis Berlin players to Philharis expected to attract one one mil- milis expected to attract Year.Year. in Europe, whose fabulous in Europe, whose fabulous and and otherother port port cities.cities. Manchester flexes its muscles Manchester flexes its muscles monic Hall Hall in September. monic in September. lion lion spectators and and the the Nominated spectators as a World Her-HerNominated as a World floorfloor of Minton tiles tiles recalls the the Closer of Minton recalls to home, otherother partsparts Closer to home, A Year of World Sport. for Afor Year of World Sport. Art exhibitions will will be deArt exhibitions be de2007/2008 Clipper Round the the 2007/2008 Clipper Round itageitage Centre in 2003, LiverCentre in 2003, Livermercantile prosperity of 19th mercantile prosperity of 19th of theofNorth-West will complethe North-West will complewww.liverpool08.com www.liverpool08.com votedvoted to James Tissot — his to James Tissot —lahis laWorld Yacht RaceRace will end at atpoolpool World Yacht will end boasts no fewer thanthan boasts no fewer century Liverpool, reopens century Liverpool, reopens mentment Liverpool. Cheshire cele-celeLiverpool. Cheshire
Great moments Great moments of of European football European football to music willwill be be setset to music Michael Nyman by by Michael Nyman
WHERE STAY, EAT AND DRINK LIVERPOOL WHERE TOTO STAY, EAT AND DRINK IN IN LIVERPOOL 0 Malmaison Hotel: 0 Malmaison Hotel: The The 0 Hope 0 Hope Street Hotel: Street Hotel: The The 0 620Castle 62 Castle A Grade St: ASt: Grade ll ll 0 The 0 The London Carriage London Carriage 60 Hope Street: 0 600Hope Street: If youIf you 0 Alma 0 Alma de Cuba: A sassy de Cuba: A sassy opening of Malmaison the Malmaison opening of the in incity’scity’s boutique first first boutique hotelhotel is is listedlisted building building that that was was Works: restaurant Works: The The restaurant are looking a classy are looking for afor classy placeplaceCaribbean-themed Caribbean-themed bar and bar and January has launched January has launched the the set in set in Georgian the Georgian quarter originally the quarter originally in 1868 built built in 1868 as a as a opened opened in 2003 as part in 2003 as part of of to hold to hold a private party, a private party, a a restaurant set in what restaurant set in what was was run-up to European the European run-up to the between the cathedrals, two cathedrals,bank,bank, between the two it is very it is very muchmuch part part of of the chic the chic Street HopeHope Street HotelHotel launch launch or even or even a a St Peter’s Catholic onceonce St Peter’s Catholic Capital of Culture in finewithin Capital of Culture year year in fine within reach of the easyeasy reach of the the city’s architectural the city’s architectural quickly established and and quickly established itselfitselfpost-theatre post-theatre dinner, dinner, it is it is Church. favourite Church. YourYour favourite a sharp, modern universities stylestyle with with a sharp, modern universities concert and and concert hall. hall.heritage. heritage. as one of city’s the city’s as one of the bestbest situated at heart the heart of the cocktails situated at the of the cocktails can now can now be be on Prince’s the Prince’s Dock. BuiltBuilt hotelhotel on the Dock. in 1860 a palazzo It features in 1860 in a in palazzo It features chilled out chic under chilled out chic under Askew. chefchef Paul Paul Askew. creative quarter of city the city enjoyed creative quarter of the enjoyed with with greatgreat foodfood fromfrom All rooms feature Malmaisonstylestyle All rooms feature Malmaison has been thoroughly with with it hasit been thoroughly classics cool cool classics in anin an It achieved Liverpool’s It achieved Liverpool’s to Unity the Unity and and closeclose to the the mezzanine kitchen the mezzanine kitchen that that luxury attention to detail. luxury and and attention to detail. modernised. modernised. exclusive package. exclusive package. highest score for cooking highest score for cooking in in Theatre, Theatre, Everyman The The Everyman and and offers offers choice dishes choice dishes suchsuch as as Prince’s Dock. Prince’s Dock. 40 Hope Street 40 Hope Street 62 Castle Street 62 Castle Street the Good Guide 2006.The The the Good FoodFood Guide 2006. Philarmonic Philarmonic Hall. Hall. rib steak eye steak venison. rib eye and and venison. (0118) 983-1348 (0118) 983-1348 (0151) 709-3000. (0151) 709-3000. (0151) 702-7898 (0151) 702-7898 (0151) 705-2222 (0151) 705-2222 (0151) 707-6060. (0151) 707-6060. St Peter’s Church, St Peter’s Church, SeelSeel www.malmaison.com. www.malmaison.com. www.hopestreethotel.co.uk www.62castlest.com. www.hopestreethotel.co.uk www.62castlest.com. www.hopestreethotel.co.uk www.60hopestreet.com. www.hopestreethotel.co.uk www.60hopestreet.com. Street (0151) 709-7097. Street (0151) 709-7097.