News round-up 14-18 December

Article published: Tuesday, December 22nd 2009

It’s more than a little late this week, but MULEs have been very busy, in transit rather a lot recently, and quite a lot happened last week! We hope you were able to catch us on All FM on Monday afternoon, it was great fun and we enjoyed talking with Banji on ‘The Free Mind Show’. Hopefully we’ll be back there with him before too long…

Monday

Greater Manchester Fujitsu workers join national strike

The Unite Union voted for strike action, overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s latest offer on planned pension and job cuts, affecting 1,200 staff in Manchester, Warrington, Bolton and Crewe. The strike will take place over six days, on 18 December, 7, 8, 11, 14 and 15 January.

The union had already voted for action back in November, but withdrew the threat after “constructive talks took place”, which have since clearly proved fruitless.

Fujitsu are looking to cut 10 percent of their 1,200-strong workforce in the UK, 750 of whom are located in north Manchester at its One Central Park site. The company also imposed a pay freeze earlier in the year.

Fujitsu workers have struck in Manchester before, back in late 2006 over unpaid overtime, pay rise delays and erosion of redundancy rights.

The union claims that this will be the first national strike in the IT sector of the UK. Speaking to Manchester Evening News, Unite secretary Derek Simpson said: “We recognise the effect industrial action will have on key private and public sector customers and clients, but the responsibility for this rests squarely with the company for failing to address the issues.”

£100 million NWDA fund to be targeted at…stalled office developments?

That’s right. The fund will, according to TheBusinessDesk.com, “aim to trigger economic development in urban areas with equity, loans or guarantees”. Sounds a little familiar.

More specifically, Paul Lakin, director of land and property at the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), suggested the need to direct finances towards office developments in the Northwest. He said the region needed more high quality office space to maintain levels of inward investment.

The announcement the previous Friday stated that this huge pot of money, called the Northwest Urban Investment Fund, was earmarked for sustainable urban regeneration and development. Commercial property development wasn’t exactly what people might have had in mind. £50 million provided by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was matched by the NWDA.

Boardroom pay carries on rising during recession

A survey carried out by the Manchester-based Co-operative Asset Management has found that boardroom pay is still going up.

60 companies from the FTSE 350 were analysed – 30 in financial services and 30 others. 15 of those in the financial sector and 14 in the other sectors were observed to increase directors’ remuneration. This despite the grinding recession and tens of thousands of job losses being visited on people across the country.

Keep up the good work boys!

Manchester behemoth submits “UK’s largest planning application”

Peel Holdings, the Manchester-based company worth around £4.5 billion and with its fingers in just about every pie you can imagine, has made what it claims is the largest ever planning application in the country.

The application looks to progress its East Float scheme, part of the Wirral Waters redevelopment, said itself to be worth £4.5 billion. The plan involves 1.4 million square metres of floor space and the construction of over 13,000 new homes, as well as leisure and culture facilities. It will apparently create more than 4,000 construction jobs in its lifetime, so says Peel. The developer hopes the ap will be heard at Wirral’s Planning Committee in spring of 2010.

According to Peel, questionnaires from latest exhibition showed 99 per cent of people support the East Float proposals. One might wonder who these people were at the ‘exhibition’ and what exactly the questions were!

Tuesday

Sir Richard in Copenhagen

The leader of Manchester City Council arrived for the Climate Summit for Mayors in Copenhagen after his hyped up send off with Ed Miliband. The Council loves to talk climate, about how they want to become the “greenest city in the UK” and now how they aim to cut Manchester’s carbon by more than anywhere else in Europe.

Our beloved leader said before he left: “Manchester led the industrial revolution and we now intend to play a lead role in tackling the challenges which climate change presents.

“Our plans will play a key role in Manchester’s economic recovery as we emerge from the recession, with the potential to create thousands of new jobs, as new green businesses are developed in the city.

“We will be talking to the leaders of other major world cities represented at Copenhagen, to demonstrate the sort of ambitious targets that can be set when organisations work together. This is a visionary approach that will work for us in Manchester and we believe it will also work elsewhere.”

He wrote from the conference on ‘The Leader’s Blog’, in the “aren’t all the other politicians other than me awful?” way he seems so well versed in.

The Council keep on going on about their plans, the latest being ‘Manchester: A Certain Future‘. We’re just waiting for them to start actually doing something.

Wednesday

Another Regen project back on track…again

The Council’s executive approved a “revised masterplan” for regeneration work in West Gorton. According to their press release:

“The regeneration work, phased over 10 years, will be undertaken by New East Manchester together with Manchester City Council, the Homes and Communities Agency and housing association, Guinness Northern Counties.”

Manchester’s regeneration roulette continues…

More bad news for charities – “We’re paying for your crisis”

Accountancy firm Baker Tilly surveyed 170 charity finance directors and chief execs, finding 61 per cent are expecting a fall in income due to the recession. Some 10 per cent are now reducing staff salaries and 16 per cent are considering mergers.

Don Bailey, head of charities at Baker Tilly restructuring and recovery in the Northwest, said: “With 90 per cent of respondents not currently seeing any significant improvement in the economy for their charity, and 45 per cent not expecting any positive change until the last quarter of 2010, charities will need to constantly review the position and take steps to control their finances while ensuring that the charity’s objectives are met.”

Public spending cuts, coupled with rising unemployment and a population being urged to be frugal mean there are hard times ahead for the third sector and those who need them more than ever.

The Northwest’s ‘Who’s Who?’ in property development

While MULE embarks on its own little ‘Who runs Manchester?’ project, it seems that Place North West have done some of it for us – it’s well worth a look.

The online mag along with Roland Dransfield PR have compiled a list of the top 100 people in the Northwest property industry. No surprises to see some of MULE’s favourites on the list.

In at no. 12 was Dr Tom Bloxham MBE, chair of Urban Splash and newly appointed chancellor of the University of Manchester. He was modest enough to say on Twitter “pleased someone still thinks Im [sic] important”.

Making the top 10 was Allied London chief exec Mike Ingall. Allied London are the developers behind the rather aggressively consumer boot camp Spinningfields. Doing pretty well out of it too…

Matt Crompton comes in at no. 7. He’s the joint MD of Muse Developments, based in Salford but active all over Greater Manchester and beyond.

The real big-boys now (and they are mostly boys). Fourth is Co-op Bank Head of Property Finance Unit Phil Basten. They have £2 billion on the books already. But they’re the good guys right?

Next on the list is Bruntwood chief executive Chris Oglesby, son of founder Michael. Bruntwood is the Northwest’s largest office operator, and owns 25 per cent of the Manchester office market.

But top of the pile…drumroll please…goes to none other than chairman of Peel Holdings Mr John Whittaker. The Peel Group includes subsidiaries which variously run the Trafford Centre, the ports of Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, Clydeport and the Manchester Ship Canal, as well as Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Durham Tees Valley Airport, Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield and City of Manchester Airport. Not to mention Peel Land & Property or Peel Advertising.

Plenty more for us to look into as well…

And of course…

Both Manchester stadiums will host the 2018 World Cup…if by any chance England win the bid.

Thursday

Guardian Media Group in talks over sale of Manchester Evening News

GMG is in “exploratory talks” about selling off its regional papers, the most significant of which is the Manchester Evening News, as well as a host of other local papers in the Greater Manchester area and elsewhere. The sale would reportedly fetch around £40 million.

GMG Regional Media employs around 800 people across the country, but GMG are apparently trying to avoid having to cut around 100 jobs at the Guardian and Observer. It comes just nine months after severe cutbacks for MEN titles in Greater Manchester, the closure of local branches and 78 job losses.

The talks are with rival publisher Trinity Mirror, Britain’s biggest newspaper group, which publishes 240 regional papers on top of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, People, Sunday Mail and Daily Record.

Manchester Airport Group suffers from “worst ever” trading conditions

Bosses of MAG are preparing for “a five-year dip” as revenue and profits continue to fall. Revenue and operating profits for the half-year ending September 2009 were down 6.2 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively.

MAG, 55 per cent owned by Manchester City Council, and 5 per cent by each of the other AGMA councils, has just approved expansion of Manchester Airport, despite protests by resident and environmental groups over greenhouse gas emissions. The group includes Manchester, East Midlands, Humberside and Bournemouth airports.

Geoff Muirhead, group chief executive, told TheBusinessDesk.com: “These are the most difficult trading conditions in all the years I’ve been here. Even after 9/11 it was not this bad. This is the second year we’ve seen a really bad position and it will remain this way for the next 12 to 18 months.”

But he went on to reaffirm the group’s interest in purchasing either Stansted, Glasgow or Edinburgh airport, if BAA are forced to sell one or more of them. However, today’s tribunal statement that the Competition Commission’s ruling over BAA forced sale was biased, is bound to put a dampener on things. This is because one member of the CC’s panel, Professor Peter Moizer, was a “long-standing fee-paid advisor” of MAG.

Oops!

Friday

Green light for ‘City Region’

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) signed off a deal with the government to create the Greater Manchester city region, outlined by Alistair Darling in his April Budget.

According to TheBusinessDesk.com: “City region status means more devolved powers for the local authorities such as the ability to set its own policy on skills and greater control over housing funding and public transport.”

Lord Peter Smith, chair of AGMA, said: “We have placed growth at the very top of our agenda and we recognise to meet the challenges ahead we need to develop new ways of working with government departments to tackle skills development, worklessness and reduce levels of deprivation.”

Detractors claim that it further instutionalises the regional power of the Labour Party, who dominate AGMA.

The MEN‘s David Ottewell was there and gave this report and was tweeting from the event.