Q. What do Sir Richard Leese and Wayne Rooney have in common?
A. It’s not the Circle Club! These two individuals are arguably among the most influential people in Manchester.
We want your help
MULE is asking readers to help investigate where power lies in Manchester. Is the mighty Manchester City Council in charge? Does the Chamber of Commerce really pull the strings? What other organisations operate beneath the radar? We want to know.
We have started compiling a list of people who we think have the most influence over the city but we would like you to give us your suggestions.
In the past we have looked at institutions such as CityCo, the Chamber of Commerce and Peel Holdings, but now we want to look at the people who run these and other powerful institutions.
Use the comments boxes opposite to add people you think should be on our list and why. Alternatively you can send info to our email address editor@themule.info or via our Facebook page.
Here are a few easy suggestions from the MULE team to start with.
Howard Bernstein – Chief Executive of the City Council
Angie Robinson – Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce
Peter Fahey – Chief of Greater Manchester Police
The list will be published in the next issue of MULE, out February 2010.
I believe Tesco has the biggest say. Anywhere they want to build, Manchester Council allow them. They even allowed them to dig up a cemetery in Crumpsall so they had space for a car park and to close two streets to the public and yet the council now needs to pay for repair of another road because of the huge increase in traffic causing mega potholes.
Lord Peter Smith – he chairs both AGMA and the Regional Leaders’ Forum, on top of being leader of Wigan Council.
Eddie Smith as well. He is the chief exec of New East Manchester, and used to be Head of Regeneration for Manchester City Council. NEM is a massive institution, involving the NWDA, Manchester City Council and the Homes and Communities Agency
Add Peter Tavernor to the list of local bigwigs. Principal of the Manchester College following the takeover of City College by MANCAT, he’s in charge of 80,000 students and an estimated turnover of £130 million. That makes his one of the two largest further education colleges in Britain and rumour has it that he’s looking to take over MAES (Manchester Adult Education Service) too.
The multi-million development plan expanding the college is something of a flagship project for the local Labour party, with Tony Lloyd, Graham Stringer and Paul Goggins sticking their weight behind £46 million worth of new developments in Wythenshawe, Harpurhey and South Manchester. Tavernor’s wife is a councillor and Sue Murphy (exec for education) is chair of the board of governors. This may be why most people involved in further education in Manchester are absolutely terrifed of him.
Despite the new building work the actual education the students get isn’t the best-400 students were booted off their basic English courses in October because of a *cough* administrative error *cough* and MAES had to scrounge around to find last-minute places for them all.
Here is what City College students think about the change of management:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?v=wall&ref=nf&gid=192553081540
Allegations of corruption and union-busting have been fairly consistent both at MANCAT and now the college, with questions asked in Parliament last year by tory MP Richard Bacon about registration fraud going back to 2002. Union reps working at the college (many of them rated as excellent teachers by Ofsted) have been repeatedly harrassed and sacked, most recently six months ago.
The College also has around £8000 worth of advertising in the MEN. This may or may not be why the MEN covers the College with stories like this:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/49/49238_college_rises_from_the_ashes.html
While other papers cover it with stories like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/27/colleges-mancat-manchester
How about Chris Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police?
http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/portfolio.htm
He behaved disgracefully re. the North West 10 – guilty until proven innocent…
Marketing Manchester appear to be another one of these interesting organisations http://www.marketingmanchester.com/
Check this out – most powerful property developers in the NW according to Place Northwest:
http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/place-100-2009-1-to-15.html
Check out these guys… http://www.investinmanchester.com/aboutus/midasboarddirectors/
It’s the corporate arm of the city council. Bruntwood at the top of the tree and, interestingly, a Tesco man in charge of the regional property development.
It seems like the executives of Bruntwood Mike Oglesby and his son Chris must have some significant influence in Manchester… Mike Oglesby seems to be on personal terms with councilors like Richard Leese, and given the amount of property and businesses that Bruntwood offices influence in Manchester they must have some significant dialogue
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/architecture/research/ecocities/news/
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/news/article/386/extreme_sports_come_to_manchester_in_august
Plus in the last couple of months, Bruntwood have aquired their new marketing director Kate Harrison from Cityco, so the executive profile of Bruntwood appears to be littered with significant contacts and connections throughout Manchester.
http://www.crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk/article/20091119/FREE01/911189986/1026/Manufacturing/-/-/citycos-kate-harrison-appointed-as-bruntwood-marketing-director
They must have real influence over city development, in terms of transport, business, building contracts etc etc…
How about Robert Hough? He’s the Chairman of the North West Development Agency.
This guy has literally been everywhere. He seems to have held most of the high-up positions in Peel Holdings (worth looking into), has been Chair of New East Manchester Ltd, sat on boards for or been directors of property development, investment, urban and credit groups. He’s also been a governor of the University of Manchester, was chair of Manchester Commonwealth Games, director of the North West Business Leadership Team Limited and board member of Northwest Business Link. Not sure how many of these he’s kept on since becoming chair of NWDA, who just stumped up another £50m for ‘urban development’.
He was also ‘High Sheriff of Greater Manchester’ 2004-5, whatever the hell that is!
Real power mongers are generally invisible. At a superficial level it is Bernstein and Lease.
Bernstein is elected by: No one.
Lease is elected as a member for Crumpsall.
The amount of more or less unaccountable power they have, with little scrutiny (not withstanding the mighty mule) is flat out disgusting and offensive to anyone interested in the old fashioned concept of “democracy”
alan gilbert, president of the university and sits on all kind of committees like chairing nuclear futures
could look into what kind of powers phil woolas has as minister for the north west
most importantly though manchester is run by its people who will never bow to the authorities, bosses and politicians!
I don’t reckon Rooney has that much sway, he’s a scouser. Glazer and Ferguson are probably your two from the red side of the city.
chris oglesby, cheif exec of Bruntwoods, is worth a look. Bruntwoods seem to own a lot in the city centre.
Our Chris also sits on the boards of CityCo, The Piccadilly Partnership, City South, The Irwell City Park in Manchester and is, according to his biog, currently working on establishing a group for the City’s Financial Core.
Failing that, I’d say the old guy who is always sat in Falafel restaurant in rusholme…