This Friday morning, 27th April 2007, a few minutes after I left the area for a hospital appointment, a young female Asian care worker arrived by taxi at Melling Street to collect an elderly lady who attends a local day care centre. I spoke with relatives of the elderly lady, one of whom accompanied the victim to hospital and remained with her until her family arrived, and they told me that it would seem that a man had followed the care worker in his car. When her taxi was approaching Melling Street the man who was following jumped out of his car and launched a frenzied knife attack against the woman. She suffered multiple stab wounds to her back, neck and side. It is alleged that the attacker was her ex-husband and that due to his behaviour since the divorce three years ago she has a restraining order against him preventing him coming anywhere near her. Several people tried to come to her aid and three of our street wardens managed to restrain the man until the police arrived. He has been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
I asked the police how seriously injured the young woman was and they informed me that she should make a full recovery in due course. I am sure we all wish this poor young woman a speedy recovery.

I have since heard that when she is discharged from hospital she will be taken to a safe house in case any male relatives of her ex-husband decide to try to complete the despicable act that he failed in.

A male Asian friend told me that back home so called “honour killings” are against the law, but that these men get away with it because of bribery and corruption. If you have enough money then the authorities turn a blind eye. These same men believe that if a woman fails to comply with their idea of how a woman should behave then they will be able to get away with it in this country too. Well, they are wrong.

None of us expect this type of violence to occur so close to home and certainly not just after nine in the morning. It was only a few minutes earlier that I was standing at the bus stop watching children walking along Northmoor Road on their way to Stanley Grove Primary School.

Yesterday, I noticed that some hooligan had set fire to the litter bin outside the laundrette. It was completely burned out and the pavement, which is tarmac just there, was badly damaged as well.

A couple of people who saw the incident told me that it was a group of youths on bicycles who had done this. They obviously thought it was amusing. If they were caught and made to pay for the damage they have caused I don’t suppose they would find it quite so funny.

Recently the two bins by the underpass at the end of Parry Road suffered the same fate and one of the Council men who was replacing them told me that by the time they have cleared away the mess, repaired the footpath and replaced the bin you don’t get much change out of £300. That money is coming out of our Council Tax payments. No wonder the bill just keeps going up and up when there are idiots who find it funny to destroy property. There was also the cost of the fire brigade having to come out to put out the fire before it spread to any of the adjacent building including the flats next door to the laundrette.

The Council came out this afternoon and cleaned up the mess, cut out the damaged area of tarmac and reinstated the footpath. Whether we will get a replacement bin remains to be seen.

A week or so back I was standing in the street chatting with a neighbour when all the feral pigeons suddenly took off. they zipped this way and that across the sky in a mad panic. When Iooked around to see what had upset them I was lucky enough to spot a bird of prey hunting the pigeons. This is something I have not seen since I moved down here eight years ago. I guess this was a young bird that has left home to look for a territory of his own. It would be really great if this bird would settle in this area as not only are they beautiful birds, but he would also help to keep the number of pigeons under control.

For several days after we saw the hawk hunting the pigeons were keeping a very low profile.

Check out the Hawk and Owl Trust web site for more info on British birds of prey.

Although I only had a quick glimpse of the hawk I suspect that it was a female sparrow hawk.

Now that the weather is growing colder many of us think about the struggle wild birds have finding enough food to eat. Lots of us like to feed the birds. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to feed birds. The wrong way is to throw heaps of left over food into the street or the park. This is not feeding birds, this is attracting vermin such as rats, mice and cockroaches. We can all do without those, thank you very much! If you are seen throwing left over food into the street, the alleys or the park you can be issued with a fixed penalty notice,which means that you will have to pay a fine. This was £50, but I understand that this may well have just been increased.  

If you want to know about how to feed the wild birds properly then check out the web site of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

When the first two phasesof the redevelopment were carried out the trees planted in the streets were protected with metal tree railings. All the trees planted on those two phases are still there and growing well.

When the final phase was started the trees were planted, but no protection was installed. In some streets virtually all the trees have disappeared. I have personally seen a contractor working for the developers deliberately and repeatedly ram a tree with his van until the tree snapped off at the base and he then proceeded to plant on top of it. Despite my reporting this it would seem that no attempt has been made to make the contractor pay for the replacement of the tree. These trees do not arrive for free. Each one arrives at a cost of around £300.

I have heard of people cutting trees down with an axe because “they were in the way”. Most recently a tree was sawn down in Patey Street in the early hours of a Sunday morning. When the group of men cutting the tree were approached they said that they needed the tree for a bonfire. Excuse me! You do not go out into the street and cut down a tree just because you want some firewood. I hope they are caught and made to pay the full cost of replacing the tree.

It is the planting season again for trees and consideration is being given to replacing all the trees that have been deliberately cut down, knocked down or snapped off. This time they will be given protection like the trees on the first two phases.

Check out the Tree Council web site for more information about trees and how important they are for the environment.

Another good web site is Trees for Cities. Here is what they say about Manchester.

Northmoor Community Association is currently building a website, but there is not much on there at the moment.

It does however give their contact details.

The laundrette has been on Northmoor Road for many years. With the regeneration of the area the laundrette  passed into the control of the community and is now really up to date with state of the art washers and dryers. It is also the only internet laundrette I have ever heard of. You can come in, put your washing on and log on to the net. There is also a community library area with donated books and a tool hire business. Check out their web site for full details.

The English Partnerships website has a page on Northmoor

Welcome to my blog. This is going to be all about various aspects of the Northmoor Road area of Longsight including history of the area, current affairs and all the latest community news.