Wigan is set to stage its own mini-Glastonbury next month. The Haigh Music Festival will take place on Sunday June 17 at Haigh Hall and Country Park and will feature unsigned bands from the town. The event runs from 12 – 8 pm and is being organised by the Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust and the Wigan Music Collective. Admission is free.
Blackburn with Darwen Council has applied (to itself) for planning permission to turn the former Lewis Textile Museum into a centre for rehabilitating former drug addicts.
The council closed the museum in 2006 as part of a supposed cost cutting exercise. Its collections are now housed at the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery.
The Lancashire Telegraph reports that the savings made by closing the museum amounted to £23,000, while the conversion to a rehabilitation centre will cost £500,000. This doesn’t seem like cost cutting to us.
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is set to lose its only flight to London after Belgian carrier VLM announced it was suspending flights on the route from July 1. The airline is in negotiations with other companies interested in taking over its slot.
The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities have proposed a road pricing scheme that will see motorists charged for travelling on the busiest roads at peak times.
Under the scheme, which could be introduced by 2012, motorists would be charged £2 to enter the area enclosed by the M60, and a further £1 to enter Manchester city centre. £1 would be charged on leaving each of the zones. The charges would apply on weekdays between 7 – 9.30 am and 4 – 6.30 pm.
All the money raised would be used to fund £3 billion of improvements to the region’s public transport system. This would include new Metrolink lines to the Trafford Centre and Stockport, a dedicated bus lane between Manchester and Bolton, and improvements to bus and rail interchanges in Altrincham, Bolton, Manchester, Rochdale, and Wigan.
Virgin Trains has announced a new timetable that sees a dramatic increase in the number of trains between Manchester and London. From January 2009 trains will leave Manchester every 20 minutes during off-peak hours, taking just over 2 hours to complete the journey. Peak time services will also be improved, with the number of trains arriving in London before 9 am increasing from three to five.
The new timetable will provide an extra 5,000 additional seats between the two cities each weekday.
Manchester Airport’s Terminal 1 is to be completely remodelled to improve the travelling experience for passengers. Working with psychologists, the airport discovered that passengers only relax after passing through security and other checks. As a result of this research most shops, restaurants and bars will be moved from ‘landside’ to ‘airside’ (after security).
Work on the £35 million project has already started and will be complete by June 2008.
Manchester’s answer to the London Eye will return to the city centre next week. The Big Wheel was dismantled earlier this year to allow renovation work on Exchange Square.
The stay is, however, only temporary. It will be replaced in 2008 by a larger version.
Situated in the Millennium Quarter the Big Wheel gives visitors the chance to enjoy panoramic views of the city in one of 42 climate-controlled glass capsules.
Low cost airline Wizz Air has announced it will commence flights from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to the Romanian capital of Bucharest on October 1 2007. The service will operate 3 times a week.
Chester Zoo has announced their latest recruit, a male Sumatran tiger named Kepala. It is the first time in 21 years that the North West zoo has been home to a Sumatran tiger. Kepala, who is 2 years old and came from Dudley Zoo, will share his home with Bengal tigers Kahli and Rhani.
The zoo is hopeful it can bring in a female Sumatran to breed with Kepala. Sumatran tigers are the smallest species of tiger are a critically endangered species, with less than 400 left in the wild.
The £120 million extension to Warrington’s Golden Square shopping centre will open on May 24. Opening day will be marked by several promotions including bus fares of 1p for anybody travelling to the centre by bus, free car parking in the town centre, and live entertainment throughout the centre.
The development will extend the shopping centre by 365,000 sq ft, and see 60 new shops plus 1700 car parking spaces and a new bus interchange. Stores opening include Debenhams, H&M, Next, Topshop, River Island, Beaverbrooks, La Senza, Republic, Oasis, and Boots.