Walking around Ancoats recently I noticed how many of the buildings (many old cotton mills) are still empty. Some are semi-derelict, in other cases the shell has been tarted up a little, but not much done inside. It’s hard to know how many apartments in the converted and newly-built blocks are occupied. If it hasn’t been possible to ‘regenerate’ this area completely during the property boom of the last few years the question is: will it ever happen now?

Manchester’s former Odeon cinema, on Oxford Street, has been subjected to a ’systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent it being preserved, according to the man who tried to save it.
As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.
Fifteen years ago, when I earned part of my living as a freelance photographer, the going rate for a cover shot on one of the small magazines that I worked for was £200. The magazine sold 12,000 copies each month and that payment gave the publisher the right to publish the image one time only.
