Manchester damage could have been worse, says Cityco chief

THE chief executive of Manchester’s city centre management company, CityCo, believes the actions of Greater Manchester Police prevented widespread damage to property by looters.

Vaughan Allen said that although many units have been damaged around Market St, King St, St Ann’s Square and Deansgate, he argued that police had worked bravely to contain rioters, detailing an instance where two officers managed to hold back around 70 youths in the city’s Northern Quarter.

“I think the general message is that we were very lucky and it could have been far worse,” he told TheBusinessDesk.com.

“Walking around the city at 6am, it was surprising how clear it already was. A lot of people have worked very hard overnight, public transport is working and people are coming back in.

“The thing to do tonight is to make sure that it doesn’t get any worse and to clamp down very hard on it.”

He said that landlords and business owners were having to contend with a range of issues, but only a small number of city centre stores had faced widespread losses.

“It was like a very, very bad Saturday night. In a lot of cases, someone has just put a brick into a window and it has shattered but hasn’t gone through. Even when we’re talking about stores that were looted, it is a very small number. Some of those were literally people rushing and grabbing handfuls before the police got to them – they weren’t being cleared out.”

He also said that many businesses with huge plate glass windows – including lots of restaurants and bars – had been left untouched, suggesting that a targeted approach had been taken.

This view was echoed both by council and police chiefs, who said the first wave of early evening raids seem to have been co-ordinated.

Greater Manchester Police’s assistant chief constable Gary Shewin said: “I’m pleased that officers put themselves in the way to prevent them from getting access to some of the shops we know they were trying to get access to.

“It saddens me that people have had their businesses torn apart over the last 24 hours, but we will continue to work with hundreds of shopkeepers across the city centre to keep as many of them as safe as we possibly can.”

Glen Barkworth, manager of the 1.4m sq ft Manchester Arndale Centre, which is owned jointly by PRUPIM and Capital Shopping Centres, said that intelligence received from other landlords and shopowners in Birmingham and London had helped it to minimise losses.

Although there was damage to the main Market St and Corporation St entrances, the centre remained largely secure.

“We know we’ve got one or two units that will take a little bit of time to open and I’ve been in to see them this morning. But we have 220 units and I’ve got 218 open. So we are very much open and we are safe.”

“There was immense preparedness by the team, a lot of intelligence either by ourselves and by GMP.I don’t consider us lucky to be one iota.

“We’d had a lot of information from places like Birmingham and London and a lot of the units which had been targeted in those cities removed stock from the shop floor.

“When Ugg was hit at 5.30 last night the shop had been closed and when the rioters broke the doors open there was no stock in the sales area – it was all locked away securely and no stock was taken. In JD Sports, they closed early so when the looters arrived all they were met with was steel shutters at the doorway.”

Meanwhile, the owners of the Salford Shopping City scheme which was heavily targeted by rioters yesterday have said initial assessments of the centre this morning have revealed “considerable damage” to a number of units. 

A spokesman said: “We are remaining vigilant and working with the police to ensure the ongoing security of the centre and will be reviewing the situation with the police on an hour-by-hour basis. The safety of our tenants and local shoppers is of paramount importance during this period.”