NOT STANDING STILL

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 148, 19 December 1935, Page 16

NOT STANDING STILL

CITY OF MANCHESTER

BIG SCHEMES IN PROGRESS

The City of Manchester is proceeding with a scheme to acquire land, widen streets, and construct new streets in six areas at a cost of nearly £200,000.

The Housing Committee of the municipality has accepted contracts for the rehousing of families in two clearance areas. One is for 236 flats, providing accommodation for about 1100 persons, and the other 126 flats in another district with accommodation1 for about 600 people. Each block of flats will be four storeys in height.

The Lancashire Education Committee has accepted plans and estimates for .new secondary schools and extensions to existing -premises >.-. totalling £218;848.;'A new technical college is to be erected at .Stretford, which adjoins Manchester, at a cast of £91,500.

A 50,000 k.w. turbo-generating set ordered for the Manchester power station represents a new departure where high voltage is required. It will generate direct 33,000 volts, at which voltage .the current is transmitted over the "grid" instead of stepping up from 6000 to 11,000 and then to 33,000. The plant, it is stated, gives a capital saving of £15,000, is more economical to operate, and requires less space. The contract price is approximately £180,000.

Thirty-four million cubic feet of excavations, 11,000,000 cubic feet of new embankments, the rebuilding and extension by 150 feet of a viaduct, the sinking of a well 300 feet deep, the erection of a water-storage tank of 50,000 gallons capacity, and the diversion of a main railway line by threequarters of a mile are the ingredients of a big scheme which has just been completed by the engineers of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company in the construction of a new goods marshalling yard at Mottram, outside the city. Accommodation is provided in the yard for more than 2000 wagons, the movement of which will be effected entirely by gravity. AH the points leading into the 28 sorting and reception sidings are electrically controlled and operated by pneumatic power. . The whole of the wagons will be under the control of one operator in a control tower.

1 The improvement in Lancashire's basic industries is emphasised by recent official statistics, which reveal big decreases in the number of unemployed in the country. The biggest improvement is in the coal-mining industry, there being 3500 fewer unemployed in the mines during the last week of September compared with the end of August. The weaving industry also shows a big improvement. Lancashire spinners report that much more business is being done and many firms are looking forward to a run of production which will keep the mills "busy for some months. In the cloth section of the cotton industry makers of drills, ducks, and ground sheetings have booked substantial orders.

More mills have been reopened in the Blackburn district. A mill at Ribchester, which had been closed for more than a year and formerly employed nearly half the working population of the village, has been reopened by a Preston firm of cotton manufacturers. Work for 200 weavers has been found by the reopening of a mill at Great Harwood, while another mill in the same town has increased its working strength.

Cotton trade leaders report that the three first weeks in October provided Lancashire with its best business for five years. Sales of yarn and cotton piece-goods considerably increased and many firms are booked up with orders to the end of the year. The chief improvemnt is in the demand from Indian markets.