The Mancunian Way: Green shoots

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Here is today's Mancunian Way:

by BETH ABBIT - Wed July 27, 2022

Hello and welcome,

I know Marcus Rashford is a fast player, but I wonder if he can outrun Billy Whizz - widely accepted as the fastest boy in the world. Perhaps we'll soon find out as the Manchester United star has guest-edited a special edition of the Beano.

We'll be discussing that story, the situation in our hospitals and the latest on the Oldham mill investigation in today's newsletter.

It’s been just over a year since Stephen Watson took over as Chief Constable at Greater Manchester Police. He says a lot has changed since then, as he works to pull the force out of special measures.

Almost all of the senior leadership team has been replaced with ten new chief superintendents in charge of each district. Meanwhile, the time it takes to answer the most serious 999 calls has been halved to a 29 second average last month, compared to 66 seconds in June 2021, following major investment.

Response times to the most serious ‘grade 1’ calls have been slashed to an average of ten minutes and 12 seconds. And arrests have almost doubled to 4,527 in May this year compared to 2,881 in May 2021, prompting GMP to re-open its custody suite in Bolton. It plans to do the same at Longsight police station. Meanwhile force bosses say they are now 94 percent 'compliant' with government crime figure requirements after problems with the iOPS computer system.

Chief Constable Watson has been talking to crime reporter John Scheerhout about the changes and spoke of 'green shoots'