'Would I want my mum going to Market Street through Piccadilly? Probably not at the moment'

In Manchester's magnificent art gallery there is a painting dated 1954. Dog walkers, office workers, and a mother pushing a pram mingle next to immaculate lawns and flower beds which feature a fountain.

One corner of the scene is dominated by the Art-Deco style, Portland stone clad Rylands Building. The work, by L S Lowry, captures civility and local pride.

It hangs in the Mosley Street building, just 200 yards down the road from the square which inspired it - Piccadilly Gardens. More than sixty years on society has changed, and so have the gardens, once a pristine, statue graced, gateway to the city centre for those arriving by train at the nearby rail station.

At 10.35am on a September morning in 2023 a cluster of men wearing peak caps, with rucksacks, and looking dishevelled are in the gardens drinking cans of lager and beer. Two police officers approach, soon backed up by two more, and politely explain that a public space protection order enforced in the location prohibits boozing for brunch in the open.

The Rylands building stands forlornly empty after the Debenhams department store it housed closed in 2021. Lawns still survive in the now cramped, untidy, unloved looking "gardens". A man is mowing one triangle of grass. Raised platforms cover large parts of the location - one for tables and chairs for, police insist, a well managed, an outdoor beer bar. Elsewhere there are wooden food stalls, and the unresolved blight of half of the infamous Piccadilly wall which remains standing.

The physical drabness and cluttered nature of the gardens are just one aspect of its demise from civic landmark to dangerous cut through. It also attracts criminality on a scale which now warrants a major, and prolonged police operation,