Is the council’s plan to limit bars and takeaways in “student alley” as good an idea as they think it is?

It was announced last week that Manchester city council would be capping the number of bars and takeaways in the Fallowfield/Withington area after almost 70% of non-student residents said that it would reduce the amount of anti-social behaviour in the area such as vandalism, litter and individuals acting drunk and disorderly.

Now the news is out that the council are finalising the Student Alley review, which local residents will have the opportunity to criticise in a formal public consultation, residents from the rest of the city do not seem happy at the prospect.

“Fallowfield is already bad and they are not going to close any bars, just stop new ones from opening so nothing is going to change there. What it does mean is that as all the students get bored of Fallowfield they’re going to venture out into other areas of the city and ruin them as well. The more bars there are in Fallowfield, the longer they’ll stay there,” said one Green Quarter resident.

A University of Manchester student, living in Fallowfield at the moment disagrees with the ban as well. “Most of the university’s halls of residence are in Fallowfield, it won’t matter if there is one pub or 100, it’s always going to be full of students and students are always going to drink too much and end up in Fallowfield around 3am doing stupid things. This won’t change anything.”

The council are expected to announce the changes in licences for Student Alley bars and takeaways in the next few weeks. How much it will help improve the area will probably not be clear until the next academic year, but many Fallowfield residents are still positive that it can only get better.

Image sourced from Google Street View