The London Road fire station was one of Manchester’s great buildings, and it’s still glorious to look at even in its current dilapidated state. It’s worthy of an architecture wander all by itself. Nothing has been done to develop it since the fire service moved out in 1986. When I was a student at UMIST, which is a very near neighbour, I heard there were plans to give the building to the University for student accommodation and/or a students union. Obviously that never happened.

Now the council are moving to get a compulsory purchase order, and the fire station’s current owner, Alex Langsam of Britannia Hotels has given an interview to Manchester Confidential in which he claims that, after 24 years of doing nothing, he’s finally, really, really this time, going to get around to doing something with the building. Unsurprisingly, I find his promises hard to believe.