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Saturday, 20th December 2003

Dreaming spires of Whalley Range

Susan Press

DEEP in the heart of Whalley Range is a beautiful building more redolent of an Oxbridge college than the cut and thrust of shopfloor struggle. Yet for many years the GMB College, College Road, has helped train trade union activists in the hard art of negotiations on pay and power as well as workplace rights.

It is a huge building with 10 conference, training and banqueting rooms, and 80 bedrooms. There is room for up to 175 delegates.

Sadly, its important role as a place where people were able to learn all about the nuts and bolts of being a shop steward, and possibly go on to further education at trade union colleges such as Ruskin in Oxford (alma mater of deputy prime minister John Prescott and disabled champion Lord Morris of Manchester), is about to end.

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In February, despite much protest and a search for alternative solutions in recent months, the 160-year-old building will close, with the possible loss of 60 trade union jobs.

Conservationists fear there will also be an incalculable loss to the local community if an alternative use for the building is not found quickly.

Conservation watchdogs at English Heritage will be keeping a watching brief on what happens to the building, which is Grade 2 * listed.

It is to be hoped a positive solution will be found that will not mean it is changed in any radical way which will compromise the architecture.

Although no decision has yet been made, the portents are pretty good for its future.

Whalley Range has been an official Conservation Area since 1991, and memories of its days as a "red-light" district are fading fast as the suburb becomes increasingly gentrified. A return, in fact, to how it was at the end of the 19th century, when most of the area was built. Near to the college are many Victorian villas and Alexandra Park, which opened to the public in 1870 after its 60 acres were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1868. After many years in the doldrums, this is also being refurbished.

Rallying

As far as the GMB College goes, people in the area have already been rallying round in a bid to ensure that the building is preserved in the best way possible. They should take comfort from the fact that the latest problem is by no means the first time the building has been under threat - only to survive.

It started life way back in 1843 as the Lancashire Independent College (later on it was known as the Northern Congregational College). This was a place where nonconformist ministers could study theology in peace, at a time when they were banned from taking a degree at the old universities.

The building was deliberately modelled on Oxbridge lines, to raise morale among the young men who went there to learn about their ministry. Most were from the less well-off religious families and would go on to missions in far-flung places like Africa and Asia.

In later years, as times became more tolerant, the academic ruling changed: nonconformists were able to study anywhere they liked; numbers of would-be ministers started to drop, and alternative uses for the building had to be found. During the Second World War and for some time afterwards, the college served as an ancillary building for Manchester University students - then the GMB took it over.

For the past 20 years or so, the college has played host to dozens of conferences and courses within the wider labour movement. Community groups have also held events here, and it is widely regarded as a bit of an oasis. The exterior of the building was cleaned up some years ago; the gardens are extensive, nine acres in all, the setting picturesque. You could be a million miles away from city life - although, in fact, it is just a mile or two down the road.

The GMB has done a sterling job over the years keeping the college going. But changing educational times and moves away from residential courses to initiatives such as e-learning, as well as considerable repair and maintenance costs, have spelled a reluctant end to the trade union link with the building.

In a bid to save money, the GMB has now decided it must close as a residential college and be sold to an appropriate bidder. People in the area will be hoping that the future owner will look kindly on its history.