Over 350 Levenshulme residents flooded into St. Peter's Church on the evening of 14th March for the South Manchester Regeneration consultation meeting.

As more and more people arrived at the church, the small hall booked for the event rapidly became crowded, and Les Ireland, vicar of St. Peter's, took the decision to move the meeting to the main body of the church itself.

Andy Wilson, who made a presentation on behalf of the City Council's South Manchester Regeneration team, said that the meeting was by far the best attended of the series of meetings he has presented. For those present this came as no surprise whatsoever. Levenshulme residents and traders expressed concern about the degeneration of the local area, in terms of depleted community and shopping facilities ­ and anger that the City Council appear to be ignoring the decline of the area.

Local campaigners Friends of Levenshulme have acquired over 1200 petition signatures over the last ten days. They aim to at least double that number before presenting the petition to Sir Richard Leese at Manchester City Council.