Protect the Gay Village, Manchester

The internationally famous 'Gay Village' in Manchester is facing many difficulties as an area and its legacy is under threat.

Respondents are encouraged to sign this petition and state their concerns about the famous 'gay area' and to suggest the support that they believe it needs.

Supporting this petition is to request support from leaders and organizations that can help the LGBTQ community evolve and overcome difficulties faced within this area.

The infamous headline in Manchester Evening News in April 2013 prophesied the death of the Gay Village 'within five years', was made. Yet this ongoing struggle has been years in the making and is a sign of a long term lack of investment or strategy.

Notably there has been an absence of an online consultation of LGBTQ residents of Manchester, despite these requests for a think tank and inclusive public dialogue

Signing this petition is to agree that somehow LGBTQ is disempowered in being self-defining and changes for the safety and evolution of the Gay Village are needed to protect its future.

In signing the petition also add your areas of concern and your voice to what the Village needs to become.

Your primary concerns might include:

• The overall demise and decline of the area which concerns you for the Gay Villages future
• The lack of investment into the Gay Village, despite it being an area that needs support, funding and consideration of improving the area with Heritage and Arts and Culture funding and representation
• The failure of the Pride model to put reasonable or fair investment back into the Gay Village, recent years 'donations' to charity barely exceeding 5%
• A desire to see more ‘alternatives’ to a drinking culture in terms of possible community space, arts centre, museum, performance space, market, encouraging community and activities, markets and support for small businesses
• The licensing concerns of takeaways, irresponsible bar and door policies, taxis and the restrictions put upon bars wishing to individuate their businesses
• Concerns of safety and crime within the Village, though a challenge for the whole city centre, consideration of safety is needed to prevent hate crimes, becoming the victim of crime, to make a realistic and 'safe' drug policy, to keep all people safe and reduce the exploitation of homeless, sex workers and vulnerable people
• Poor Leadership and evidenced strategies from an individual in the Council's LGBT Lead, e.g. after the EMRO debate and its procedural homophobia
• Wasteland and unoccupied buildings that could be of cultural benefit. Business rents that exclude pioneering enterprise and penalize business and free enterprise
• An absence of a Community Model for business and improving the Village
• Representation needs to be enhanced to be inclusive of the many voices of the LGBTQ and community projects and premises that are used to benefit the Village and are unrelated to alcohol

For those who wish to go into detail please share this online questionnaire designed to gather more detail upon LGBTQ Manchester's opinions in the absence of such official research - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FPZGYQQ