![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
Station Approach(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\nDuring a busy weekday afternoon Beth Abbit chatted to commuters, locals and tourists on Piccadilly Approach.Station Approach(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
A group of ladies pose with a statue of blind soldiers outside Piccadilly Station.<\/p>\n
Police officers laugh and chat as they monitor the throng leaving the transport hub.<\/p>\n
A man in what looks like a prison-issue grey tracksuit hauls two large transparent sacks over his shoulder and asks a stranger if he can use his phone.<\/p>\n
Office workers sip from paper coffee cups and munch on meal deal sandwiches on the go as they weave and zip past one another.<\/p>\n
This is Piccadilly Approach on a busy weekday. The gateway to the city centre, it\u2019s a place where commuters, locals and tourists converge.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847614_742_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
Nathan Dale, and his dog, Rolo(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
Being honest, it\u2019s not much to look at, but for Big Issue seller Nathan Dale, it\u2019s been a godsend.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been clean for four years but admits that wouldn\u2019t be the case if he\u2019d stuck around Piccadilly Gardens<\/a> and Market Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cPiccadilly Gardens needs condemning,” he says. \u201cThey should brick it off and build over it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m four years clean so I stay on the edges of town. I come here from 11am – 6pm every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n Nathan, 29, cheerfully tells me that his spot outside the station doors is the best pitch he\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took me four years to get it,\u201d he says. \u201cI love it because it\u2019s away from Piccadilly Gardens.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very hard graft but if you stick to it, it pays off.\u201d<\/p>\n He tells me he has a card machine so people in a post-cash, post-pandemic world can actually pay him for the magazine.<\/p>\n \u201cI was turning away 30 – 40 people a week because I didn\u2019t have a card reader.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no begging around here. If they do, they get kicked out.\u201d<\/p>\n At Nathan\u2019s feet stands his dog Rolo, a standard American bulldog who is regularly mistaken for a banned XL Bully.<\/p>\n Rolo is wearing a black muzzle that frankly likens him to the Batman villain Bane. But his owner insists he\u2019s a big softie, despite his ferocious appearance.<\/p>\n And when Nathan\u2019s friend wafts a sausage roll near his face to get him to pose for our photographer Kenny, Rolo wags his tail and smiles.<\/p>\n \u201cI get recognised here because of the dog,\u201d Nathan says. \u201cSomeone actually filmed us and put us on TikTok. He\u2019s not a Bully, he just matches that criteria.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to show people that not all Big Issue sellers are the same and not all bulldog breeds are the same. There are some out here trying to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n As we walk down the incline, we notice three large, orange plastic barriers cordoning off a single broken flagstone.<\/p>\n It seems like overkill given there are several others broken nearby that sit without such grand guarding. A man in a suit weaves past it tutting.<\/p>\n Just then, our photographer Kenny bumps into an old friend. As they catch up I ask James Shenton his thoughts on this part of town.<\/p>\n He stands with his hands in his pockets, squints through his glasses and gazes down the incline towards Piccadilly Gardens.<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk down here and get closer and closer to the worst public space in Europe,\u201d he says with conviction.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you exit any city station it\u2019s your first impression. I think Victoria station probably gives the best impression.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, I actively avoid town. I like a nice pub. I don\u2019t want the crowds and \u00a37.50 pints.<\/p>\n \u201cManchester is full of beautiful buildings like the cathedral. But this looks 1970s and s***.\u201d<\/p>\n As we part ways with James and his pals, a man approaches and hands me a little card with a message about Jesus on one side and the words: \u201cCheers mate\u201d on the other. It wasn\u2019t a quote I\u2019d known to attribute to Christ, but I\u2019ll take his word for it.<\/p>\n I tell Kenny I\u2019m keen to speak to a tourist. Someone who can see the city with fresh eyes.<\/p>\n He points to a man hauling a large backpack with the flight tickets still attached.<\/p>\n Jim has just come off the train from the airport and has dropped into the city centre for a look around.<\/p>\n He is in England from Cork visiting his sister and will stay in Manchester for a night before heading to Leeds.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty. I like the walkway,\u201d he says with real positivity. \u201cFirst look – it\u2019s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n Holding a white Magnum ice cream and peering out from behind a rucksack mounted on his front, Jim says he likes the look of the buildings and the \u2018wave\u2019 of the station approach building.<\/p>\n I tell him there are some locals who think this is not a particularly attractive space.<\/p>\n Jim points to the dome of the London Road Fire Station – a building which has sat unused since the 90s <\/strong>– and asks \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like that. And the wave of this building. I like the architecture.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are really friendly here and it looks clean.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough people are a bit pale – it\u2019s summer, where\u2019s the sun?\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n I file Jim in the section of my brain marked \u2018perpetually positive individuals\u2019 and thank him for his time.<\/p>\n As we sweep down past Piccadilly Tap we see people outside sipping IPAs and stouts.<\/p>\n By Moose coffee, they drink iced lattes and flat whites.<\/p>\n In recent years there has been a clear attempt to bring cafe culture to Station Approach.<\/p>\n Outdoor seating is a hangover from the pandemic that both traders and customers have embraced.<\/p>\n Susan and her daughter are all for it. She\u2019s a New Islington native and remembers the days when she could roller skate over from her house to the city centre.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to play here on my roller skates. It\u2019s still got a sense of community I think.<\/p>\n \u201cThis part is better than it was. It\u2019s clear and there\u2019s less Spice around.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the Approach you didn\u2019t have this much choice before. I think it\u2019s nice. It feels more relaxed. Even if you\u2019ve been on a long journey you can get a coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n They move on and so do we.<\/p>\n It\u2019s July, but you wouldn\u2019t know it from the steel skies and chill in the air.<\/p>\n We decide to move down the Approach toward Ducie Street and on towards Piccadilly Gardens. This is where things get busier, angrier, edgier.<\/p>\n As they bottleneck at crossings, most pedestrians seem in a rush. Many stare down at their phones. Some shout into them.<\/p>\n Just one elderly woman, pushing a shopping cart, takes her time. Though it\u2019s possible she has no other choice.<\/p>\n A group of French children chatter and laugh as they walk together arm-in-arm.<\/p>\n An agitated lad dressed in a black tracksuit holds his phone aloft and shouts instructions into it while marching past a group with wheelie suitcases.<\/p>\n At the foot of Lever Street stands a derelict plot with scaffolding covered in fake redbrick, with barbed wire and black hoarding separating it from the street.<\/p>\n This was, for many years, the stage for those much-loved city centre performers The Piccadilly Rats.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847615_682_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847616_30_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
James Shenton(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847617_344_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
Jim, on holiday in the UK, from Cork, Ireland(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847618_911_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
Piccadilly Station Approach(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754847619_896_0_Piccadilly-Station-Approach.jpg\")
Things get busier as we walk towards Piccadilly Gardens(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
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Paul Campbell, who immediately asked me if I was a ‘Red’ or a ‘Blue'(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n