Stevie Wonder has added a second Manchester date to his European tour later this year. In addition to the concert at the Manchester Evening News Arena on September 9 he will also appear on October 3. Tickets go on sale today and are available here.
Free parking after 3 pm is to be introduced in Chester. The scheme, ‘It’s Free After Three’ will start on July 14 on council car parks on Princess Street and Gore Street and run for a 3-month trial period. The move is intended to encourage residents of Chester to shop in the city centre. A recent survey revealed that residents preferred to shop on retail parks such as Broughton Shopping Park and Cheshire Oaks, where parking is free.
The gravestone of former Joy Division singer Ian Curtis has been stolen from Macclesfield Cemetery. Cheshire Police said the memorial was taken sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning and are appealing for anybody with information of its whereabouts to contact them.
Curtis was born in Manchester in 1956 and spent his early years in Macclesfield. In 1976 he formed Warsaw with Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook. The band changed their name to Joy Division the following year. In 1980, at the height of their success, Curtis committed suicide. The gravestone bears the inscription ‘Ian Curtis 18 – 5 – 80 Love Will Tear Us Apart’, a reference to Joy Division’s best known song.
Preparatory work on Liverpool FC’s new stadium at Stanley Park has commenced. Contractors Laing O’Rourke began enabling works on Monday under a licence granted by Liverpool City Council. No major construction will commence until a lease agreement between the two parties has been finalised.
Co-chairman George Gillett said, ‘This is a significant milestone for the club and I am delighted that the design received full planning consent and that we are now on site. We have been working very hard over the last six months to move the details of the design along but this is the first tangible evidence for fans that a new LFC stadium will be built.’
Providing all goes to plan, the new stadium is expected to open in time for the start of the 2011/12 football season.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach is offering discounted wristbands for Sunday June 29. To purchase a wristband for only £16 and save £10 on the gate price, book online and enter discount code 2906. Tickets must be purchased before midnight on June 25 2008.
Budget airline Jet2.com has announced they will begin flying from Blackpool International Airport to Ibiza in July 2008. One way flights start as cheap as £48.99 and can be booked online at www.jet2.com.
Sue Kendrick of Blackpool International Airport said, ‘This is great news for the airport and the residents of Lancashire & Cumbria. Ibiza can offer two contrasting holidays and we are confident that this fantastic Balearic Island will prove very popular.’
Other destinations served by Jet2.com from Blackpool include Geneva, Tenerife, Belfast, Tenerife, Faro, and Majorca.
Beck’s today launched Beck’s Fusions, a unique art and music fusion project that will run throughout summer 2008 engaging artists, musicians, critics and the general public in the largest scale project of its kind ever undertaken. Visual art collective United Visual Artists (UVA) and Massive Attack (one of only three UK performances this year) will headline the 2008 Beck’s Fusions event on Sat 6 September in Manchester’s Castlefield Arena. For a chance to be at Beck’s Fusions, register online at www.becks.co.uk.
Keri Elmsly from UVA said, ‘Lots of our work involves bringing art and music together and as a collective we’re firm believers in the intrinsic relationship the two have. This project is great because it really recognises this and offers us the opportunity to present something really new and build on our collaborative relationship with Massive Attack.’
Beck’s have chosen Manchester as the location for Fusions in 2008 to celebrate its place as one of Britain’s top cultural destinations. The inaugural year of the Manchester International Festival in 2007 signalled Manchester as the obvious choice to host this celebration of art and music. A previous home to Dpercussion and Britain’s first urban heritage park, Castlefield Arena will offer an atmospheric backdrop for this unique event.
The winners of the 2008 Lancashire and Blackpool Tourism Awards were announced at a ceremony at Blackburn Rovers Football Club on Wednesday. The awards were handed out by BBC Radio Lancashire presenter Ted Robbins after Ranvir Singh withdrew due to illness.
The winners were:
Bed and Breakfast/Guest Accommodation of the Year – Number One South Beach, Blackpool
Small Hotel of the Year – Shireburn Arms, Ribble Valley
Large Hotel of the Year – Big Blue Hotel, Blackpool
Small Visitor Attraction of the Year – Farmer Teds Farm Park, Ormskirk
Large Visitor Attraction of the Year – Sandcastle Waterpark, Blackpool
Caravan Holiday Park of the Year – Newton Hall Holiday Park – Blackpool
Self-Catering Holiday of the Year – Beech House, Blackpool
Tourism Website of the Year – Ribby Hall Village, Wrea Green
Taste Lancashire 08 Award – Northcote Manor, Langho
Business Tourism Award of the Year – Barton Grange Hotel, Preston
Sustainable Tourism Award – RSPB Leighton Moss Nature Reserve, Carnforth
Best Tourism Experience of the Year – Morecambe Bay Cross Bay Walks
Tourism Event of the Year, Lancashire Food Festival, Accrington
Budget carrier Ryanair has announced a new daily flight from Liverpool to Knock in Ireland. The new service will operate from October 27 2008 and is expected to attract around 100,000 passengers per year.
One-way tickets are available from €12.99 from www.ryanair.com.
Blackpool has announced that the 2008 Illuminations will be switched on by the team from the popular BBC TV motoring programme Top Gear. Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond will flick the switch on August 29. The event will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 and will feature a free concert.