Manchester hotel restaurant The Refuge is serving a roast for you AND your dog
Pet-friendly hotel Kimpton Clocktower also provides a full pet setup in the room, with a pet tuckbox, pet guide to the best dog-friendly places to visit, toys and treats
A hotel restaurant in Manchester is serving up Sunday roast dinners for dogs and we are completely obsessed.
Award-winning eatery and bar The Refuge, located inside the pet-friendly Kimpton Clocktower Hotel on Oxford Road, is already highly-rated for its Sunday roasts but it’s about to get even more popular after adding a new ‘roast bowl’ for pets to its Sunday menu.
Introduced as part of the venue’s new spring food menu overhaul, four-legged friends now have their own answer to The Refuge’s legendary Sunday dinner – allowing them to dine in style alongside their owners.
Comprised of a mini roast, the new pet ‘roast bowl’ features a selection of meat, veggies, and a dash of pet-friendly gravy (no onions or garlic to worry about here).
Image: The Refuge
Image: The Refuge
Owners, meanwhile, are also in for a treat with the choice between a traditional roast or one of The Refuge’s famous sharing platters (a mixture of grass-fed rump of Lancashire beef and half a roast Cumbrian chicken plus trimmings, with the option to add-on a lamb shawarma shepherd’s pie for an extra £9).
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All roast platters are served with thyme and salt roast potatoes, glazed carrot, seasonal greens, Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower cheese and pan gravy, whilst individual roasts come with roast potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding and a selection of vegetables.
Vegans are also welcome, with a plant-based Sunday dinner option of vegan wellington, roasted celeriac, duxelles, red onion, kale and potato.
Speaking on the new menus, Stephanie McIver, General Manager of The Refuge said: “The new menus at The Refuge are a fresh and inventive take on feasting and sharing with friends and family.
“We welcome anyone and everyone to our dining space and we expect the new additions will be highlights for all our guests this season.
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“At The Refuge we extend our invitation to dogs which is a continuation of Kimpton Clocktower Hotel’s dog-friendly policy, making all dogs welcome alongside their human guest counterparts and offering dogs their very own Sunday roast dinner.”
Image: The Refuge
Image: The Refuge
Guests with pets are encouraged to book a PAWfect stay at Kimpon Clocktower Hotel to enjoy an overnight stay with breakfast, along with a full pet setup in the room, a pet tuckbox, pet guide to the best dog-friendly places to visit and a toy and treat or two.
Pets at Klimpton Clocktower Hotel are welcome to stay with their owners for free, with no extra charge placed on the room.
For more information on The Refuge and to book a table visit here. Guests looking to order a Dog roast bowl are encouraged to make this request when booking a reservation at The Refuge.
Featured image – The Refuge
City Centre
Greater Manchester officially launches five-year climate change action plan
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester has officially begun its five-year climate change action plan, with the overarching goal of becoming a net-zero city region by 2038.
The comprehensive pledge put together over a number of years itself will see Manchester City Council and the nearby local authorities put into action a number of key measures that will help to reduce not only central carbon figures but, eventually, across the 10 boroughs in turn.
Over the last 15 years, emissions have been reduced by approximately 64%, saving an estimated 44,344 tonnes of carbon through cleaner building energy, street lighting and other electronics, as well as the increasingly green and over-growing Bee Network.
They have also insisted that it isn’t just about cutting down on greenhouse gases; the aim is to make the city region and the surrounding areas more sustainable, affordable and create a better standard of life.
Our five-year plan to tackle climate change launches today. 🌏
It details how we’ll continue to deliver dramatic reductions in the amount of carbon we emit (the biggest contributor to climate change). 🏙️
As per the summary on the Council website, in addition to creating more efficient homes, they’re hoping to provide more access to nature and good-quality green space, “public transport you can rely on”, and “better health and wellbeing for those who live, work, study and visit here.”
With a steadily recovering local and national economy (touch wood), they’re also hoping for an influx of new jobs, too.
Summarising the key bullet points leading up to the end of the decade, these are the next steps currently outlined by the Council:
Lower carbon emissions
Grow the use of renewable energy
Improve low-carbon travel in the city
Improve air quality
Grow the city’s natural environment and boost biodiversity
Improve resilience to flooding and extreme heat
Engage and involve our workforce and our city’s communities
Reduce waste and grow reuse, repair, sharing and recycling
Support a move to a more circular economy
Minimise the negative impact of events held in the city
Develop our knowledge of our indirect emissions and lower them
Create a green financing strategy and explore new funding models for the city
Influence the environmental practices of other organisations
As for emissions, the target is now to drop the present output by another 34%, which will prevent almost 43,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from being pumped into the atmosphere.
Having touched upon the continued expansion of the Bee Network infrastructure, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is also set to install multiple new travel links over the coming years, including both new tram stops and train stations – further
You can read the climate action plan in full HERE.
Manchester’s firework displays are ‘back with a bang’ as they return from 2026
Emily Sergeant
Council-organised firework displays in Manchester’s parks are set to return from next year, it has been confirmed.
You may remember that these once-popular events have not been held since 2019, as the COVID-19 pandemic initially prevented them from taking place from 2020 onwards, and then following that, they remained paused on a trial basis while the Manchester City Council sought to ‘reprioritise funding’ to support a wider range of free community events across the city.
But now, as it seems, the door was never shut on their potential return.
An ‘improved financial position’ now means that the Council is in a position to bring firework events back, while also still continuing to support other community events.
Papers setting out the Council’s financial position show that fairer funding being introduced by the Government next year will leave the Council better off than previously anticipated, he the reason firework displays have been brought back into the mix.
The Council has admitted that ‘pressures remain’ after so many years of financial cuts, but this new funding creates the opportunity to invest in the things residents have said matter the most to them.
“Manchester prides itself on free community events and we know many people have missed Bonfire night firework spectaculars,” commented Cllr Bev Craig, who is the Leader of Manchester City Council.
“That’s why we are pleased to confirm they’ll be back by popular demand in 2026.
“We know that generations of Mancunians have enjoyed Council-organised displays and that free family events are a great way to bring people together… [and] now that this Government is actually investing in Councils like ours rather than the cuts we had since 2010, we can bring back Bonfire events.”
Georgina Pellant -
3rd April 2023 
