Another new hotel has opened its doors in Manchester city centre, as The Alan transforms the old Princess Street Hotel.
The new hotel has stripped the six-storey building back to expose and celebrate its original features.
The Grade II-listed building now has 137 bedrooms, each with high ceilings and warm textures.
The Alan also has an open-plan kitchen and restaurant, a bar, and a pop-up space.
One of The Midi rooms at The Alan hotel in Manchester. Credit: Supplied
Its design is inspired by Manchester’s industrial heritage – guests will be greeted by a lobby floor made from a collage of discarded marble, and exposed brick walls.
ADVERTISEMENT
Interior design agency Red Deer, which worked on the project, said it wants to ‘counter-act the wastefulness of the construction industry, creating intriguing touchpoints that celebrate the inherent value found in old materials that may be classed by some as ‘defective’ or ‘broken’’.
As for the name – the team wanted something that was personable, welcoming and unpretentious.
ADVERTISEMENT
The restaurant and bar spaces at The Alan. Credit: Supplied
The rooms in The Alan range in size from The Standard to the Alan Suites, which take on a corner position and give guests views of the city.
Every room comes with an Emperor-sized bed, 200 thread Egyptian cotton bedding, 50″ Samsung Smart TVs with Google Chromecast, fast WiFi and Audio Pro Bluetooth speakers.
It’s also one of only four hotels in the UK to offer Google Nest smart concierge in all its rooms.
ADVERTISEMENT
Details in the bedrooms at The Alan. Credit: Supplied
Previously, the guest rooms in the hotel featured lowered ceilings and boxed-in features – these have been opened up to create taller rooms and expose heritage details.
The Alan will champion local businesses, with Ancoats Coffee Co and Bohea Teas stocked in the rooms and Pomona Island and Cloudwater beers stocked in the bar.
Its new restaurant and bar space will be serving an all-day seasonal menu, headed up by Iain Thomas, formerly of the Edinburgh Castle.
Iain has worked in kitchens since he was 16 and will use some ingredients from his own allotment in his menu, which features dishes like Cheshire beef tartare with confit egg yolk, salt-baked celeriac, and lamb fat cabbage.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Butcher’s Quarter will provide the meat for the larger plates, from grass-fed sirloin steaks to free-range pork and Gatehouse Farm lamb chops.
Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
ADVERTISEMENT
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
ADVERTISEMENT
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Daisy Jackson -
8th February 2022 
