A local mum is planning to buy a new home that will “transform the life” of her disabled daughter after winning the lottery.
Trawling through Rightmove with no luck had become a daily occurrence for Nichola Galley.
The 43-year-old, from Dukinfield in Tameside, had been checking the property website every day for over four years after local Council bosses refused planning permission to adapt their family home to suit the needs of her severely disabled daughter Ava.
Ava has a genetic condition that has continually perplexed medical professionals, and is considered to be so rare that it doesn’t even have a name.
The 13-year-old was born with the condition, and it has left her non-verbal, unable to walk without the assistance of others, and needing to be tube fed – but despite all in her way, the miracle teen has defied all the odds.
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Dukinfield mum wins the lottery and ‘a new life’ for disabled daughter / Credit: Supplied
“Ava’s condition is so rare it doesn’t have a name,” Nichola explained.
“Most pregnancies either miscarry or are stillborn, and doctors didn’t expect her to still be with us at this age, but she likes to keep us all on our toes.”
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Nichola – who works at a local supermarket cafe, and is also Ava’s full-time carer after giving up her career in design when her daughter was born – and her Creative Director husband Paul, 47, had to turn part of their downstairs dining room into a bedroom for Ava as she got older, as their current home is no longer suitable for her needs.
She's full-time carer to her daughter Ava, who has a disability, so this money means her family can now move to a more accessible house that will transform Ava's life ❤️👏 pic.twitter.com/8IxbMC6vDo
“Ava is getting older and bigger so we need a downstairs bedroom, a wet room, and open plan living so she can move around safely,” Nichola continued, “Hopefully it won’t come to it, but we might need hoists to lift her and everything that comes with that too.
“We don’t actually want to move.
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“We did apply for planning permission to have a downstairs wet room bathroom for Ava, but it was denied.”
Nichola Galley has won £55,555 on the People’s Postcode Lottery / Credit: People’s Postcode Lottery
But now, Nichola has won a life-changing £55,555 as part of the People’s Postcode Lottery’s ‘Millionaire Street’, along with a handful of her neighbours, and it means the family can move from their unsuitable semi to a new home that will “transform the life” of Ava.
“I can’t believe we’ve won that amount of money. It’s going to be so useful that it’s hard not to get emotional”.
Featured Image – People’s Postcode Lottery
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‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
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…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
26th June 2023 
