Peterloo: Fresh bid to make Manchester memorial accessible

The memorial features inscriptions designed to be read as people walk up and down its tiered design

Campaigners are fighting to make the Peterloo Massacre memorial accessible for wheelchair users, despite being told there are no viable solutions.

The memorial was unveiled in 2019 before the 200th anniversary, but the circular-stepped feature came under fire from disability campaigners.

Manchester City Council said last week it had exhausted options for improving access including ramps and lifts.

Councillors have agreed to meet with campaigners to discuss fresh proposals.

Deputy council leader, councillor Luthfur Rahman, admitted that mistakes were made and if he could he would "go back and start right at the beginning again", the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Jeremy Deller, the Turner Prize-winning artist who designed the memorial, intended it to be "a place of meeting and assembly where people could stand and sit together".

But the council said it did not anticipate Mr Deller's interpretation of his brief, which proposed the monument to be interactive without accommodating wheelchair access.

The memorial was designed by Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller

Mark Todd, a member of the Peterloo Memorial access campaign, told the council's communities and equalities committee that the time for working with Mr Deller and architects on finding a solution had passed.

"What we've done is we've worked together as Mancunians to come up with a solution we think works," he said.

"We want it to be an access solution that gets us to the top as the promise was made, so we can take part in the same way as any other citizen, but we think it can do more than that."

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Several committee members agreed that the proposals should be considered by the council.

Councillor Susan Cooley, the council's lead member for disabled people, said: "I think what we need to do is sit down together and have a look at the proposals."

Committee members also accepted that lessons learned from the Peterloo monument had paved the way for more inclusive future memorials such as the Glade of Light, which will commemorate the 22 victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.

The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field in Manchester in 1819, when crowds arrived to hear radical speaker Henry Hunt campaign for parliamentary reform.

At least 11 people were killed and 400 were injured when a troop of sabre-wielding cavalrymen charged into the crowds.