Clippers Quay

The site under development was once the site of Britain's first out of centre multi-screen cinema, one of the earliest new developments at Salford Quays. It lies by the Ship Canal and Trafford Road Bridge. With all the new development at Media City this is a bit of the Quays that has to some extent been "forgotten".

Today the cinema is long gone (it closed years ago, and was demolished more recently). The new development is apartments for rent, and today was the topping out ceremony (thus the flags on the top left of one of the structures). I listened to a speech or two, but missed the ceremony.

On the other side of the Canal Sam Platts pub - closed for years - looks a sorry sight. It will make way for the new metro link line to the Trafford Centre - effectively the Quays is going to have two lines, this new one linking the City Centre and the Traff', and the existing line to the City Centre and Eccles.. 

This is all very urban, but nature is never as far away as you think. Along the adjacent Ship Canal I saw swans swim, cormorants do their standing-with-their-wings-wide open thing, and - perhaps most surprisingly - sand martins hawking over the water.