THE MANCHESTER Evening News is taking a bold stride forward into an exciting new future, with a move to a multi-million pound purpose built office complex.

After more than three decades operating from Deansgate, the newspaper is moving to state-of-the-art premises on Scott Place - just off nearby Hardman Street - at the heart of the expanding Spinningfields business area.

It is only the fourth move in the M.E.N.'s long history, and the new building is only a short distance from the offices in Brown Street where it began publishing almost 140 years ago.

The complex will be home to editorial staff from both the Evening News and Manchester Metro News, along with staff working for our website, the northern operation of The Guardian, and Guardian Media Group advertising, sales and finance staff that have been based at Deansgate.

The new building boasts facilities that will will put the M.E.N. at the forefront of media technology.

Outdated and cramped working condition at Deansgate will give way to air open-plan office space, and the very best in computer and communications equipment.

The Manchester Evening News began life as a newspaper with little more than a dozen staff and selling at a halfpenny a copy.

It quickly grew however, and in 1879 moved to the-then large and imposing building in Cross Street, which it occupied until the end of August 1970.

The move to Deansgate was described as one of the trickiest removal feats in Manchester's history, with three hundred tons of heavy machinery and office furniture transported half a mile across the city in just one weekend.It meant lifting 60 linotype machines weighing more than a ton each, out of the Cross Street composing room into the street 40 feet below, carrying them to Deansgate, and swinging them into position within the é3 million new office block.

And it took a small fleet of cranes including a 60-tonner with a 120 foot long jib, to cope with a nine-ton moulding press which had to be lifted out of the roof in pieces from its original position in the composing room.

Dozens of co-ordinating conferences took place involving contractors, police, fire brigade, electricity board, GPO, and Town Hall to make sure that the military operation-style move went ahead without a hitch.

This time, though the move has been months in the planning, there has been no heavy machinery involved, for the M.E.N. has been printed off-site for many years.

There have been problems of a different kind however. For whilst at the end of the `swinging' sixties editorial staff used typewriters and paper, computers rule in the modern newsroom.

And to ensure a smooth transition from one building to another, parallel PC systems had to be operated as the move deadline got nearer.

Paul Horrocks, editor of the Manchester Evening News said: "This is a historic weekend for Manchester."It is the first time a government in power has held its annual conference in the city, and we are moving to our new home at 1, Scott Place - named specifically after the Scott family, founders of the Scott Family Trust, owners of the Guardian Media Group of which the M.E.N. is a key part.

"We will now have one of the most modern newsrooms in the UK, and the move puts us firmly at the forefront, as a multi-media business with our weekly newspapers, our website, and our sister television station, Channel M. We intend to grow our audience across all these platforms."

*Rare film footage showing the news gathering process in operation at the Evening News' then-new building on Deansgate, is being screened at the Waterside Arts Venue in Sale on Thursday.

The 15-minute film titled `Voice of a Region' was made by Costain Construction who built the complex, and includes footage of the editor's daily news conference and the newspaper going to press.

The film is one of a collection being screened by The North West Film Archive as part of a programme titled `Trafford on Film'.

Tickets for the event at 7.30pm on Thursday September 28th are priced é3, and é2 for concessions and can be obtained in advance from the venue box office or by calling 0161 912 5616. Tweet