Sitting on a delivery truck outside his family’s supermarket, Jimmy Low looked at the state of Chinatown in despair.

Homeless people sleeping or drinking alcohol on public benches, plant beds filled with rubbish and the once beautiful Pagoda hidden behind ugly metal fencing.

While we were watching, a group began openly cutting up drugs to share between them.

Jimmy says it’s like this, if not worse, every day.

Sometimes the vagrants shoplift beer from inside his shop or fruit from the baskets outside.

Many are often slumped over in a zombie-like state showing the tell-tale signs of having taken Spice.

Jimmy later shared a video of a regular set of troublemakers fighting between themselves - it’s the kind of intimidating behaviour that’s driving customers away by the bucketload.

He has recently resorted to employing a private security guard, using valuable resources he can ill afford to spare as manager of Wing Fat Supermarket, the shop his parents opened 32 years ago.

But he has to do something.

He believes he’s lost between 10 to 25 per cent of footfall in the last twelve months alone.

“I’m worried for the future of Chinatown,” Jimmy, 37, said.

It’s a sad reflection of where one of Manchester’s oldest and proudest immigrant communities finds itself in 2018.

The biggest Chinese population outside London

Chinese people began arriving in the city at the start of the 20th century, setting up traditional businesses such as laundries and the first restaurant Ping Hong, opened on Mosley Street in 1948.

But it was in the 1970s that Chinatown really sprang into life in Manchester, with dozens of restaurants, takeaways and supermarkets popping up within a tight square of the city centre.

Its borders are generally considered to be Charlotte Street to the north, Portland Street to the east, Princess Street to the south and Mosley Street to the west.

The area’s crowning glory is the Ming Dynasty Imperial Arch that straddles Nicholas Street and Faulkner Street - a gift from China which was dedicated in 1987.

Manchester now has the biggest Chinese population outside of London and the third largest in Europe.

Many come to study at our renowned universities and stay and set up life here.

Chinatown is now a familiar part of Manchester’s cultural landscape - whether its watching the parade at New Year, enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet or stumbling into a late-night karaoke bar.

Meanwhile, our business ties with mainland China have gone from strength to strength, with an estimated £3billion in investment secured for landmark projects such as Airport City and the first-ever direct flight to Beijing taking off in 2016.

The problems are ‘relentless’

(Image: Jimmy Low)

But while money may be pouring in from the booming Far East economy, life is proving much more of a battle for the Mancunian diaspora.

Residents and business owners who have spoken to the M.E.N describe a neighbourhood under siege from vagrancy, littering, drug-taking and anti-social behaviour.

When we visited on two occasions this week, the plant beds in the square were filled with rubbish and benches were frequently taken up by people sleeping or showing the effects of drugs.

There have been claims that street cleaning teams have been too afraid to visit in recent months - though this is denied by the council.

“It’s relentless,” said Bonnie Yeung, who runs the famous Yang Sing restaurant with father Harry.

“We’ve been raising the same problems since at least 2012.

“We didn’t get the drug dealing at first - it was the anti-social behaviour and homeless people.

“But then the drug dealers see a business opportunity and move in.

“We’re in the situation where our staff won’t park here because they’re scared for their safety.

“Particularly our female staff, they don’t want to go to a poorly-lit car park late at night on their own.

“Residents coming out of apartment buildings are finding people sleeping on their doorstep and they’re too afraid to come out.”

According to the latest figures, there were 304 crimes recorded in the Chinatown neighbourhood in the first three months of this year, a 44 per cent increase on the same period in 2017.

Around half of those crimes were categorised as anti-social behaviour.

Greater Manchester Police is aware of the perception that parts of the city centre are perceived as dangerous and launched a crackdown this week.

The M.E.N joined Inspector Jon Middleton on the first of three ‘days of action’ aimed at making the city centre a “hostile area” for criminals.

During a briefing, it was acknowledged that Chinatown is a particular area of concern and may be the centre of an ongoing turf war between rival drugs gangs.

A dozen empty bottles of bleach were recently found under a nearby canal bridge and police fear criminals will have decanted them into smaller bottles to use as a deadly weapon.

‘We’ve been left to fend for ourselves’

The reasons why Chinatown finds itself being described as a ‘no-go’ area are mixed.

There is a feeling that efforts to combat problems in Piccadilly Gardens over the past year may have simply moved the problem further south where topographical features make it even harder to tackle.

There is no main road in Chinatown - instead the narrow streets and alleyways are naturally attractive to those wanting to avoid attention and engage in criminal activity.

In November 2016, two homeless men died when a fire swept through an abandoned building on Nicolas Street opposite the Arch.

Police later declared the blaze was suspicious and launched a murder investigation.

An arrest was made but no charges followed and the case officially remains open with the offer of a £50,000 reward for information.

Businesses here are mostly family-owned and run by older Chinese immigrants who sometimes struggle with the language barrier and are perhaps less inclined to engage with the relevant authorities.

In its strategic plan for the city centre in 2015, the council identified Chinatown as a ‘must see destination for international visitors and tourists’ and promised to ‘work collaboratively with businesses and residents to improve the quality of the environment and future maintenance strategy.’

But business owners claim they’ve been left behind.

“I just feel like we’ve been kind of left to fend for ourselves,” Winnie Leung, manager of her family’s restaurant The Great Wall, told the M.E.N in an interview last year.

“And we’re in the centre of Manchester - the council should do more to help us.

“A couple of years ago we formed a community group and we had people at the meetings from CityCo and the council who were willing to fork out for the upkeep like the painting work and the change of lights around the pagoda.

“That’s stopped, probably because our community group stopped as well.

“It was difficult because I was trying to attend meetings but there wasn’t enough people to staff the restaurant, because you just can’t get the staff nowadays.

“And obviously when the Chinese community lose interest, the council are also going to lose interest.”

Plans for action

The younger members of the Chinatown community are not giving up without a fight.

Bonnie and Jimmy are among those who recently joined a Whatsapp group where they regularly share information about what’s going on and log numbers for crime reports.

“I took my three-year-old to go to Yuzu [Japanese restaurant] the other evening and would not take him out in Chinatown in an evening again,” said Bonnie.

“I counted seventeen vagrants on benches, lying on ground, in the doorway between the arch and Yuzu- it is really, really appalling.

“They’re swearing, spitting, gurning, lying on the ground.”

There have been regular meetings between the council, police and Chinatown community in recent years where concerns have been raised.

But Bonnie says businesses are so fed up, there’s been discussion about a collective day of closure or non-payment of rates.

The council told the MEN it wanted to see Chinatown ‘flourishing’ once again and promised to continue engaging with businesses and residents over the current problems.

It is understood the pagoda continues to be fenced off pending an agreement on how it can be brought back into ‘meaningful use.’

Counc Nigel Murphy, the deputy leader of the council, said: “We are determined to support Chinatown for the long-term future and, alongside Greater Manchester Police and other partners, we’re investing significant time and resources into tackling anti-social behaviour and littering in the area as a matter of urgency.

“It is simply untrue to suggest that our officers are not prepared to visit the area.

“In addition to our daily street-cleaning visits, we carried out more than 30 enforcement visits in April, to deal with issues including littering, drug abuse and commercial waste.

“We will continue to carry out proactive inspections, as well as responding to any reports received from residents and businesses.

“Our rough sleeper team actively provide outreach services and have increased their presence in this area, to support anyone who is sleeping rough.

“Many rough sleepers have very complex issues and providing the support they need is not always a straightforward process, but we’re committed to working with them and helping them to move off the streets into appropriate accommodation, just as we are across the city.

“The Chinatown pagoda has recently been affected by anti-social behaviour, but has been cleaned and repaired and we’re committed to working with the local community to see it fulfil its potential as a major asset, both for the local neighbourhood and for the city centre as a whole.

“This is ongoing and further engagement events and clean-up operations are already planned, but we are happy to arrange additional meetings with businesses and residents to discuss what more needs to be done.

“We all want to see a flourishing Chinatown which attracts more visitors and we will continue to meet with the community on a regular basis to work towards this goal.”