The Law Centre occupies premises that were previously a branch of the city’s Citizens Advice service. According to John Nicholson, the chair of the centre’s management committee, Citizens Advice in Manchester is no longer able to provide face-to-face advice due to funding cuts, but ‘we are heading in the opposite direction as this is what people want’.

In response to Nicholson’s comments, Andy Brown, chief executive of Citizens Advice Manchester, said they ‘took a policy decision to invest monies in front-line advisers rather than costly premises’ and that they provide, with other partners, ‘face-to-face advice in over 40 community access points across the city, including Moss Side’. Brown said these services are ‘co-located in buildings where Manchester City Council residents can access generalist as well as specialist legal advice in debt, benefits, housing and employment delivered by our solicitors’.

Andy Burnham, the Labour MP who was recently selected as the party’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester, has added his support to the GMLC project, as he is worried that his constituents ‘are finding it harder and harder to get access to justice and are more and more vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers’.