I am looking to rent a flat/room in Manchester near to the main train station (Manchester Picadilly?) is there anyone who could advise me as to which areas are good/bad? Also what price range is acceptable in this area?
Thanks in advance.
Accommodation in the city centre can be very pricey - i knew someone who was renting a flat in the centre at £1000 a month (he was sharing with his cousin). You can of course get much more reasonably priced accommodation the suburbs. I have lived in Whalley Range and Salford Quays - the Quays have regular trams into the centre and are not as rough as Whalley Range. When I lived there the rent was more in the order of £600 a month for a 2 bedroomed flat.
Agreed that city-centre options are expensive.
Is there a specific reason you need to be that close to Piccadilly? You’ll have far more options if you look to be near to another local station or tram stop, or on the Oxford Road bus routes. You can expect similar rents to the city centre in nice (well, nice for Manchester 
) areas such as Didsbury or Sale. And you can get cheaper rents in still-acceptable areas such as parts of Old Trafford or Chorlton. And outer towns such as Stalybridge and Hazel Grove are also suitable commuting distances, while also putting you in more pleasant environments (ie they don’t smell permanently of diesel fumes.)
A word of warning - don’t trust what the estate agents tell you is the location of a property. They’ll claim it’s in Didsbury when it’s in Burnage, or claim it’s in Withington when it’s really Whalley Range. Check on a map - and doublecheck with us back here 
(Disclaimer - all the above is south-Manchester-biased, because that’s the area I know better.)
So I guess my paying £20 a week for a room in Didsbury was pretty good. Right on the number7 bus route, too.
In 1988
Heh heh, nowadays that’d get you half a room in Moss Side.
Yeah, specifically I would like to be within easy bus/walking distance of the Manchester University (formerly UMIST) campus near the train station.
Ah, well in that case, you can live in many places (I’m ex-Manchester Uni myself). The main bus route through the Oxford Road campus go to Rusholme, Fallowfield, Withington, and East Didsbury, and operates around the clock (it’s reputed to be the most frequent bus service in Europe - and getting on the nightbuses at 3am on a Friday night is certainly an experience!) There’s also frequent services to West Didsbury, Northenden and Chorlton which operate to midnight-ish, and may actually also be 24-hour (I always lived in the Rusholme area). From the bus stop at Oxford Road station it’s only a few minutes walk to the formerly-UMIST campus. In fact, if you live in the centre of town, you’ll feel quite detached from student life in general - most of it is focused on the areas I just mentioned. You’ll find that 90% of the people at the uni are getting the bus from those areas. (Of course, I’m assuming you’re a student…)
Small world, isn’t it? Graduated on’89. Do you know if they still do suicide currys at the Plaza?
No idea - I mainly stuck to Camel One and Caspians for kebabs, and Tandoori Kitchen and Punjab for the full meals…the one thing I miss more than anything else is a really spicy marinade on a chicken kebab, something that doesn’t seem to be available anywhere in East Anglia…hmmm, I’m hungry, and I’ve only just eaten my lunch!
Yes, I am starting a post graduate course in Jan. Being older (34) but not necessarily wiser, and married with kids I am not to bothered about enjoying the student life.(having already done that).
Would it be cheaper to use B&Bs as I only intend to be in Manchester Monday to Thursday?
By the way, thanks for all the suggestions, I will start calling estage agents today.
I doubt that it’ll work out any cheaper to use B&Bs, with the huge amount of rental accomodation helping keep rents in check. Make your first call to Manchester Student Homes, which is run by the universities and is therefore infintitely more trustworthy, far more knowledgeable and generally more pleasant that estate agents!
On the other hand, if you want me to check among people I know who are still in the area if there’s anything suitable that they know of, email me.
Moved to IMHO.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
You want to live in Manchester?
Ah ha ha ha ha ha!
Seriously?
Ok. Advice - Don’t go out alone. And if you meet my boyfriend, avoid him too.
Hell, Manchester isn’t so bad…
…it’s not so good either, but it’s better than say, Hull, or Cleckheaton.
True - it’s not as bad as Moston, Manchster, or Hulme, Manchester…
And excuuuuuuse me, Miss AngelicGemma, in the throbbing cultural capital of that vague area between King’s Lynn and Yorkshire 
You’re damn right I’m in a throbbing cultural capital! We have the…erm… famous Christmas market! And the… the swans, yeah can’t forget them…and erm… the catherdral. That’s old and stuff.
Oh, who cares. It’s STILL better then Manchester!
I don’t have much knowledge of Manchester but as I currently live near Leicester can it really be much worse?
Awhile back at work, I had time to peruse maps during odd, and not so odd hours. I’ve wondered what people in the area consider to be the dividing line between Liverpool and Manchester, as there doesn’t seem to be any letup in the roads or population. Or is the map deceiving me?
(Also, if this were in the U.S., i’m sure people would be suggesting Liverpool, or even Leeds or Newcastle if they were a bit closer, since we consider any town within 20 miles to be a suburb of the bigger city.)
…oops, now I see that indeed, public transportation was important to the OP. nevermind…
Hey, another UMISTer checking in! When I was there (1986-89) I was down Didsbury way and it was nice. It was a quick walk to the Bridge club and on the main bus route to the centre.
The map was partly deceiving you - there’s certainly green fields and farms in the gap between the two. Although you’re still correct that it’s in many ways a single industrial corridor - but there’s more important things than that. The mindset says they’re different places, and the towns in between such as Wigan and St Helens are definitely separate again (in particular, each has their own distinct accent).
A train from Liverpool or Leeds to Manchester takes nearly an hour. I knew one person who drove from Leeds to Manchester every day, and in the morning it would normally take well over 2 hours. When so many people live in such a small space, it takes a lot longer to get around!