Conference on inner-city issues

Guns and gang culture are serious inner city issues

Community leaders from across England are attending a Manchester conference to help tackle inner-city issues.

More than 40 people from Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and Nottingham will discuss gun and gang culture at the Street Peace event.

The meeting will enable them to swap concerns and experiences and look at ways of improving troubled communities.

Manchester has long been linked with gang warfare and was nicknamed "Gunchester" in the mid-1990s.

'First-hand experience'

The two-day conference is being held in Benchill, Wythenshawe.

It has been organised by Moss Side anti-gun group CARISMA, the United Estates of Wythenshawe (UEW) - a project which mentors gang members on neutral ground - and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social policy research and development charity.

I'm not convinced that middle class solutions will solve working class problems - so this is a credible attempt at solving the problems for ourselves Greg Davis, leader of UEW

Greg Davis, leader of UEW, said: "The people invited have all got first hand experience of frontline inner city issues, such as gang culture.

"I'm not convinced that middle class solutions will solve working class problems - so this is a credible attempt at solving the problems for ourselves."

Following on from the conference, the organisers plan to produce a manifesto, focusing on bringing about change, which will be given to the local authorities, MPs and Government Ministers.

The conference comes just days after the first anniversary of the death of 15-year-old Jessie James who was shot in September 2006 as he rode his bicycle through a park in Moss side on his way to a party.

Two prison inmates, aged 20 and 21, were arrested last month over his murder.