“There, sat on the bouncy astro turf installed to provide kiddies with a safe, soft place to play, were four men smoking and drinking.”
06:04, 06 Sep 2025Updated 06:09, 06 Sep 2025
Dianne has written for the Manchester Evening News for almost 20 years across a variety of subjects. Formerly Diary Editor covering showbiz and events in Manchester, Dianne is now Lifestyle Editor, covering travel reviews, food and drink news and reviews and attending many of the biggest gigs across Manchester. Dianne loves a farm shop, and writing about all the great places for families to take children across the North West and beyond.
The Piccadilly Gardens play area at night – where writer Dianne had an altercation with men smoking(Image: MEN)
I’d had a pleasant Friday night in Manchester city centre, enjoying a lovely meal in a new restaurant, and was heading back to catch my train home at Piccadilly.
It wasn’t too late (around 9.30pm) and the most direct route was across Piccadilly Gardens.
It had been a sunny day, but it was dark now, and the gardens by and large were quiet and empty. That is, until I came to pass the children’s play area.
There, sat on the bouncy astro turf installed to provide kiddies with a safe, soft place to play, were four men – not youths – men. They were sat, crossed legged, smoking and drinking.
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I wasn’t going to say anything. I was on my own in Piccadilly Gardens at night, I really shouldn’t be confronting strangers should I?
But that’s when I saw four kids, three of them quite young, still playing on the play area. While these men, seemingly oblivious, sat spewing their fumes in their path.
I could bite my tongue no longer. I walked over to the group, stood over their patch, and asked: “Excuse me guys, but do you think it’s appropriate to be smoking on a children’s play area?”
They looked up at me, I think at first thinking I was having a joke or something. The oldest in the group said to me: “Is it a play area? We didn’t know,” while sat next to a shiny slide shaped like a snail.
“Well yes it’s a play area, look there are kids still playing on it,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
His response? “Well kids shouldn’t be out this late at night”. I took a sharp intake of breath. “That’s not the point,” I continued, “This is a children’s play area and you shouldn’t be smoking on it, there’s a whole entire gardens for you to sit and smoke on,” I said, waving my arms to point to the many, many areas of grass that they could sit and puff away on.
One of them got my goat even further by saying “Look I’m stoned, I don’t know where we are.” Not the thing to say to an angry mum.
“Oh, so you’re not only smoking, you’re smoking illegal drugs on a children’s play area, that’s just great,” I fumed. “No no, that was earlier I’m only vaping now,” he protested. “What about you?” I said to another in the group smoking a roll-up, “It’s just a cigarette,” he said.
“So you’re not moving then?” I went on. “Unless you’re the council, you can f*** off,” came the reply from the bolshy one in the group.
Well, this wound me right up. “The council? Oh I’m worse than that I’m a mother,” I said. “And I’m a journalist, and I’m going to write about this, now please, move.”
Two of them scarpered immediately, but the other two dug their heels in a bit longer. “What is your problem? The police are right there and they don’t care about it,” the bolshy one said.
I swung round to see there was indeed a police van parked up next to the play area. “Yes, well I care, and I’m going to speak to them next,” I said.
By this point, the remaining two had risen to their feet. I think possibly I was a bit scared at this point, but I was standing my ground.
Eyeball to eyeball with the confrontational one, I said to him: “My ‘problem’ is, I’m a mother, and there are kids playing here. One day you will understand”, and I really, really hope one day he does.
But on this particular night, his response to me was: “F*** off you stupid *****”.
It was to be his sweary parting shot as they scurried off to another patch of grass (of which there were many) to smoke on and presumably whinge about me for the rest of their night.
I’m sure some of you reading this will think it’s funny, oh yeah, haha Dianne got sworn at, but trust me if you’re a woman on your own at night in Piccadilly Gardens, being sworn at like that by a group of men is not funny.
I know that yes, actually I am stupid for confronting them, because I was putting myself in danger. Most of us don’t step in when we see bad behaviour like this in a public setting because we’re afraid we’re going to get hurt.
But in the heat of the moment, I just wanted those grown adults, who should know better, to stop smoking on a children’s play area, it was really that simple.
I did stomp over to the police van as the men walked away from me, but unfortunately it was just a locked van, there were no police in it. At that point, I did start to feel slightly uneasy, and alone, and I made a very, very hasty dash up to Piccadilly.
Reflecting on what happened in the cold light of day, it did make me think more broadly about the ongoing issues with pretty much everything in Piccadilly Gardens right now.
Kids on the play area at Piccadilly Gardens – and lots of cigarette butts left where children play(Image: MEN)
It’s one of Manchester’s most famous civic spaces, probably the busiest, and certainly the most maligned.
Everyone knows it needs a drastic rethink and redesign to tackle the many issues that police and the council face there with anti-social behaviour, but also to give it some kind of proper identity for the many different types of people who walk there and use it day in day out.
I wrote in the MEN only a couple of weeks ago raising the issue of scores of cigarette butts littering the children’s play area at Piccadilly Gardens, that was during the daytime when I visited with my own kids during the school summer holidays.
The play area was packed on that occasion – it very often is – because it’s one of the few places for families to take their kids centrally in the city centre.
The council (who the men I confronted seemed to be saying they had respect for) made a very firm response to my initial story about smoking in the play area, they said: “No decent Mancunian should need telling” not to litter in a children’s play area.
A redesign of Piccadilly Gardens is set to be unveiled this month(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
They added: “It shouldn’t need saying, but smoking is not allowed in children’s play areas and we would urge people to heed that.”
My feeling is the way the play area is designed (well, indeed the whole gardens is designed) is not helping – as the play area is not sectioned off in any way so I suppose may explain why so many cigarette butts end up there.
There’s stone seating right next to the play area, clearly intended for families to sit while watching their kiddies play, but it is also a spot some people think they can sit and smoke.
I, like many of you reading this, will have fond memories of the sunken gardens at Piccadilly back in the day, with lovely flowers and walkways.
Piccadilly Gardens as it is in 2025(Image: MEN)
But I’m aware that back then it had its problems too, it just looked nicer – and that having gardens in themselves can bring their own issues with anti-social behaviour.
It’s just a massive conundrum isn’t it? The council are apparently considering “bringing a floral element” back as part of a major redesign that is going to be unveiled at some point this month, which I thought was a great idea – until I took to social media to say this and got a mixed response.
One man made the quite valid, but somewhat depressing, point, that the only real way to tackle the issues at Piccadilly Gardens would be to “cobble the lot” and make it one vast, open space with “zero places to hide and deal drugs, take crack, s***, p*** and whatever else goes on there”.
Is that really what we have become as a society? That we can’t have a nice garden space at Piccadilly Gardens, or a place where children can happily play in a safe environment, because of a minority intent on causing disruption? That makes me very sad indeed.
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