City news in 250 words

IN TEMPERATURES BELOW ZERO, thousands of people came into Manchester city centre last night to celebrate the New Year. This culminated in a firework display from the Arndale Centre. The event passed off peacefully and in good humour. There were no reports of trouble and the crowd quickly dispersed home or to local bars.

BAR HAS A SALE. Velvet bar and restaurant in the Village is set to follow the High Street with a half-price sale on everything it sells including food and booze. The sale takes places on Friday and continues over the weekend until Monday 5 January. But this is hardly a credit crunch situation as the bar then closes down for a two week re-furbishment. Velvet is set to open a boutique hotel in the city in the first half of the New Year.

MANCHESTER AIRPORT GROUP (MAG) which owns Manchester, East Midlands, Humberside and Bournemouth Airports, is still confident it can net another investor to cement its bid for one of London’s airports: Gatwork. MAG is the UK's second largest airports operator. The expected price is believed to be around £1.8bn. MAG is also interested in Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.

MANCHESTER CITY fans are wondering what the New Year will bring. Manager Mark Hughes is said to have a war chest of up to £50m with which to strengthen his squad in the January transfer window. Rumours suggest that negotiations to buy Roque Santa Cruz, the Paraguayan forward, from Blackburn Rovers are at an advanced stage.