Media City: Can the BBC save Salford? In the Corporation's defence, the success rate of the 3,172 applicants from Salford, while low, was not grossly out of proportion. Nationwide, some 67,000 people applied for only 529 jobs. Of those, 233 went to applicants from the Greater Manchester area. The BBC rightly protested that they recruited "on skills and experience, not by postcode." Of greater concern to the people of Salford, only 45 per cent of whom have qualifications at A-level or above, is that they are seeing so few of the promised benefits. The council has paid out more than £20 million to welcome the Corporation, including £220,000 on special buses, £3 million to sponsor the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and a staggering £6 million for "engaging with the community" to prepare them for work in the media. Sixteen jobs seems a paltry return. Meanwhile, as unemployment nears 10 per cent, funding for everything from day care to library buses has been cut. "It's really angering people," Kingston says. You're getting two Salfords now: a glitzy, sterile environment there, and here. To an outsider, neither Salford is particularly appealing. Salford Quays, which accommodates the BBC, as well as the Lowry, an upmarket shopping centre, a Holiday Inn, a smattering of restaurants and 350 executive flats, is a soulless glass development. A stone's throw away is the Ordsall estate, which is in the worst 1 per cent in the country for crime, with five murders in the last year. One victim was Anuj Bidve, an Indian student shot on Boxing Day. Another was a local man shot in a pub in September in front of 60 witnesses, none of whom has come forward. When I visited last week, there was a packed police van on every third corner, sullenly surveying the empty streets. Further north, in Pendleton ward, is the optimistically named Salford Shopping City, a collection of market stalls, pawnbrokers and pound shops that passes for a centre in a community devoid of focus. During the August riots, 1,000 people poured on to the streets here, with entire families stopping their cars outside Lidl to fill trolleys with food. You can still see the marks on the grassy roundabout where rocks were taken to hurl at shops and police. Today, the area is filled with the unemployed and the unemployable: inarticulate, threatening youths shrugging off friendly questions with obscenities; disturbingly young mothers; and a couple of more approachable people thoroughly disillusioned with their lot. "Media City is a total waste of money," says Carl Evans, 46, who is on incapacity benefits. I wouldn't go there; there's nothing there for me. Yet in a city not obviously blessed by optimism, it is heartening that some are trying to embrace the opportunities offered by the BBC, rather than throwing metaphorical bricks. Phil Royle, the district operations manager at Jobcentre Plus, points out that the BBC is just one of the employers in Media City. They have recently placed about 100 people in the Holiday Inn and Boots, and are talking to Costa Coffee, WH Smith and Wagamama. "It is really exciting," he says. And we've only got to the end of the first stage. Next, he says, comes increasing the skill-base of residents. In October, the University of Salford opened a digital learning campus for 1,500 students. In September, Oasis Academy MediaCityUK, a £25 million academy that replaces an existing secondary school, will open nearby. "When I arrived here, people said Media City is all very well and good, but it's not for our children," says Patrick Ottley-O'Connor, the academy's Tiggerish principal, whose previous headship involved turning round a failing comprehensive in West Yorkshire. But it is good for us and it's good for the country. Ottley-O'Connor's first battle was to persuade the architects to place the entrance opposite Ordsall estate, so that the school would face the community. The curriculum, while broad, is relentlessly media-focused. Pupils are trained as reporters, while each floor will have a media suite for uploading articles. The head of CBBC is on the board of governors, and a producer at Blue Peter has offered to give music lessons. Meanwhile, the pupils make regular visits to the BBC's studios, taking part in everything from carol services to trying their hands at weather forecasts. "I have confidence in what I'm hearing," says Ottley-O'Connor. We are now an integral part of the jigsaw. Also part of that jigsaw is Salford Lads" Club. Opened in 1904 by Baden-Powell, its front door provided the inside cover for The Smiths" 1986 album The Queen is Dead. Today it is still fulfilling its mission to "brighten young lives and make good citizens." Some 240 children from Ordsall come here every week, paying just £1 for a session of football, billiards or kick-boxing (which is particularly popular with the girls). While the BBC has often used the club as a backdrop, requests have ballooned in the last year. In December, Football Focus recorded its first live show in front of a packed audience in the gym. "It all brings in funding for the club," says Leslie Holmes, a volunteer and local artist. It also gives the kids something to aspire to. Twenty years ago there was very little to aspire to here. Holmes, who has helped children get work experience at the BBC, provides a healthy antidote to Southern whining. Britain, he points out, is far too London-centric; by basing themselves in Salford, the BBC will rebalance this, and hopefully the area will see the benefits in years to come. This, in a nutshell, is the BBC's case for the move - although Holmes is the only person I met in Salford to articulate it so positively. Everyone else, from media workers in London facing redundancy to pensioners in Salford facing closure of their day care centres, is clearly going to take more persuading that it's all been worth it.