Greater Manchester welcomes back thousands of students as Freshers Week gets underway

For the first time since March 2020, universities across Greater Manchester will finally be able to open their doors without major coronavirus restrictions.

Tens of thousands of students are also set to return to the city this week ahead of fresher’s celebrations and the start of the new year.

Staff from the universities have spent the summer working to ensure a Covid safe environment is in place ready for reopening.

John McCarthy, Associate Chief Operating Officer at the University of Salford, said: “We've followed the government advice right the way through the pandemic and as we've been planning for this year, we are maintaining an element to social distancing.

“Students will also find that the sanitisation stations will continue to be in place.

“We also don't have the one-way systems anymore, so it's going to feel much more normal and more like pre pandemic, but there will still be some obvious things that are a little bit different.”

However, with over a hundred events planned for freshers week, there are still concerns over rising Covid infections.

Harriet Heywood, a student from Manchester, said: “I am scared about going back to university with the rising cases.

“Especially with freshers week, I am worried myself, or someone I know will catch it, but hopefully with these new covid passport rules, people should be a lot safer.”

Boris Johnson announced last week that by the end of the month, Covid passports will be required to enter nightclubs, which has led to mixed responses from students.

Harriet went on to say: “However, I do feel quite sympathetic towards first years as I know some of them haven’t been able to have both jabs yet, so now they are going to miss out on all of these big events.”

Manchester’s official freshers week begins today, Monday 13th September.

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