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Families of Manchester Arena victims to each receive £250,000 from the We Love Manchester Fund

By | Published on Wednesday 16 August 2017

W Love Manchester Emergency Fund

The families of the 22 people killed when a bomb went off at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May will each receive £250,000 from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. That figure includes the £70,000 said families have already been eligible to receive since the terrorist attack.

The Fund has raised a total of £18 million, which includes the monies generated by the benefit concert and charity single organised by Grande herself. The chair of the Fund’s trustees, Councillor Sue Murphy, has confirmed that about a third of that figure has now been committed to the bereaved families while an additional £3.5 million has been set aside for those hospitalised by the attack. That still leaves about half of the monies raised to be allocated, and the trustees will now consider what to do with those funds.

Murphy told reporters: “We will now spend some time looking at how we will distribute the rest of the funds. This will be a complex and sensitive process as we will need to assess the long-term impacts of the attack”.

Meanwhile, Manchester City Council has announced plans for a second fund that will pay for a memorial to the victims of the bomb attack. An advisory group has also been set up to consider what that memorial might be, which will consult the victim’s families on the matter. That advisory group will meet next month and, the council said, its conclusions will be “crucial in determining the form and location of any permanent commemorations”.

The Manchester Arena, the venue where the bomb attack took place, is now due to reopen on 9 Sep with a benefit concert in aid of the new memorial fund which will be headlined by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Tickets are due to go on sale tomorrow.



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