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More than 1,000 MagSafe battery chargers have been recalled over burn risks following reports of the power banks catching fire and causing burn injuries.

Flaunt is recalling about 1,400 MagSafe battery chargers due to the risk of serious injury or death from fire and burn hazards, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“The lithium-ion battery in the recalled power banks (chargers) can overheat and ignite, posing a risk of serious injury or death from fire and burn hazards,” the commission said.

MORE THAN 550,000 KOBALT YARD TOOLS RECALLED OVER BATTERY FIRE HAZARD

Flaunt is recalling about 1,400 MagSafe battery chargers due to the risk of serious injury or death from fire and burn hazards. (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)

There have been five reports of the power banks overheating and catching fire, including one report of a burn to a person’s hand and another report of a burn to someone’s arm. There have also been four reports of minor property damage.

Affected power banks have model number E33A.

“FLAUNT” is engraved on the front right side of the power bank and a small circular button is on the bottom center of the front side of the item.

There have been five reports of the power banks overheating and catching fire. (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)

The power banks were sold in melon, black, lavender and white. They were sold online at flauntcases.com from May 2024 to April 2025 for about $65.

Consumers are urged to stop using the recalled power banks immediately and contact Flaunt for a full refund.

MILLIONS OF PRESCRIPTION EYE DROPS RECALLED NATIONWIDE OVER CONTAMINATION CONCERNS

Consumers are urged to stop using the recalled power banks immediately and contact Flaunt for a full refund. (Getty Images / Getty Images)

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“Do not throw this recalled power bank with lithium-ion battery in the trash, the general recycling stream (e.g., street-level or curbside recycling bins), or used battery recycling boxes found at various retail and home improvement stores. Recalled lithium-ion batteries must be disposed of differently than other batteries, because they present a greater risk of fire,” the commission said.

SpaceX investors have swung from celebration to apparent concern in its first month as a publicly traded company.

When shares in the firm, co-founded and led by Elon Musk, first became available for individuals to buy on the public stock market on 12 June, there was an investor frenzy.

Although the company had decided to price its shares at $135 each, the price immediately shot up to $150 that first day, climbing to $176, before closing at $160.95.

It solidified SpaceX as the largest initial public offering (IPO) of all time.

The following week, its shares went up even further, hitting an intraday high of $225, meaning it had surpassed Amazon and Microsoft in total market value.

“With Elon Musk, any company he touches gets people excited,” Keith Snyder, analyst at investment research firm CFRA, said. “But this was also the first time people felt like they were able to invest in something that was being marketed as an AI play.”

Willy Lee, an investor at Neosteller, which facilitates individual investors putting money into private companies, agreed that the excitement around the IPO was very much around artificial intelligence (AI).

“Everyone saw SpaceX as an AI story,” he said.

SpaceX earlier this year acquired Musk’s AI start-up xAI, recently renamed SpaceXAI, external and best known for the controversial chatbot Grok, and also started leasing data centre capacity to other tech companies.

After opening, HDFC Bank shares fell to Rs 811 apiece, snapping a two-session gaining streak. The market capitalisation of India’s largest private lender dropped to Rs 12.49 lakh crore.

HDFC Bank is all set to release its results for the April-June quarter of FY26 on Saturday. The shares recorded sharp gains last week after the company released Q1 business update, reporting gross advances at Rs 30.61 lakh crore at the end of the April-June quarter of FY27, marking a 15.4% year-on-year (YoY) rise from Rs 26.53 lakh crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Its period-end advances under management stood at around Rs 31.27 lakh crore as of June 30, 2026. This implies a growth of around 12.4% YoY over Rs 27.82 lakh crore advances under management reported as of June 30, 2025.

Also read: HDFC Bank Q1 business update | Gross advances rise 15% to Rs 30.61 lakh crore

Motilal Oswal Financial Services said that its channel checks signal towards a strong MSME credit demand in the April-June quarter of the ongoing FY27, with an increase in the working capital cycle. Private banks’ share is higher among higher ticket sizes, while public sector banks are gaining incremental market share with competitive pricing and CGTMSE-backed lending, the domestic brokerage added.

HDFC Bank was named as one of Motilal Oswal’s top picks in the banking sector. The domestic brokerage said that the private lender is faring well in the HCV and MHCV segments. It is also among its top picks for loan against property segment, and in terms of asset quality. The shares of India’s largest private lender gained over 7% in one month but declined 20% in 2026 so far. Motilal Oswal has a ‘Buy’ call on the shares of HDFC Bank with a target price of Rs 1,100 apiece.

HDFC Bank cuts workforce amid AI ramp up

HDFC Bank has reduced its employee count by 3,343 persons, or 1.56% to 2.11 lakh in the financial year 2026, from 2.15 lakh reported at the end of the previous financial year, according to its FY26 annual report. The company’s total employee expenses stood at Rs 26,050 crore. The percentage of women in the workforce rose to 26.6% at the end of FY26, from 26.1% at the end of FY25.

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“At HDFC Bank, we have built a strong digital foundation over the years. Today, the nature of capability building on this foundation is evolving. Artificial Intelligence, particularly GenAI, is emerging as a defining force in the next phase of banking,” said the lender’s interim part-time Chairman Keki M Mistry.
He added that the lender’s approach to artificial intelligence has been deliberate and measured. It sees AI not as a standalone capability, but as an embedded capability that will increasingly influence how banking services evolve. This calls for a focus on building systems that can adapt, learn and improve over time, supported by a unified, in-house foundation, ‘Neev’, that enables consistency, scale and the disciplined rollout of capabilities across the Bank through structured programmes, Mistry further said.

HDFC Bank’s real estate exposure

HDFC Bank’s FY26 annual report shows that the bank’s exposure to the real estate sector stood at more than Rs 10 lakh crore as on March 31, 2026. This marked an 8% increase from Rs 9.26 lakh crore reported in the corresponding period of the previous year. Notably, the bank’s total advances meanwhile stood at Rs 29.37 lakh crore at the end of FY26. Residential mortgages accounted for the biggest chunk in the real estate portfolio at Rs 7.39 lakh crore. Commercial real estate mortgages meanwhile stood at Rs 2.13 lakh crore. The company also reported Rs 50,844 crore in exposures on National Housing Bank (NHB) and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs).

HDFC Bank shares have fallen more than 1.5% in one week but gained nearly 6% in one month. The stock has fallen around 18% in 2026 so far. In the longer term, the stock has dropped around 18% in one year, but gained 9% in five years.

Also read: Motilal Oswal’s top 4 banking picks ahead of Q1 earnings season. Do you own any?

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Some Spotify users reported trouble accessing the music streaming service in the early hours of Monday, with tracking accounts noting a rise in complaints beginning around 1:40 a.m. Eastern time, though independent status monitors showed the platform largely operational as of the most recent checks.

A post from the tracking account @status_is_down flagged the reported issue at 2:13 a.m. Monday, citing data from Downdetector, a site that aggregates user-submitted reports to track disruptions across major platforms. According to the post, tracking on the Downdetector chart indicated a rise in complaints beginning around 1:40 a.m. Eastern time, with a portion of affected listeners also posting about issues on social media. The scale and specific cause of Monday’s early-morning disruption remained unclear as of publication.

Independent status trackers offered a mixed but generally reassuring picture of Spotify’s overall health around the time of the report. StatusGator, a service that monitors thousands of cloud platforms in real time, reported Spotify as operational as of its most recent check Sunday evening, logging six user-submitted reports of outages over the prior 24-hour period, a volume the service typically treats as within normal background noise rather than a confirmed widespread failure. Spotify’s own official status page similarly showed no incidents reported for July 12, continuing a stretch of clean status entries dating back through much of the preceding two weeks, with the platform’s most recent recorded partial outage occurring earlier in the month without an accompanying incident report or public explanation.

Spotify has a well-documented history of periodic outages affecting large numbers of users, with the most significant recent disruption occurring June 16, when thousands of users reported problems with the service. Downdetector reports on that occasion spiked to nearly 5,000 by mid-morning before declining to 345 by 11 a.m. Eastern time, with more than half of affected users reporting problems specifically with Spotify’s mobile app, 23% reporting that audio streaming had stopped working entirely, and another 16% saying they were unable to connect to the platform’s servers at all. Spotify confirmed at the time that it was aware of the issue, posting on its Spotify Status account on X that the situation was “all clear” as of 11:18 a.m. That June outage came roughly one month after an earlier disruption in mid-May, during which approximately 22,000 users reported login errors and other access problems, according to Forbes.

Spotify’s pattern of communicating about outages has drawn some criticism from users and technology outlets in the past. During the June 16 incident, reporters covering the disruption in real time noted that Spotify’s dedicated status account on X had not posted anything new since a prior outage in May, leaving affected users without official acknowledgment for a significant stretch of the disruption before the company eventually confirmed the issue. Some users reaching out to Spotify’s customer support channels during that period reported receiving only generic automated responses directing them to send a direct message for further assistance, rather than specific information about the ongoing outage.

Beyond full-scale outages, Spotify’s own community support forums have continued to log a steady stream of smaller, more targeted technical issues throughout the year, including reports of the mobile app crashing on launch for some Android users, playback stuttering and unexpected track skipping on the desktop app, and slow performance affecting the web player and support site during certain periods. Spotify moderators have generally acknowledged these narrower issues directly within community forum threads, marking them as “under investigation” or “fixed” once resolved, a more granular form of communication than the company’s broader public status updates during major outages.

Users experiencing trouble with Spotify on Monday were encouraged by technology outlets that track similar disruptions to rule out simpler explanations before assuming the platform itself was experiencing a widespread failure. Recommended troubleshooting steps commonly cited during past Spotify outages include fully closing and restarting the app, switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data to rule out a local connectivity issue, checking whether the app functions normally on a separate device, and consulting Spotify’s official status page or a third-party outage tracker to see whether reports are spiking broadly across many users at once rather than being isolated to a single account or device.

The gap between individual user complaints and a formally confirmed platform-wide outage remains a common pattern across major streaming and technology services generally. Outage-tracking services typically rely on report volume crossing defined thresholds within short windows, combined with geographic clustering of those reports, before classifying an issue as a confirmed outage rather than a collection of unrelated, isolated problems affecting individual users’ devices or local networks.

As of early Monday, Spotify had not issued a public acknowledgment specifically addressing the outage reports referenced in the 2:13 a.m. social media post, and the company’s official status page did not reflect an active, company-confirmed incident tied to that specific report at the time of publication. Given the modest scale of complaints noted in the original post, which cited a report count of 158 views at the time of posting, the disruption appeared considerably smaller in scope than the major outages Spotify experienced in May and June, though the situation remained fluid as the morning progressed.

Users continuing to experience access problems are advised to check Spotify’s official status page directly, along with the company’s Spotify Status account on X, for the most current information on any active incidents affecting the platform. Further updates may emerge from Spotify or independent outage-tracking services as the day continues, particularly if report volumes climb beyond the levels observed in the early hours of Monday morning.

Dubai International Airport remains open and operational today, with flights continuing to move through all three of its terminals, though the airport is currently managing a wave of delays and a smaller number of cancellations as renewed fighting between the United States and Iran once again disrupts regional air travel.

Dubai Airports’ official flight information system shows the world’s busiest international airport by passenger volume handling its usual heavy schedule of arrivals and departures Monday, with major carriers including Emirates and flydubai continuing to operate as the backbone of connectivity through the hub. Weather conditions at the airport remained clear as of early Monday, with visibility and wind conditions posing no operational obstacles, according to aviation weather data from FlightAware.

Despite remaining open, DXB is currently experiencing significant operational strain. As of Sunday evening, the airport had recorded 257 flight delays and 21 cancellations affecting airlines and passengers across a wide range of international routes, according to data compiled by Travel And Tour World using FlightAware figures. Emirates recorded the highest number of delays among individual carriers, with 126 affected flights, while flydubai reported 81 delays, together accounting for the majority of disruption at the airport given their extensive combined route networks. Saudia faced the largest impact among cancellations, with 16 flights called off, followed by smaller cancellation totals from Air Astana, Ariana Afghan and flyadeal.

The disruption has rippled outward to airports connected to Dubai across multiple continents, affecting routes to and from Saudi Arabia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, North America and Australia. Saudi Arabia recorded some of the most significant secondary impacts, with King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh logging five cancellations and two delays, and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah recording five cancellations and one delay tied to the broader disruption.

The current strain traces directly back to this weekend’s sharp escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict. The United States launched a third round of strikes against Iran over the weekend after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked a Cyprus-flagged container ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz, prompting Iran to declare the strait closed and to launch retaliatory drone and missile attacks against several U.S.-allied Gulf states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman. While the United Arab Emirates was not among the countries directly targeted in Sunday’s retaliatory strikes, the broader regional volatility has continued to complicate flight scheduling and routing across the Gulf, contributing to the delays and cancellations recorded at DXB.

Monday’s disruption follows what had otherwise been a period of significant recovery for Dubai’s aviation sector. DXB resumed largely normal operations as of July 1 following a difficult four-month stretch triggered by the initial outbreak of the U.S.-Iran conflict in late February, according to earlier reporting. During the height of that crisis, regional airspace closures forced cancellations and flight suspensions across multiple carriers, with some airlines instructing passengers not to travel to the airport until their flights were reconfirmed. Even so, DXB never formally closed its own airspace during the conflict’s most intense phases, continuing to operate with more than 220 combined daily departures from Emirates and flydubai even as many foreign carriers temporarily suspended their own Gulf routes.

That recovery accelerated following a tentative U.S.-Iran ceasefire that took effect in April, which triggered a series of successive airline reinstatements. British Airways announced it would resume flights to Dubai starting July 1, though at a reduced scale, moving from three daily flights down to one, marking the first concrete return date named by a major European carrier following the crisis. Qatar Airways had already resumed daily Dubai flights beginning April 23, with other Gulf carriers, including Saudia, returning to the route around the same time. As of Monday, several major international airlines continue maintaining regular service to and from Dubai, including Emirates, flydubai, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, Air India, IndiGo and Singapore Airlines, though some carriers continue routing flights along alternative flight paths to avoid restricted airspace in adjacent regions.

Travel advisory services have continued to characterize Dubai as broadly safe and operational for travelers despite the region’s underlying volatility. According to travel blog Wego, Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport, DXB’s secondary hub, both remain open and operating, with UAE airspace itself unrestricted. The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office lifted its advisory against all but essential travel to the UAE on June 18, though it continues to warn that the regional situation remains unpredictable and that attacks could resume with little notice, guidance that Sunday’s renewed escalation has now borne out. The U.S. State Department continues to list the UAE at a Level 3 “Reconsider Travel” advisory, a designation dated from March, while Australia’s Smartraveller service maintains a similarly cautious Level 3 rating for the country.

Emirates, DXB’s largest carrier, has continued operating roughly 96% of its normal route network even amid the region’s ongoing instability, according to Wego’s tracking, with only a handful of specific routes remaining suspended. Passengers with flights connecting through Dubai are being advised by multiple travel information services, including Trip.com, to confirm their specific flight status directly with their airline before heading to the airport, given that individual routes may continue to be affected by rerouting or scheduling adjustments even as the airport as a whole remains functional.

For travelers currently affected by delays or cancellations tied to Monday’s disruption, airlines including Emirates and flydubai are managing rebooking and schedule adjustments on a route-by-route basis, with passengers encouraged to monitor official channels for the most current information given how rapidly conditions have shifted since the weekend’s escalation. Dubai Airports has continued to advise passengers against traveling to either DXB or Al Maktoum International Airport without a confirmed departure time obtained directly from their airline, guidance that has remained in place intermittently throughout the year’s broader disruption.

Overall, while Dubai International Airport remains open and functioning today, with the majority of its usual flight volume still moving through its terminals, Monday’s elevated delay and cancellation figures illustrate how quickly renewed hostilities in the region can once again strain even a hub that had only recently returned to something resembling normal operations. Travelers with upcoming trips through Dubai are advised to treat the situation as fluid and to check both airline-specific and official Dubai Airports channels for the latest updates before departing for the airport.

London’s FTSE 100 index closed higher Friday, adding 24.84 points, or 0.24%, to finish the session at 10,497.29, as strong merger-and-acquisition activity involving Vodafone and easyJet helped offset continued pressure from a sharp decline in pharmaceutical heavyweight AstraZeneca and lingering uncertainty tied to the conflict in the Middle East.

The gain reversed a modest 0.16% decline recorded Thursday, which had been driven primarily by weakness in AstraZeneca, and left the UK benchmark on track for a positive close to the trading week even as the index still finished roughly 1.7% to 1.8% lower over the full five-day period, breaking a two-week winning streak. The FTSE 100 opened Friday’s session at 10,471.94, close to Thursday’s closing level of 10,472.45, before climbing to a session high of 10,513.90 and holding within a relatively narrow range through the remainder of the day, ultimately settling well above its session low of 10,462.75.

Vodafone shares led Friday’s gains among individual index constituents, surging nearly 13% after French billionaire Xavier Niel agreed to acquire Emirates Telecommunications Group’s stake in the company, making him Vodafone’s largest single shareholder. That deal helped anchor Friday’s rally in the telecommunications sector and contributed meaningfully to the broader index’s positive session. Betting and gaming group Entain also posted a strong day, rising more than 4%, while retailer Marks & Spencer added just over 2%.

Mining stocks provided additional support to the index Friday, with firm metals prices lifting several major producers. Rio Tinto rose between 0.9% and 1.5% depending on the report cited, while Glencore added roughly 0.5% and Anglo American and Antofagasta each climbed close to 1%.

In the FTSE 250, easyJet emerged as the day’s standout performer, jumping more than 13% after private equity firm Apollo Global Management agreed to acquire the budget airline for £7.15 per share in a deal valued at approximately £5.7 billion. The offer topped a rival bid previously floated by private equity firm Castlelake, positioning Apollo’s proposal as the leading takeover approach for the airline as of Friday’s close.

Not every major constituent shared in the day’s gains. St. James’s Place, the wealth management firm, dropped more than 8% after reports emerged that a major financial advice firm plans to leave the platform, raising broader concerns among investors about the company’s ability to retain advisers going forward. AstraZeneca extended a difficult stretch, falling as much as 3.5% to 6.2% depending on the specific measurement window cited across various reports, continuing losses that began Thursday after the pharmaceutical giant’s gene-silencing heart therapy, Wainua, failed a late-stage clinical trial. Insurer Hiscox also finished the session lower, down roughly 1.6%.

The dominant macro theme shaping Friday’s session across UK and broader European markets remained the ongoing situation between the United States and Iran. Reports throughout the week indicated the two sides would continue technical-level negotiations despite a recent exchange of military strikes, with easing tensions specifically around shipping activity in the Strait of Hormuz contributing to a broader stabilization in global market sentiment as the week drew to a close. Oil prices eased modestly Friday alongside that de-escalation, with crude trading around $71.41 per barrel, down close to 1% on the session, providing some additional relief to energy-sensitive sectors of the market even as the underlying geopolitical situation remained far from fully resolved.

Market analysts characterized Friday’s performance as reflective of a market attempting to balance genuine underlying strength in the FTSE 100’s core energy, financial and mining sectors against a still-unsettled geopolitical backdrop that has continued to inject periodic volatility into global trading throughout the first half of 2026. The index’s comparatively limited exposure to the technology sector, relative to indices such as Germany’s DAX 40 or France’s CAC 40, meant London participated less directly in a broader rebound in chip and artificial intelligence-linked sentiment that characterized much of Friday’s trading session elsewhere in global markets, a compositional difference that has periodically caused the London index to lag more technology-heavy peers during episodes when AI and semiconductor sentiment dominates broader market direction, while also offering a degree of insulation during periods of technology sector weakness.

Broader UK market indicators reflected a similarly cautious tone through the session. The FTSE 250 traded around 23,293, rebounding by approximately 0.2% after declining 1.5% in the previous session, while the FTSE 350 hovered near 5,691 and the FTSE All-Share Index traded around 5,631, both showing only modest intraday fluctuations as investors continued weighing elevated energy prices against continued Middle East tensions.

Trading volumes on Friday remained broadly consistent with recent averages, with the index’s roughly 51-point intraday range reflecting a session in which investors appeared willing to add to positions steadily throughout the day rather than react sharply to any single catalyst. Over the past month, the FTSE 100 has climbed approximately 1.88%, and the index remains up roughly 17.4% compared with the same time last year, according to data from Trading Economics, underscoring the benchmark’s overall resilience through a volatile first half of 2026 even amid the week’s pullback.

For UK-focused investors, Friday’s performance continued to underline the FTSE 100’s role as a relatively defensive component within a globally diversified equity portfolio, particularly during episodes when technology sector volatility has dominated sentiment elsewhere in global markets. The index’s heavier weighting toward energy, financial services, mining, consumer staples and pharmaceutical companies, relative to the technology-driven indices that have seen sharper swings in recent weeks, has repeatedly provided a measure of stability for London-listed equities even as the broader geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop has remained unsettled through much of the year.

With the situation between the United States and Iran continuing to evolve and further merger activity potentially in the pipeline following Friday’s Vodafone and easyJet developments, investors are expected to remain closely focused on both geopolitical headlines and individual corporate news in the sessions ahead as they assess the durability of the FTSE 100’s recent stabilization.

Council leader Tom Ross on the Wharfside Regeneration Masterplan

A vision to transform Old Trafford into a ‘world class’ place to live, work and visit has now been revealed.

Heralded a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’, the catalyst for the project will be the new 100,000-seater Manchester United Stadium. But the plan goes far beyond that.

Trafford’s Wharfside Regeneration Masterplan promises around 15,000 new homes, 48,000 new jobs, a possible new train station, green spaces and places for a new community to come together to eat, drink, shop and play.

Council leader Tom Ross wants to transform the land around the Old Trafford football grounds into a place where new and existing residents and businesses can thrive. He has lauded the Wharfside regeneration masterplan a ‘foundation’ for ‘future success’ in Trafford.

He said: “What other local authority wouldn’t tear their right arm off to have the opportunity to be able to create something like this? We will make Trafford Wharfside a world-class place to live, visit and work […]

“We want more people to be able to share in our borough’s success. More people able to live in Trafford, work in Trafford and enjoy Trafford. So, what we are doing today is laying down the foundations for future success.

“For future generations to inherit a borough that is better for them. That is greener for them, that is more open, with more jobs and more homes available for them. To live next to the most famous club in the world that has the World Class facilities to match.”

As a resident in the area himself, Coun Ross said this would be a ‘very exciting thing to have on [his] doorstep’. But the council has to ‘make sure it works’ for existing residents, too, he said.

He added: “It isn’t something that stands as an island separated from what’s going on in the rest of the borough. We want to make sure that we’ve got good access to healthcare and education provision.

“Most importantly for me, I want to make sure that the young people have opportunities that come from this regeneration, whether that be through jobs potentially in training or housing, affordable housing to move to when they get older.”

No target has been set at this stage for how many of the new homes will be built as either ‘affordable’ or ‘social’ housing. However, Coun Ross said he wants to see ‘as much as possible’ fall into these categories.

While the masterplan has now been revealed, a lot of details around the scheme are still to be worked out. These include discussions around delivering the services new and current residents will need.

Coun Ross said those discussions are already underway: “They’re the first questions that residents are asking and will be asking and quite right too […] We’ll look at future school places both at a primary and a secondary level and look at what we need to do to work with existing schools to expand or develop new school sites as well.

“In terms of healthcare, we’re already having those discussions with our local NHS partners around what the future looks like with this redevelopment and wider pieces across the north of the borough as well. [We recognise] that people need access to GPs, to dentists, first and foremost, so we’re looking at ways of doing that and working closely now with the local NHS so we get it right in the medium to long-term.”

Getting transport infrastructure right will also be a key challenge when it comes to such a large development. The council is aiming reduce the number of people driving into the area, particularly on game days, with ambitions to improve public transport to the Wharfside area.

Among the potential options is the reopening of the former Manchester United Station. Coun Ross said: “That will clearly serve people coming in to go and watch Manchester United play, but will also serve the new population that lives around that northern part of Trafford and indeed the Quays area as well.

“So that again will involve working with our transport providers, you know, local Transport for Greater Manchester Network to make sure that we can deliver that.”

He added: “I experience getting stuck in traffic on matchdays or seeing people park in front of my house, so anything that reduces that is a benefit.”

The council believes the scheme could create around 48,000 new jobs. These would be across a ‘huge range’ of industries, Coun Ross said.

“You’ve got to look at the design, architecture, construction, road and highway management, public transport management. That’s all part of it. The jobs that will come with the club, the jobs that will come with different businesses that open up in the area.

“There’s a huge range of different jobs that are available. So we’re already working with existing colleges like Trafford College to look at what this can look like in terms of their future courses to make sure that we’re ready for what’s about to happen and we’ll work on a Greater Manchester level as well to make sure that we’ve got the right skills to support what is a massive regeneration project.”

Progressing the vision for the area to this stage has not always been smooth sailing, however. United had originally been in talks with Freightliner to acquire land behind the Stretford End, but those talks stalled, resulting in the club finding a new site for its proposed future stadium.

The council hopes the Freightliner land could still be brought into the development, however. Coun Ross said those conversations will be ongoing, but housing could eventually be built there instead.

He said: “That’s not for now. That’s a longer term conversation that we’ll continue to have with Freightliner. I would say going ahead a few years from now, that’s when we’ll start to see that particular element of land being potentially developed, but that dialogue’s really important with Freightliner still.”

It is not just the Old Trafford area that will benefit from this investment, Coun Ross believes. He said: “There’s a new stadium to look forward to. For people that are looking for jobs and opportunities, there’ll be a huge amount of opportunity available there.

“For people who’ve grown up in Trafford and wish to stay in Trafford, a prospect of affordable housing. For people that enjoy a walk into the city centre along the canal, a much more attractive prospect there.

“For people that like a night out by a riverside or a waterside, more potential in terms of what we do along the waterfront. So there’s loads of ways in which the existing residents of Trafford will benefit from this project.

“It’s a long term project and it won’t be built tomorrow, but each step of the way we want to make sure that we work with our existing residents and businesses.”

While finding funding for the stadium itself is the responsibility of the football club, questions remain over how the rest of the project will be funded.

Coun Ross said grant funding will be key to this, but he believes that will be forthcoming: “There will be grant funding coming through because the government’s priority at the moment is housing. So that means that there will be active conversations with the government, with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with Homes England about how we deliver that.”

A public consultation on the scheme is expected to be launched later this month, with Coun Ross urging residents to get involved and make their thoughts known.

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