TRANSLATION services in 13 languages are being offered to shoppers at a Cheetham retail park.

Staff at Manchester Fort on Cheetham Hill Road have been recruited from one of the most diverse communities in the city and the range of languages spoken reflects the multi-cultural population of the area.

Bosses at the shopping centre recognised the potential to attract customers from a wide range of nationalities and now offer a translation services for those who do not use English as their first language.

Centre manager Philip Byrne believes the multi-lingual workforce is an added bonus of being located in the area that will benefit the retail park when planned hotel and leisure developments are complete.

He said: "Our security staff all come from various backgrounds and nationalities and we have lots of staff on site who can speak different languages.

"We realised that, if someone comes to the site who can only speak Polish, for example, we have the ability to provide a translation service.

"If someone walks into Boots and doesn't speak English, if the staff there can find out what language they speak, they can call the office and we'll try to get a member of staff along who can translate for them. "

Languages spoken at Manchester Fort include Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, Hindi, Ghanian, Ausha, Ibu, Yoroba, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovakian and Dutch.

Mr Byrne said: "Cheetham Hill has a really varied mix of nationalities. It's an advantage that other areas don't have. There are new people from all over the world that come to Manchester. This area has a lot of eastern European people moving in and a lot of them don't speak English.

"There are plans to build a hotel and leisure complex nearby so we'll be able to help visitors who don't speak English who want to do their shopping at Manchester Fort."

There are more than 30 major high street retailers at Manchester Fort plus cafes, sandwich bars, takeaways and restaurants and 1,250 free parking spaces at the junction of Cheetham Hill Road and Queens Road only a mile from Mancheser city centre.