A LAST ditch attempt to save Ancoats Dispensary is being staged by local residents who have been keeping a vigil outside the Grade II listed building for the last week.
After eleven years of neglect we are now down to the last 48 hours, with Manchester City Council saying it will issue a notice giving permission for demolition unless a 'viable plan' is put forward by August 16.
New Islington has been a wasteland for far too long. The bulk of the money spent on new canals and a just opened park, both admirable but it did not leave much for housing
Residents say they do have a business plan that would involve re-building in conjunction with Manchester College which would use it as hands on training for building and heritage students and a long term role as a part training centre for care in the community workers.
The group – Fight 2 Save Ancoats Dispensary – believes ‘not only would this provide a golden opportunity for young people of whom there are nearly one million and rising unemployed, but it would also help build a facility which would aid a society that is growing older.’
Ancoats Dispensary: Distinctive Entrance But No Tower Or Roof
The website has lots of information links including a letter from Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, which details the whole shameful affair and succeeds in making no-one responsible.
On the street the group’s spokesperson is Linda Carver who said: “It may seem daft but it has taken a while for local people to wake up to the idea that this building may be knocked down, reduced to rubble.
“But now they have they are very angry and very upset. We thought this building was being protected and that it would continue to be part of the community. We believed them, these planners and developers who knew best for the area.
“But we don’t think they do.
“The history in this building and what it represents just cannot be over estimated. It was built by donation, the first in-patient hospital for the city and served the mill workers who lived round here.
“Next year Manchester is hosting a global delegation of medical people looking at the history, what are they going to show them?”
Fight 2 Save Ancoats Dispensary: Linda Carver
The Dispensary is in a poor state of repair, its decay hastened dramatically by the roof being removed two years ago which allowed water damage to the walls. Its landmark tower was taken down last year. I wonder if the stones were kept or if they were skipped.
For Josie Loftus, who like, Linda, lives on the opposite side of Ancoats in Victoria Square, its current condition should not be an issue.
“If they can save the Mary Rose, which had been under water for 500 years, then they can save the Dispensary,” she says.
Both describe the building as a touchstone for Ancoats, and it is.
It is a symbol of the old community and the old neighbourhoods which may not have been much of a place with mean, damp housing and an air of disrepair, but at least it was a place.
New Islington has been a wasteland for far too long. The bulk of the money spent on new canals and a just opened park, both admirable but it did not leave much for housing. One landmark apartment block and three rows of terraces, all of which have had their own problems, is not much to show.
Red And White Carnations Strewn Round Ancoats Dispensary
Maybe Urban Splash was the wrong developer to have here.
The company’s forte is taking old buildings and converting them into contemporary new spaces to live and work and they do this wonderfully. Their ambition, even if often buoyed by public grants, is inspiring and they continue to deliver great schemes in Plymouth and Leeds and Sheffield.
But new build housing is not their thing. Tom Bloxham told me two years ago they were working on the design of the Urban Splash House. He thinks new housing should carry the same branding as say clothes or cars and you choose accordingly. He is aiming for an Audi.
But nothing has been forthcoming.
And in the meantime the one thing they could have done, the saving of an old building to give back to the community, has not happened. They may well hang their heads.
The company has issued a statement and you can read it in full here:
A spokesperson for Urban Splash said:
“We are progressing with complying with the terms of the planning consent and working these through. We are sympathetic to people's desire to save the Dispensary and are only in this situation because of the offer and subsequent withdrawal of the RDA funding, midway through the restoration works. Clearly if this money was made available again it would provide us with an option however we are led to believe that there is no real possibility of this.
“We have spent the last 20 years saving buildings and this episode saddens us deeply. Urban Splash has an enviable track record in transforming the fortunes of dilapidated and disused buildings around the country. We have saved schemes including the Royal William Yard in Plymouth, Lakeshore in Bristol, Fort Dunlop and Rotunda in Birmingham, the 3 Towers and the Britannia, Albert, Waulk and Longlands Mills in Manchester, the Vanilla and Tea Factorys in Liverpool, the Matchworks estate in Speke, the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Saxton in Leeds and Lister Mills in Bradford. At each we have created renewed communities in which people can live work and play.
"It is with great reluctance that we have reached this point with the Dispensary, something which is outside of our control and contrary to our usual approach to saving buildings.
“The best explanation of the reasons behind the decision to demolish the building are those which were outlined by the planning consultant Paul Butler, of Paul Butler Associates. These are the reasons he outlined to the planning committee:
“We headed our heritage report for the application, which was submitted last July, 'the reluctant case for demolition' and it is with reluctance that we believe demolition is now the only available option.
“Urban Splash took on the Ancoats hospital site, which had lain derelict for many years after the NHS closed their operations in 1989, in December 2001. Since then Urban Splash has invested considerable resources trying to find solutions for the site and for the Dispensary, which has always featured as a key part of the New Islington project. A summary of the planning position is in the committee report.
“The property market collapse of 2008 forced a rethink of the position. The best option seemed to be a mothballing one - never ideal and not one generally recommended - and work started on this in early 2010 supported by a £1M grant from the NWDA. The intention was to carry out repairs to the structure, masonry, roof and floors in order to make the building safe, structurally stable and weatherproof until market conditions would support a refurbishment scheme.
“As you have heard from the planning officer, the majority of the grant funding was withdrawn following government spending cuts and the abolition of the NWDA, leaving Urban Splash with no option but to stop work.
“The unfortunate result of all this - and the position we are now in - is that the building is in a precarious state. The roof and floors were removed to facilitate repairs as part of the grant-funded repair package, now leaving the remains exposed and reliant upon a temporary scaffold system for support, without which the walls would collapse.
“The building has been offered to various Building Preservation Trusts for £1. Heritage Works - the successor to the Ancoats Buildings Preservation Trust - undertook a detailed options appraisal study but the large conservation deficit and lack of grant funding meant they could not take on the building. More recently Urban Splash has held discussions with The Greater Manchester Building Preservation Trust - a subsidiary of the Heritage Trust for the North West – which was also unable to offer a solution. As the report points out, the building has also been on the market and extensively advertised, but there has been no credible interest from any party who could take on and save Dispensary.
“The formal statutory tests and guidance, set out in the recent NPPF, have been met: English Heritage accept this and agree, reluctantly as well, that demolition is the only option available.
“This is not an easy position for anyone involved with this to be in. Urban Splash have a deserved national reputation, acknowledged by SAVE and many other heritage bodies, as a unique organisation that has done probably more than any other company in recent years to save at risk buildings across the country. As a Manchester headquartered company, it is an organisation the city can be proud of.
“However, the facts are inescapable in this case. The withdrawal of the NWDA grant happened at the worst possible time and leaves the building in a perilous condition; there is no realistic prospect of funding in an sensible timescale to ensure the safety or the proper mothballing of the building; attempts to secure the intervention of a BPT, or other party, with the capacity to take on and save Dispensary have been unsuccessful.
“The remains have barely survived two winters while Urban Splash has tried to find ways to save the building - the central tower was demolished in September last year because it was considered imminently dangerous – and this deterioration will inevitably continue, risking public safety and further increasing the cost of repair.
“For all these reasons, regretfully, we conclude that demolition is now the only available option.
“However, looking at it more positively, everyone hopes that the economic climate will pick up sufficiently for a scheme to emerge at some time in the future which will allow the regeneration of this key part of New Islington to proceed apace. We are happy to agree to enter into a s106 agreement to see what features of significance can be salvaged, stored and hopefully re-used so that there will be some tangible record of the unique institution which was the Dispensary and Hospital.
“We hope in these circumstances you can accept the views of the planning officer and agree.”
