Ancoats News: Cutting Room Sq, St Michael's And Other Stories

WORK starts this week to extend Cutting Room Square in Ancoats.

Maybe when the extended leafy square is finished and they pedestrianise the street in front someone will see the potential here.

Land that has been used as a surface car park will be landscaped and, at the request of residents, have a lot of trees.

“We’ve only got one tree at the moment and we want to make more of an impact with greenery,” says Marie Hodgson from the Homes and Communities Agency, which is funding the project.

“The tree canopy is going to be high enough so you can see through it, and the site is going to be all one level so it’s easy for everyone to access. It will not be a park as such, just a really pleasant square where people want to be.”

It sits opposite the Ice Plant and next to St Peter’s Church (main picture above), where the Halle is now very much at home. And while the orchestra is planning a phase 2 to its rehearsal space with a new extension to include front of house and a new bar, it’s realistically going to be another two to five years before they raise the necessary funds.

Looking across Cutting Room Square to the Ice Plant

Marie said: “The new phase will face onto the Square and be another great addition but we thought let’s not wait, let’s get on with it now.” 

Ancoats is Marie’s patch for the HCA and the square, due to be finished next March, is one of several initiatives that are just as important as the big stuff in creating a sense of place.

Just round the corner on George Leigh Street is St Michael’s Church, the focus of a long running and passionate campaign to be kept open.  Bunches of faded flowers are still hammered into its doors, with RIP signs, much like at the scene of a fatal crash, but memorials to its demise are premature as a new solution may have been found.

St Michael's Chapel

Marie said: “People wanted it to be available for community use but that needs to be long term sustainable. The HCA has therefore supported the forging of a partnership approach between the Halle and the community to help get this community venue on its feet. 

 “Proposals are currently at the very early stages, with consultation between both parties on how this might work underway. It is envisaged the Halle will be responsible for the day to day opening and operating of the building with the community also having access and being involved in organising  activities .  It’s incredibly exciting. It will provide a group space that has been lacking and at the last resident’s meeting someone suggested starting a choir and there was a huge enthusiasm.”

The HCA is again financing the refurbishment of the building, putting in a kitchen and new toilets and giving the outside a bit of a clean-up  and works here are also due to be finished in March.

The buildings to the right with their handsome fronts and the not so handsome Presbytery to the left are earmarked for residential. They are out on the market this week and the aim is to get interest and ideas back in early March.

Mark Bamber at Lambert Smith Hampton is the man to speak to about this initiative.

Marie said: “The ideal solution is maintain the frontages and do new build or refurbishment behind and on the Presbytery site possibly town houses.

“But it has to be good. Everyone loves George Leigh Street, it cannot be compromised.”

George Leigh Street

There are hopes too that a boarded up unit on one corner of  Victoria Square could soon be opened and a possibility that the laundry operating at the opposite corner to serve the elderly residents of the square could start offering its services to the neighbourhood which makes all sorts of sense.

“When I walk developers around here it is interesting to see who gets it and who doesn’t. Some have said ‘Oh you need to get a well known coffee chain in here.’ And I say No! That’s not the Manchester mind set, we want to encourage independents here. Independents who will then thrive and grow,” said Marie.

Another site that seems ripe for the imaginative independent to develop is the Edinburgh Castle pub and Woodies Backpacker Hostel, neither of which are looking too great now and in all probability never did. If you ever stayed at Woodies and disagree I am happy to be corrected.

Woodies Backpackers and Edinburgh Castle pub

But why not have a new hostel here. A clean, safe, affordable place for travellers to rest their heads before heading on. Or not.

Marie says: “We need to see something a bit more commercial on this site, a mix of uses. We do not want Ancoats to be a sleepy dormitory suburb so we need a good balance of uses to create a functioning neighbourhood.

“Which is why we are pleased that just across the road a building known as ‘Rebs Corner’ is under offer, with the use kept as offices which increases activity during the day as people come here to work.”

On a bigger scale than Rebs is Jactin House. The Northern Group ( Ice Plant/Flint Glass Wharf) has had it for the last two and a half years and plans incubator space for start-up businesses as well as some Grade A offices, a gym, nursery and a deli. There was even talk of a swimming pool.

Jactin House

Exactly how much of that ambition has survived the recession I am not sure but they have got a chunk of European Regional Development Fund cash to develop the incubator space and work should start soon.

But the four really big sites, the ones that will have great influence on Ancoats’ future identity and culture and feel have been called back in to the city council’s drawing board for some more pondering.

Three are cleared and run in neat chunks from the back of Victoria Square to the fourth site, Murrays Mill. 

Murray's Mill plaque

The current market dictates that development will be led by residential but what sort, what size, what tenure, and what goes on around it will be crucial. Expect initial ideas around February.

The current residential schemes are cracking on apace.

In the Royal Mills complex, 38 of the 40 have sold and they have also taken reservations on a couple of the 40 that are being created in Paragon. The new build Kennedy Building, which will add a final 48 apartments to the whole complex is due to be complete next April.

Even Alto, (formerly Sarah Point then Nuovo), is finally being transformed from sad rusting hulk to shiny new skyscraper by UK Land and Property and McAlpines.

The first 40 properties to be completed here will be available at a social rent and for shared ownership through Adactus and are due to be ready next summer.

Get your names down now here.  

Alto is getting a new skin

In the shadow of the tower and facing the bulk of Paragon Mill is a former substation and two cute cottages.

It cheered me greatly to hear that, subject to planning next month, a Cheshire restoration company will convert the substation to be its Manchester headquarters and they will be restoring the cottages to use as a retail show room.

Substation and cottages

There’s other stuff too. Ghulam House, not within the HCA remit, is apparently going to be a 9-5 studio school for 14-19 year olds, with links to industry and the arts.

And there is a push to get a decent restaurant operator to take a chance and leave the safety net of the city core and open in one of the units under the Ice Plant.

Maybe when the extended leafy square is finished and they pedestrianise the street in front someone will see the potential here.

In the meantime doing the small stuff, moving things along, creating a new neighbourhood, being imaginative, seems to be working. Let’s just hope they get the big stuff right too. 

One last point, it's great fun to find Dan Dubowitz's art project, Peeps. Read this for a description of these jolly holes in the wall.

You can follow Jill Burdett on Twitter here.