Jonathan Schofield picks out some property and landscape stories from the city
7,000 new jobs for Central Manchester
A consultation has been launched over plans to bring up to 7,000 civil servants to Manchester. The consultation has been put together between the City Council and the Government Property Agency (GPA). The ugly former Central Retail Park in Ancoats was cleared several years ago. It was due to become a cash earning car park before redevelopment but ‘Trees Not Cars’ protesters prevented that and so it became a vast empty plot of land.
Now things are on the move as first described here in January this year. The aim is deliver a new Manchester Digital Campus. The GPA have exchanged contracts for five acres. The plans involve bringing together several civil service departments targeting digital skills.
There are other elements including a modest-sized but welcome new park for the city centre designed by go-to landscapers Planit-IE. This will have access to another modest-sized park in New Islington, Cotton Field Park and the adjacent Ancoats Marina. Together these will comprise a decently scaled green asset and add to the amenity of the area.
There’s diplomacy going on here given some locals love of the self-styled ‘Ancoats Green’ adjacent to New Islington Park, which was always earmarked for development. The council are essentially saying let’s have some give and take, a little quid pro quo – Councils love talking in Latin you know.
There will be other development plans for the former Central Retail Park site coming up in the future.
Face-to-face consultations take place on Tuesday 10 September at Halle St Peter’s, 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats, M4 6BF. Feedback can also be given here online here.
Holt Town feedback required
A real eyesore in the central areas of Greater Manchester is Holt Town, the huge 74 acre (30 hectare) void between New Islington/Ancoats and the Etihad Stadium. This area of dereliction (see main picture), junkyards and so on deserves better but the potential is huge. Clever leadership is already in place there so the signs are positive although there are several battles ahead to get existing owners on board.
Manchester City Council now wants opinions on its ambitious ideas.
These include 4,500 new homes with affordable housing and other tenures, 1,500 jobs in commercial spaces plus 15 acres of well-maintained greenery including woodland and a 1km play link for youngsters through the area.
The potential of Holt Town is clear on a walk through the area, its present mess is also evident.
The good stuff includes features such as the River Medlock, the Ashton Canal, and the railways. There’s real civil engineering drama when all three come together in an infrastructure braid of the river twisting under an aqueduct twisting under a viaduct.
Another bonus is a lonely Metrolink station waiting for something to happen, like a guest who arrived a decade too early for the party.
Union Bank, Piccadilly, at last movement
We probably got too giddy about this in May 2023.
It's always a shame that Manchester city centre’s worst street is Piccadilly, the first walk most people take when leaving Piccadilly Station. That dismal stroll includes many fine buildings, empty on the upper floors, some ‘tasty’ boozers, such dull shops and one very ugly vacant plot of land. This is adjacent to the noble Union Bank from 1911 and is the one we got giddy about in this story. It’s mad that a plot of land in such an visually important site has mouldered for 20 years or more.
Now planning permission is set to be approved for a sensitive restoration and repurposing of the lovely old bank which will be incorporated into a mighty scheme hosting a 34 storey and 251 bedroom hotel at a cost of £78m. The design comes from Bennetts Associates architects and the developer is Lamington Group.
This is a good plan, an elegant design and a fine scheme adopting a new neologism ‘hometel’ from company Room 2. The idea is to combine an Airbnb experience with the services of an upmarket hotel. Guests will be able to stay for a year or one night, maybe even a cheeky afternoon, maybe. There will be a restaurant, a rooftop bar, an event space and best of all a mattress selection service which seems novel.
Piccadilly desperately needs this to move forward as quickly as possible.
Did anyone spot this?
Nostagia’s not what it used to be but once upon a time, thirty and more years ago, there was this band from a Manchester suburb and they got big. Then the two main protagonists, brothers by the name of Gallagher, fell out after a fight over a donna kebab and a pint of Carling. That was fifteen years ago and then this week those roguish lads, Noel and Liam, announced a comeback set of gigs. The world was astonished. The news even made it as far as two separate features on that most establishment programme, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’. Rock'n'Roll eh?
The Oasis lads in 2025 will obviously come to Manchester to five sellout gigs in Heaton Park, as well as some other minor capitals in the UK and Ireland, the likes of Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin and London, the brothers’ current home city. At Heaton Park Oasis will feel on familiar territory as gigs there can be a bit like a fight for a donna kebab and a pint of Carling with a bit extra.
City Council Leader, Bev Craig, is also ‘mad for it’ (it’s a media rule that every story of the reunion should riff on a song or quote from the band). She's looking forward to the dosh that will flow into the city.
Bev Craig says: "We can't wait to welcome the boys from Burnage back to their home city next year for what promises to be a supersonic string of dates in Heaton Park that are set to go down in music history as iconic and legendary nights. The additional boost to the city's economy - already one of the fastest growing in Europe - from music fans is huge and is felt right across the hospitality and retail sector, with hundreds of thousands of pounds spent by them in our hotels, bars, restaurants, and shops.”
Did you spot the Oasis pun?
So it turns out nostalgia is more than it ever was.
Anybody got any spare tickets?
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