Looking East #1

LookingEast

High-tech industrial revolutionThe Commonwealth Games legacy

Sportcity’s bid for casinoThe new urban living

Waterside regeneration

New East Manchester’s official regeneration magazine. Issue One Winter 2006/07

www.lookingeastmagazine.com

LookingEastIssue

One

Winter

2006/07

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04 Overview Eastern promise14 RootsMan and boy18 Central Park Industrial evolution26 Commonwealth Out of the blocks32 Sportcity Sporting chance36 Thought processHolt Town40 Waterside On the waterfront48 Then and now Royal Mills50 Directory

Advertisement features38 Bryant Homes

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Contents

Editor Sarah [email protected]

Contributors David Blackman,David Callaghan

Advertisement sales Lee [email protected]

DesignMichael Booth, Faine Gow

Production Lucy Morris, Sue Mapara

Managing director Toby [email protected]

Printed by Trade Winds

Images New East Manchester, ASKDevelopments, Ian Simpson Architects,Urban Splash, Heatherwick Studio, OneCentral Park, Len Grant, Fujitsu, EDAW,Arup City Modeling, City of ManchesterLibrary, Daniel Hopkinson

Published by

3Fox International3rd Floor Lansdowne House3-7 Northcote RoadLondon SW11 1NGT: 020 7978 6840F: 020 7978 6837

For NewEastManchester Ltd

187 Grey Mare LaneBeswick, ManchesterM11 3NE

Marketingmanager Gill [email protected]

Publicity officerMichael [email protected]

Subscriptions and feedbackTo register for free subscriptions and/or tooffer your comments visitwww.LookingEastMagazine.com

© 3Fox International Limited 2006. All materialis strictly copyright and all rights are reserved.Reproduction in whole or in part without thewritten permission of 3Fox International Limitedis strictly forbidden. The greatest care has beentaken to ensure the accuracy of information inthis magazine at time of going to press, but weaccept no responsibility for omissions or errors.The views expressed in this magazine are notnecessarily those of 3Fox International Limitedor New East Manchester.

LookingEast

AdvertisersPersimmon, Seamark, Langtree Group, City SouthDevelopments, One Central Park, Manchester Science Park,Manchester College of Arts and Technology, Ask Developments,Countryside Properties, Isis Waterside Regeneration, EastlandHomes, New East Manchester, Northwest Development Agency

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Overview

East Manchester is a vast area.Its 1,900 hectares stretch fromthe city centre fringe to the edgeof the city boundary,

encompassing everything from theworld’s first industrial suburb at Ancoatsto the 2002 Commonwealth Games site,as well as vast tracts of ex-industrialland, waterways, and social housing inneighbourhoods including MilesPlatting, Beswick, Openshaw, Clayton,Newton Heath and Gorton. EastManchester is now building on therichness and strength of the past, andcapitalising on the opportunities madeavailable by the Commonwealth Games,with the aim of becoming the place inthe city to live, work and visit.The area was at the heart of the

industrial revolution, developing at adizzying pace in the 19th and early20th century as a home to the tradi-tional heavy manufacturing industries– textiles, chemicals, steel andengineering – on which the wealth ofManchester itself was founded. Thearea saw its first hint of problems in thedepression of the 1930s, but it was therecessions of the 1970s and 1980s thathit it hard.Between 1970 and 1985 it lost 60%

of its economic base, with a consequentdecline in jobs, skills, population andhousing. Since 1985 this decline hascontinued, albeit less dramatically, withthe population falling by a further 13%in the 1990s, when east Manchester

Eastern promise People mainly remember eastManchester as the host to the CommonwealthGames. But look again: its location, heritageand huge population, coupled with vastamounts of local determination, mean it’sbecoming a force to be reckoned with.

became one of the most deprived areasin the UK.While the population is now

stabilising, levels of economic inactivityare still far too high: in June 2004unemployment was 9%, compared withthe Manchester figure of 6.4%, theNorth West average of 2.4% and the UKaverage of 2.3%, and the percentage ofeconomically active people is just 50%,compared to 69% across England as awhole. Not surprisingly, all the neigh-bourhoods are in the country’s 5% mostdeprived, according to the 2004 Indexof Multiple Deprivation.With the remit to deliver a long-term

strategic vision for the physical, social andeconomic renaissance of the area, NewEast Manchester (NEM), one of the UK’sfirst designated urban regeneration

companies (URCs), was formed in late1999. It is a partnership betweenManchester City Council, EnglishPartnerships, the NorthWestDevelopment Agency and thecommunities of east Manchester. One ofthe original three pilot URCs in thecountry, NEM’s role is to implement theregeneration framework, secure therequired public and private funding, leadon specific major development projectsand co-ordinate the range of regenerationand renewal initiatives in the area.Richard Leese, leader of Manchester

City Council, says: “The comprehensive,integrated and long-term regenerationof east Manchester make it unique. Ouraim is to address the key social,economic and environmental challengesin the east Manchester area so we can �

East Manchester is buildingon the richness andstrength of the past, andcapitalising on theopportunities from theCommonwealth Games, withthe aim of becoming theplace in which to live, workand visit.

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provide a fresh, dynamic and sustainedregeneration that will improve the livesof people living and working in thearea.”

In 2000, NEM’s board set out itstargets� Increase the population to 90,000� Construct 12,500 new homes� Improve and modernise 7,000existing homes

� Create more than 10,000 new jobsin the area

� Complete the Sportcity complex

In the five years since itsformation, although muchremains to be done, NEM hasalready� Created more than 3,000 new jobs� Reduced unemployment to 5.3%

� Completed 3,500 units of new housing(by the end of 2005), with a further6,000 in the pipeline

� Built two new primary schools� Established a visitors' centre at Sportcity� Extensively improved the Ashton Canalcorridor

� Overseen house price rises in someareas of 108% since 2000

� Introduced recruitment and trainingcampaigns for local people with newemployers entering the area

� Established an intensive employmentsupport service to support the hardestto reach clients into work

� Enabled 500 local companies to besupported by specialist businessadvisors

� Reversed the previously very high levelsof heart disease, cancer and teenagepregnancies

As Tom Russell, chief executive of NewEast Manchester, says: “We’re makingpretty good progress on our objectives.They do look challenging, and seemeddaunting when the board decided onthem in early 2000, but I’ve been reallypleased with the progress made.”

“With businesses and jobs, weestimate that there’s been 72,000sq mof retail, industrial and commercialspace since we got started. The targetthere was about 126,000sq m, so we’remore than half-way there, but we can doa lot better.

“The late 20th-century slump had itsmost immediate impact on the area, butknocked the economic stuffing out of thecity,” he says. “We’ve continued losingmanufacturing and jobs ever since.There’s no doubt that the overall trend isfor manufacturing to move towards the

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In 2001, there were 17,000dwellings, home to 30,000 people,in large tracts of Victorian terracedhousing. Supply greatly exceeded

demand, with many areas becomingderelict. Terraced houses were worthpractically nothing, creating significantnegative equity.

All the new housing developmentsaddress the issues that led to theoriginal depopulation: crime, due tobadly designed estates; lack ofamenities; and lack of choice for home-owners, who then go elsewhere. But it’snot all about knocking down houses.Five years ago one road of houses in

Beswick had become so unpopular thateach one was only worth £5,000.Landlords would buy them up in bulk,and fill them with any old tenants. Crimewas rife, and people were scared to comeout of their front doors. To address theproblem, New East Manchesteremployed community wardens, installedCCTV and built garden walls to create asense of ownership. Now each house isworth £80,000.Where existing homes have been

replaced with newly built alternativesdelicate negotiations were needed withresidents, many of whom have lived inthe area all their lives. Consultationbegan at an early stage, with themasterplan shown to residents, andtheir requests taken on board. Allresidents can stay in their area if they

TOM RUSSELLBA, MA2001-presentChief executive,New East Manchester1999-2002Deputy chiefexecutive(regeneration),Manchester CityCouncil, responsiblefor regeneration,funding, planning andeconomicdevelopment1997-1999Assistant chiefexecutive, MCC1995 -1997Assistant chiefexecutive, OldhamMetropolitanBorough Council1991-1995Head of resourceprocurement, MCC1987-1991Head of inner citiesunit, MCCPre 1987Numerous roles inhousing and localauthorities

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low-wage areas of the Pacific Rim andFar East. Therefore, any manufacturingindustries here have had to become leanand fit in order to survive. We want tokeep manufacturing, and the jobs theycreate, but if we’re looking for growthwe have to look to other sectors too.We can also build on our natural assets.Topographically Manchester is flat andboring, but is fantastically connected.We have so much potential forregeneration.”Robert Hough, NEM’s chairman,

continues. “East Manchester’s regenera-tion is linked to the concept ofknowledge capital. We have to alignourselves with the concept of addedvalue — that’s where prosperity lies.Central Park [business park] willchange the quality of life by employinglocal people, setting new benchmarksfor the area, and raising aspirations.”“Housebuilding has probably been

the strongest area over the past sixyears,” says Russell. “Because we’ve beenworking very actively with developmentpartners it looks like we’ll exceed the,previously daunting, target of 12,500new houses. We won’t do it in theoriginal timeframe of 10 years, but it’smore important to reach the objectiveitself. When we started it was difficult tointerest housebuilders as the marketwas pretty depressed, but we’ve beenvery pleased with the very strongresponse.

Perceptionsamong residentsare improving.In July 2005,68% said thatthey were eithersatisfied or verysatisfied withtheirneighbourhood,compared with46% in June1999.


choose, so communities are preserved,and NEM guarantees their housingcosts will be no higher than before.Perceptions among residents are

improving. In July 2005, 68% said thatthey were either satisfied or verysatisfied with their neighbourhood,compared with 46% in June 1999, and60% feeling their neighbourhood wasgetting better, compared to 17% in 1999.“What gives me the most pleasure is

the way NEM has improved what wecan baldly call ‘resident satisfactionlevels’,” says Robert Hough, NEM’schairman. “In real terms it’s aboutresidents’ pride in their neighbourhoods,and their increased aspirations. Theylove what’s been happening, and it is theresidents who’ve done a lot of the work.”As for education, when NEM started

performance in east Manchester schoolswas 10 percentage points below theManchester average, which is prettypoor in itself. In many cases, it has nowovertaken this average.“But that’s not good enough,” says

Russell. “We want to be better than thenational average. Enormous strides havebeen made, but it’s invisible. Long-termsustainability probably lies more ineducation than in attracting new officebuildings.”Every aspect of regeneration is going

to be helped by the approval thissummer, after a long wrangle, of theextension to Metrolink, Manchester’s

tram system, to pass through eastManchester, linking many of the newdevelopments including IslingtonWharf and New Islington with the citycentre. It will pass through theproposed Holt Town site, serveSportcity and the City of ManchesterStadium, and a second line will link tothe Gateway transport interchange atthe enormous Central Park businesspark. This is fantastically good news.“The extension of Metrolink is vital

for the regeneration of the area and hasbeen part of our plans since day one,”says Hough. “The development of amodern, efficient public transport systemis extremely important in maintainingthe momentum of regeneration.”Ben Coster, of developer

Countryside Properties (which has adevelopment at Sportcity), predictedthat the announcement will mean moreinvestment in the area. “With quickand convenient access to Metrolink onthe doorstep, more and morenewcomers and local people will beattracted to the area. People are thevital ingredient in successful regenera-tion and the residential marketcontinues to play an important role foreast Manchester.”Says Hough: “What’s going on here is

regeneration with a social purpose. It’snot just for the current residents, butfor future incomers. It’s a sea change forthe area. We’re all about generating

opportunity, improving the qualitylife and attracting others.”A mid-term evaluation of New

East Manchester by Liverpool JohnMoores University says there’s beenvery good progress, but theregeneration is still fragile. “Youdon’t turn around an area that’sbeen in decline for 30 or 40 years inthe space of five,” says Russell. “It’sgood, but without sustainedcommitment by partners and stake-holders, it could as easily go intoreverse as maintain positivemomentum. Never stand still, or youstart slipping backwards. We have toremind ourselves that we’re herebecause the area’s got problems. In away, the sooner we’re no longerrequired, as soon as we do ourselvesout of a job, that’s when we know it’sbeen a success.”Hough concurs: “The

Commonwealth Games was theanchor and catalyst for the area’sregeneration, transforming a hugearea. It was a fundamental driver forregeneration, and we’ve managed ahuge amount since. But we mustn’ttake our foot off the gas. We’ve beenlucky with a buoyant economy, andhelpful planning and educationpolicies, but it’s very important thatwe continue the work. The importantthing is that we’ve been touchingpeoples’ lives.” �

ROBERT HOUGH,DL, LLB, CFILT,DBA, DLITT2002-presentChairman, New EastManchester1987-2002Chairman,ManchesterShip Canal1986-presentDirector, PeelHoldings1989-presentDeputy chairman,Peel Holdings1995 -1999Chairman of organis-ing committee ofManchesterCommonwealthGames2002Mayor of the gamesvillage during theCommonwealthGames� He is also non-executive chairman ofCheshire BuildingSociety, and non-executive director ofAlfred McAlpine,Robert TurleyAssociates and P JKennedy Investments.

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Overview

Central Park SportcityThis 185ha high-tech business park is the largest of its kind inthe country. The first phase, developed by Ask:Akeler, openedlast year, features Fujitsu’s new Manchester office and twoon-spec office schemes. The site includes the dramatic Gatewaytransport interchange, whose future is looking especiallybright with the Metrolink tram system extension go-ahead.At the heart of the scheme is One Central Park, a uniquecollaboration between three universities, business incubationunits, and research facilities, creating a ‘knowledge mill’, whichturns knowledge into high-value goods and services.� For the full story, see page 18.

The 26ha built legacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games,including the stadium originally built for track and fieldand now home to Manchester City Football Club, seating48,000, provides both elite and community facilities, andattracts visitors, and therefore income, to the area.Countryside Properties has joined in, creating a develop-ment of more than 700 homes, 200 of which are finished,with the whole scheme due to finish late 2008. The biggestplan for the future is the bid for a regional casino on 7.6haof the site.� For the full story, see page 32.

What’s happened already?�

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Overview

New Islington is Manchester’s Millennium Community,where developer Urban Splash, with NEM and EnglishPartnerships, is replacing the run-down and depopulatedCardroom Estate with exciting architecture, 1,734 newhomes, which include a mix of housing types and tenures,community facilities, 3,000m of revived canals, 100,000sqm of open spaces for wildlife and fishing, and even anorchard. The first phase of 23 affordable homes by architectFAT is finished, with work under way on De Metz Architects’Piercy Street scheme, and Alsop’s Chips building. The £250million, 29ha development is designed to be low-energyand sustainable.

At the World Heritage Site of Ancoats, the magnificentcollection of mill buildings, many listed, are being trans-formed into housing and small business units, with the burstof activity at New Islington acting as a spur to development.� For more on New Islington and Ancoats, see page 44.

The huge task of constructing 12,500 new homes and improv-ing 7,000 more has already begun. In Beswick, Lovell andGleeson are on site with a variety of home sizes, featuringinnovative designs aiming to attract all income groups to thearea, perhaps as an alternative to the city centre. Socialfacilities, such as doctors, childcare and libraries, areclustered together to increase accessibility for residents.

New Islingtonand Ancoats

Housing

What’s happening now?

Lower MedlockValley

Holt Town

What’s in the pipeline?

A masterplan for a high-quality, high-value housingscheme for this 18ha river valley site near the city centrewill be developed early next year, and will go on site in theautumn. Unlike the rest of east Manchester, this area hasnever been developed and parts of it have to be protectedenvironmentally, but the idea is to attract higher incomeearners to boost the economy. A consortium of developershas been drawn up to work on various sizes of sites, in dif-ferent styles and densities. The rest of the 90ha MedlockValley is being improved over the next three years tobecome a valuable resource of public space.� See page 46 for more details.

Touted as the world’s first ‘uburb’, this 34ha redevelopmentwill transform the run-down ex-industrial area betweenSportcity and the city centre into a new family neighbourhood.Cibitas Investments chose EDAW to masterplan the scheme,with architect Studio Egret West producing innovative hous-ing schemes. The framework will be complete by the end ofthe year, and the actual project will take 15 years to complete.� See page 36 for the thinking behind the project.

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Roots

Ilived in the same house inOpenshaw for 50 years. And I’vealways been very happy. We facedthe park, so the view was always

open – the real trouble happenedbehind us.

The changes here have been dramatic.When I first moved there, Openshaw wasthe workshop of Manchester, and thehouses were surrounded by industry. Iworked a five-minute walk frommyhouse. Now there’s none of it left. It’s allbe cleared away, and replaced by housing,most of it council but some private sector.Where English Steel used to beOpenshaw Village was built. That waswhere all the trouble was. It was thepeople there that made the difference.

Once the jobs had gone, people losttheir tie to the area. And when the two-up, two-down terraces were cleared, theywere replaced with council housing whichdidn’t really work, including the notoriouswalk-up Fort Beswick , designed oncrescent block principals. That deteriorat-ed very rapidly. People ousted by theclearances were scattered around the restof east Manchester, and lost their connec-tion to Openshaw. Those who stayedremained faithful to the area, and havebeen rewarded with the regeneration. Thecouncil houses at the top end of the wardare being modernised, with new kitchensand rewiring, which is going down verywell. Houses that need to be replaced arebeing demolished in phases, giving peoplethe choice of staying in the area. That’s

good for the community. Although someare complaining, most of the new housingis popular.

After my original workplace wasdemolished I went out to Trafford Park,but they eventually started layingpeople off, and I ended up back inOpenshaw at one of the remainingmanufacturing companies GEC, whereI was an electrical engineer. When Istarted there it employed 3,000, butduring the mid-80s that went down to400. Though they wouldn’t make meredundant, however much I asked!

It’s a great shame. There were lots ofskilled men in the area, at GEC, EnglishSteel, ArmstrongWhitworths. You couldwalk out of one job, straight into another.Now the skills are all gone. I can’t remem-ber seeing anyone doing an apprentice,even when I still worked at GEC.

The job opportunities for skilled workaround here are not great. And the

discipline of work has gone. There’snothing like the seven-year apprentice-ships GEC did, where you had to keepup the effort or you’d gradually bedropped. Although education is betterround here, with some adequatesecondary schools, there are still a lot ofno-hopers. The opportunities are there,but lots of young people don’t take them.

The pollution was terrible though – atleast now I suppose we have theadvantage of clean air. All the pubs havegone, though – there isn’t the money.The community’s still very stable,

though, thanks to the financial supportthe area’s received.

How do I see the future for the area?A sign of success is people investing inthe area; putting their money wheretheir mouth is. And people are buying. Ithink it started with the CommonwealthGames. Just building the facilities gener-ated a lot of employment. It coincidedwith the rest of the city taking off, afteryears of stagnation, fuelled by the gamesand the building of the Trafford Centre.

Of course, I wish it had happenedbefore. And when it started, I wish it hadhappened more quickly. The plans forToxteth Street were mooted four yearsago, but it’s only just started. It used tofrustrate me, but now I realise that thesethings take time. Lots of people complain,but never come to any of the meetingsabout the regeneration. I’m on lots of thecommittees. You get a lot of single-issueresidents, who come about somethingthat directly affects them, then nevercome back once it’s solved. They need torealise it’s not about the individual butthe community.

Man and boy One area that has seen dramaticchange over the past few decades is theex-industrial heartland of Openshaw. So justwhat has it been like to live through all the upsand downs? John Smith, long-time resident,talks us through.

A sign of success is peopleinvesting in the area;putting their money wheretheir mouth is. Peopleare buying.

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By 1996, just before New EastManchester (NEM) started its regener-ation programme, the cigar-shapedarea of Openshaw, based aroundAshton Old Road was one of eastManchester’s most deprived areas,blighted by crime and poor housing.Old people were prisoners in their ownhomes, isolated between firebombedhouses, or terrified of joyriders tearingaround estates at night. Industry jobshad halved in 10 years, and there wereno facilities for young people, with allthe youth clubs and libraries closed.One Post Office was raided six times infive years. The property market col-lapsed, with people who’d paid morethan £20,000 for their houses sellingfor as little as £1,000 just to get out.One house was broken into by knock-ing through the party wall with theneighbouring abandoned house.Everything was stolen, including the£300 burglar alarm.

Sean McGonigle, co-ordinator of NEM’sNew Deal for Communities team, says:“It’s good that people like John, whostarted off negative about what we weretrying to do, have stuck it out, tobecome valuable members of the com-munity. There can be something of a‘What have the Romans ever done forus’ mentality, as NEM has done a lot oflittle things which have made the differ-ence , rather than one big move. Forexample, before our time Gate Streetwas a small street of 25 or so houses,and a chip shop, in Lower Openshaw.Some houses were owner-occupied,some rented. Its problems started withone young resident who ran riot, terror-ising the street, breaking into houses,having loud parties, you name it. Withinfour months, those who could move outhad done so. The street was bought bycompulsory purchase order and demol-ished. No-one objected. �

We’ve created communitygardens, and tackledrun-down properties.One abandoned propertyencourages it’s neighboursto go too.



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CentralPark

At 185 hectares, with roomfor 500,000sq m ofcommercial space, CentralPark will be both the UK’s

first large-scale urban business park,and the only one totally dedicated tohigh-tech industries. It is at the veryheart of hopes for east Manchester’snew economy.The business park’s 90ha initial

phase is expected to generate up to4,600 jobs, in both the ICT andknowledge-based sectors, and the sortof commercial enterprises that will beattracted by the park’s gravitationalpull: hotels, conference facilities andcommercial offices. A further 6,000new jobs are expected to be createdonce the entire project is completed,in five to ten years’ time, making it amajor employment base in the widerManchester conurbation, not just eastManchester.The park’s location is one of its

main advantages. It’s close to the citycentre and all its facilities, but alsohas links to the national motorwaynetwork within a few minutes drive.What should really make it take off,however, is the recent decision, afteryears of wrangling, to extend theMetrolink tram service from the citycentre to Rochdale and Oldham,which will link up with the main-linepassenger rail and various bus routesat Central Park’s new £36.5 millionGateway transport interchange, a

boldly designed statement of intenttowards public transport.The first phase was developed by

Ask:Akeler. The priorities were tocreate a strong main entrance, a free-flowing internal roadway network, andinfrastructure services within definedzones to ensure minimal future distur-bance and establish a lasting, qualitylandscape. The park can accommodatea broad range of company sizes, withoptimum frontages to all parts of thepark, and a commitment to highstandards of design quality defined bythe masterplan.The first tenant, Fujitsu, opened its

15,000sq m, £30 million Manchesteroffice there last spring, with the three-building site accommodating 900 staff.The next developments by Ask:Akelerwill be a village of five office units,totalling 4,500sq m, which started onsite this autumn, and a 12,600 officebuilding for larger corporate occupiers.As Tom Russell, chief executive of

New East Manchester (NEM), said:“One of the most important things wehave to do is get the economy of eastManchester going again, which meansattracting businesses that have thebest prospects for growth. We’re nevergoing to reinvent heavy manufacturingin this country, and with the waytechnology’s moved on, even if we didattract them, they wouldn’t employanywhere near as many people asthey used to.

Facts and figuresCentral Park’s 90ha phase oneincludes 129,926sq m of commercialfloor space, including:

� 97,560sq m of premium office space� 11,148sq m of living/work space� 11,148sq m to be developed forhotel and conference facilities

� 9,290sq m major science, enterpriseand learning centre, in the form ofOne Central Park.

Did you know...� 65 of the FTSE100 companies havea presence in the GreaterManchester area

� 10% of all the software companiesin the UK are based in GreaterManchester

� 17% of the adult population holdsgraduate or postgraduate levelqualifications

Industrial evolution On the site of the originalcotton mills, such a vital part of the industrialrevolution 200 years ago, a new cradle ofindustry has taken shape – Central Park.

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“Central Park has been core to this.Securing Fujitsu sends a fantasticmessage. Getting a major multi-nationalIT company, after looking at all theoptions across the country, to choose eastManchester as the place it wants to dobusiness, is a real coup.”

One factor attracting Fujitsu isanother of Central Park’sgreat advantages — thetrained labour pool on its

doorstep, including the 6,000 studentsstudying computer-related topics inManchester, the 85,000 generalstudents in the city, or the 336,000students within one hour's drive ofManchester. Even closer to home, it hasthe local east Manchester population,set to increase to 90,000 within 10years. As Russell says: “It’s enormouslysignificant to future generations. Wehave a low skills base, with a lot of

It’s close to thecity centre, andall its facilities,but has links tothe nationalmotorwaynetwork withina few minutes’drive.

unskilled or semi-skilled labour. Theirchildren and grandchildren need theskills to compete in the new economy.”

This is where One Central Park(OCP) comes in, the metaphorical heartof the business park. The brand-new8,500sq m development includes theUK’s first university-led centre of excel-lence for IT entrepreneurial training atall levels, as well as incubator space forstart-ups, further and higher education,research space for the universities, andeven a restaurant.

As Robin Procter, past professor atUMIST and consultant to OCP, puts it:“The critical aspect is that young peoplewith no education can see people theirown age running their own businesses.They can see the route from basictraining, to hot desk, to an incubator,the science park, and maybe to otherbuildings in Central Park. It raises bothaspirations and educational standards.” �

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So what goes on in One CentralPark?

� Manchester College of Art andTechnology (MANCAT) learningcentre, providing training,advice and guidance, assessment andsupport for individuals and businesses, aswell as employment and careers advice.There is also a drop-in computer suite forlocal communities.

� Manchester New TechnologyInstitute, which offers training in high-technology for people across the NorthWest. Its ICT training has £1.36 million-worth of the latest equipment and soft-ware. Facilities include programming andbusiness information technology suites,three CISCO labs, wireless networkingcapabilities and Microsoft teaching suites.

� Business creation units, includingVenture Space business support, whichtests ideas and turns them into a businessproposal. A 12-month trainingprogramme in enterprise and innovation,called Enterprise Direct, helps individualsdevelop their own business ideas.

� The Technology Centre, run by theUniversity of Manchester IncubatorCompany and Manchester Science Park(in an offshoot of its university-areascience park established in 1984) whichprovides anything from hot desks to a fulloffice suite, along with grant support,business training, and access to research.

� A post-graduate research facility.The research feeds back into theknowledge base of the companies on theindustrial park.

� Event facilities. Lecture theatres,meeting rooms.

knowledge into high added-value goodsand services designed, manufacturedand delivered by the local community.In the process it stimulates the creationof jobs, investment and opportunities inthe community and, by both traininglocal people and by attracting high-earning ambitious men and women,raises the area’s human capital anddiversity and provide a firm foundationfor long term economic growth.

Its aim is to become a source ofwell-founded business ideas, a placewhere ideas can be tested technicallyand commercially, and where newbusiness can start up.

“What made this area 150 years agowas the cotton mills processing cottonto yarn, which created demand for

While none of its individualcomponents is unique,One Central Park is thefirst centre in the UK to

offer further and higher educationprogrammes under one roof, togetherwith opportunities for nurturingenterprise and growing businesses. It’salso the first time the city’s threeuniversities — the University ofManchester, Manchester MetropolitanUniversity and Salford University —have been tempted away from theircampuses. The universities are three ofthe five partners to share the 250-yearlease, the other two being ManchesterScience Park and MANCAT.

OCP is sometimes referred to as a‘knowledge mill’, converting raw �

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CentralPark

chemicals, electric motors and otherinnovations, which in turn created newsocieties and new ways of thinking,” saidDavid Aukland, director of OCP.“Today’s raw material is knowledge.This building converts that knowledgeto new business and services, throughthe medium of entrepreneurial smallcompanies. Like the old mills, OneCental Park will create jobs and wealth.”Russell is thrilled with OCP.

“Although it was a challenge in makingthe partnerships with the universitiesand colleges work, along with eight ornine funding streams, the fact that theuniversities were prepared to committhemselves was a hugely importantsignal to send out about ourcommitment to high-end, high-skilleconomy. It’s early days, but synergiesare emerging.“Someone can come off the street,

sign up with a course at MANCAT, goon to do a degree, see new businesses inthe incubator, have an idea, and be ableto do something about it. It’s all aboutraising aspirations. It does not say whatpeople are so used to hearing – that youcan get an NVQ2, but that’s about whatyou’re worth. It’s saying if you reallywant it you can go all the way, torunning your own business or getting adegree or carrying out research.”

Venture Space (VS) helpsyoung companies get off theground, with public fundingfrom Manchester Science

Enterprise Centre. Physically, it offerssubsidised space to young business andinexperienced entrepreneurs in a 400sqm open-plan office space with desks,PCs and other office equipment. As thecompanies grow, they move on to other,larger premises in OCP. VS also offerstraining – anything from evening classesin general business management tosales training.Deals with outsourced services such

as finance and law give their fledglingcompanies access to advice they wouldotherwise not be able to afford. For

companies which look promising, VSoffers seedcorn funding. Among itssuccess stories is Tree2MyDoor, whichtrebled its turnover between March andSeptember this year.Duo Design came to OCP as an

established, but small, company.Andrew Rose had been looking for newpremises with enough space forexpansion, but was finding it hard tofind somewhere within his price rangein south Manchester, the company’sprevious location. He hadn’tconsidered anywhere else, until afriend suggested OCP.“I’m glad we came,” says Rose. “We

get better space, with a canteen andeverything, and the modern design ofthe building, along with nearby Fujitsu,portrays what we’re about to clients.It’s made us up our game – the smartoffices match the work we do.”But it’s not just the physical

environment that has been of benefit.“We came here thinking it was all aboutthe offices, and the perception of ourfirm, but have got much more out of it.We knew the skills we wanted our newstaff to have, but OCP helped us with allthe other human factors that go intorecruiting the right staff.The monthly networking sessions

with New East Manchester have beenvery useful – we even got work from onesession – and East Manchester Businessadvisors have held our hand during therecruitment process.”It’s early days, but the signs are

encouraging. OCP, Central Park and thelocal population are developing asymbiotic relationship, with OCPproviding the opportunities for furtherand higher education, raising aspira-tions, and producing readily trainedstaff, ripe for working at one of thecompanies in the park.As Jane Davies, CEO of Manchester

Science Park, puts it: “One Central Parkshould have everything a 16-year-oldwould need to move from playingcomputer games to running a companythat writes them.” �

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Agency to draw up a framework forchange in the area. The frameworkincluded an implementation timetablefor initiatives leading all the way to2010. As the Games, of course, camejust three years after that frameworkhad been published there was muchstill to do once they had finished.Jane Deane, NEM’s project director,

explains the agency’s approach: “Wewanted to look at how we could use theGames as a tool for regeneration. Wedecided to focus on a small number ofstrategic priorities to benefit from themomentum of the Games.”The pitfalls of hosting such huge

sporting events have been amplydemonstrated by the Sydney and, evenmore so, the Athens Olympic Games.Venues built for specific sports now lieempty and disused, leaving therespective governments with large billsto maintain those buildings with nohope of return on their investment.To avoid such traps, according to

Manchester City Council leaderRichard Leese, Manchester looked athow other cities had staged bothCommonwealth and Olympic Games,and found that in almost all cases thehost country failed to capitalise on theopportunities they had.The exception was Barcelona, he

says, and Manchester’s leaders lookedclosely at what had been done in Spainafter the 1992 Olympics. “No buildingwas put up unless there was a

26

Commonwealth

Millions of peopleworldwide watchingmedals being won orlost were impressed

that a British city could excel in itshandling of hosting responsibility.Now the pressure is on London toproduce an Olympic Games in 2012to match Manchester’s record andbe acclaimed as the best ever.But what happens once the

games are over? What happens tothe facilities and, in particular, themain stadium? In East London,there are ambitious plans forregeneration of the Olympic area,including new communities, withshops, and even a water city. InManchester’s case, there werestrenuous efforts to ensure thestadium did not become a whiteelephant, and that the area of eastManchester where theCommonwealth Games were heldbenefited in the long term.The potential for sports-driven

regeneration in east Manchesterbecame apparent in the early 1990s,when it, ultimately unsuccessfully,bid to host the Olympic Games. Butonce the Commonwealth Gameshad been awarded to the city in1999, the New East Manchester(NEM) regeneration company wasset up by Manchester City Council,English Partnerships and the NorthWest Regional Development

Out of the blocks Few people questioned thesuccess of the Commonwealth Games of 2002as a sporting event – the fantastic spectaclehelped to put Manchester into an elite club ofmajor games hosts. But there’s another, moreimportant, aspect to the success – its legacy.

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long-term use identified for it after theGames. Even the stadium would havebeen a temporary structure if a securefuture had not been established,”he says.“We weren’t going to create white

elephants. The sports facilities werecreated for elite athletes, but each onehad a community use as well.”

In Manchester, most of the Gamesvenues were pulled together intoone site, Sportcity (see followingfeature for the full story). They are

run as going concerns, with the facili-ties for squash and cycling nowachieving the status of national centres,and the tennis courts becoming aregional centre. The stadium, of course,is now the home of Premiershipfootball club Manchester City, giving apermanent occupant with a richhistory, strong fan base and stableincome. (The club’s old ground, MaineRoad has been demolished and is to bereplaced by housing.)“Manchester City is a real

community club,” says Deane. “It had agood track record of doing things forthe community at Maine Road, and hascontinued that in the new stadium.The club now has a stadium to rivalthat of Old Trafford, the home ofManchester United, somewhere it canstay for decades, and which earnsmoney out of season via concerts inthe summer.”

LE p26-29 Comm G :LE Pages 13/12/06 15:05 Page 26

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For Deane, one of the mostsignificant actions of NEM has beento establish the Ashton Canalcorridor linking the east Manchestersite with the city centre, alreadyused by thousands of football fanswalking to matches. The corridorinvolved the regeneration of a veryrun-down strip on either side of thecanal to provide an attractive newroute for pedestrians and cyclists.Victorian mills that had fallen intodecay are now being brought backinto use as residential and officedevelopments.“You would never have thought

about walking into the town centre[from east Manchester] before,whereas now it is a very pleasantwalk and a lot of people use it as arecreational facility,” Deane says.“It has had major benefits after

the Games – it is the primaryrouteway to the City of Manchesterstadium. People still come by car,but we get a huge number of peoplewalking from the city centre,”she says. On even a cold and wetday, 11,000 people use the route tothe ground.

There has also been a strongemphasis on building a homefor business in the area, withCentral Park being established

(see page 18), and a business networklinking up to 3,000 firms, establishedby NEM. It provides support andinformation, as well as helping toestablish trading partnerships, andlobby on behalf of the area’s businesscommunity in talks with central andlocal government.The council says thousands of

new jobs have been created in the areaas a direct consequence of theregeneration and commercial initiatives.The result is that unemployment hasinevitably fallen, as has the dependenceon benefits.Neil Swannick, Manchester City

Council’s executive member for planningand environment, says one of the keymeasures of an upturn in the area’sprospects is whether more people aremoving in: “One of the indicators has tobe an increase in population, and we aremoving to a stage where the area isstarting to become a desirable place tolive. We have no ‘no demand’ housing leftand very little ‘low demand’ housing.”

He admits many of the new jobscreated in the area have been taken bypeople from outside east Manchester,but this is no bad thing if they thenmove into the area. “The area isbecoming more viable and people arekeener to live there,” Neil Swannickexplains.The Metrolink extension will also

make the area more attractive forpeople who want to live there andcommute into the city centre, as well asincrease business development and thusemployment opportunities. There is stilla problem with “worklessness” as peopleare reliant on a range of benefits, as wellas unemployment allowances, he says,and this problem still needs to besolved. But improved educationalachievements in the area’s schools givescause for optimism. The establishmentof an education action zone has helpedtackle problems with poor schoolattendance, and the quality of teachinghas improved.“A lot of people were cynical about

whether we would be successful instaging the Games, and that was in theSouth as well as locally,” he says. “Peoplesaw it as an impossible dream, but as

“No building was put up without a long-termuse for it. We weren’t going to create whiteelephants. The facilities were created for eliteathletes, but each had a community use as well.”

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Commonwealth

we got closer the community spiritincreased dramatically,” something thatwill hopefully prove to be the same inLondon once 2012 draws nearer. “Localactivities blossomed and we are stillenjoying the benefits of that.”Professor Alan Harding, of the

University of Salford’s sustainable urbanand regional futures (SURF) centre, saysan interim evaluation of the success ofNEM’s work will show that “very substan-tial progress” has been made. He says theevaluation, carried out by the EuropeanInstitute for Urban Affairs at LiverpoolJohn Moores University, was generallyfavourable.He says: “Manchester has one of the

best strategic visions I know of. They usedthe Commonwealth Games as a catalyst torevitalise an area that urgently needed it.The Games provided the moment in thesun, and NEM delivered the legacy. Sothe Games was a big event, but theregeneration of the area was the mainevent. The community engagement NEMhas achieved is fantastic, and initiatives oncrime prevention, health and training areall excellent.”Jon Ladd, chief executive of the British

Urban Regeneration Association, agrees.

“I don’t think that Manchester is somenirvana with gold on the pavements,and there is still a lot of work to do. Butthe way Manchester has gone about itshows other cities it can be done.”London will not be able to copy

exactly what is being done inManchester, he says, as development ofthe Thames Gateway alongside theOlympics is on a much bigger scale, butshould use Manchester as a frameworkto work from.

Finally, Ladd believes thedirection shown by Leese, MCCchief executive Sir HowardBernstein and NEM chief

executive Tom Russell has been crucial,and warns that when the time comessuccessors must be found who buy intothe legacy. Leese believes there areother lessons London can learn fromthe Manchester experience. He says thebuild up to the Commonwealth Gameswas too slow, and some of what they didin the last year could have been doneearlier, even though the budget was onlyset a year in advance.“We could have done with more

senior people involved earlier. It came

right on the night, but there was a levelof work in the last 12 months that inan ideal world we wouldn’t have had,”he says.London needs to ensure that, like

Manchester, it has a robust financialframework, and that costs arecontrolled very tightly, as they can runaway very easily. The success of theGames was crucial to the regenerationof the city, and the region, bringing in18 million people to the area in 2002,and putting £6 billion into the NorthWest’s economy. But, warns Leese,“they could have been a disaster whichwould have had a knock-on effect onthe regeneration.”The interest from around the world

created by the Games would have beenlost, and the investment after theGames would have been badly affected,he says.It is clear that east Manchester is

heading in the right direction. Theremight be pitfalls ahead, but theseshould be avoided provided that thestrong leadership is maintained and thevision is protected for years ahead.London would be rightly pleased tomatch Manchester’s success. �

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With investment to date exceeding£274 million, the planned £2 billion regeneration of New EastManchester is well and trulyunderway. The area has alreadyseen a huge transformation fromnothing more than a neglectedindustrial area to a vibrant gateway to Manchester City Centre.

Countryside Properties, one of the catalysts for EastManchester’s impressive regeneration programme, has workedclosely with the New East Manchester Partnership to develop asustainable masterplan for this up and coming area.

A key part of that masterplan was to improve the standard of living for the existing residents and bring to life those key elements of New East Manchester that had been ignored fordecades. These include Philips Park (Manchester’s oldest park)and the Ashton Canal, as well as encouraging more businessesand people both young and mature, back into the area.

The development programme has already helped create animpressive array of facilities, which are fast turning the area into a highly cosmopolitan area. At the forefront of the comprehensive renewal programme is Sportcity Living byCountryside Properties. This is New East Manchester’s flagshipresidential scheme and the first to be built in the area for over 13 years. Following in Countryside Properties footstep many other developments are now underway.

The scheme is a huge statement for the area and is set to benefit from major regeneration along the Ashton canal and an integrated pedestrian network to nearby Philips Park. The new residential community will have easy access to a wide range of community, retail andleisure facilities, including the Velodrome, schools and a medical centre. In addition, the new ASDA Wal-Mart is located just across the road.

What’s more, the proposed metrolink that will stop just outside the Asda Wal-Mart will further increase market values in the area by significantly improving accessibility in and out of Manchester.

The City of Manchester Stadium, also located in East Manchesterand the UK's first major national stadium for over 75 years isnow home to Manchester City FC, and the nearby Velodrome alsoboasts world class sporting facilities.

As for those other great passions: food, drink, shopping andother forms of social therapy - with the city centre just a walkaway you'll find an exciting and eclectic mix of stylishrestaurants, hip bars and chic fashion boutiques to satisfy the most demanding devotee of urban living. The rejuvenatedAshton Canal and restored Philips Park both provide idealenvironments for peace and tranquillity away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Such is the success of Sportcity Living’s initial phases which haveto date created 360 new homes, that there are now further plansfor a significantly larger new community of homes. The recentlyreleased new phase, located adjacent to the Ashton Canal, willsee the creation of approximately 130 one and two bedroomcontemporary apartments and 73 two to four bedroom houses.The diverse allocation of homes has been specifically designed toencourage a range of buyer types into the area thus creating amixed and vivacious community of singles, couples and familiesboth young and mature.

The apartment element of the new phase will comprise aniconic cylindrical building to complement the straight lines andneedlepoint edges of the two earlier phases of the scheme,known as The Cube and The Frame.

Ben Coster, Regional Operations Director at CountrysideProperties (Northern) comments: “You only have to look atManchester’s skyline to see how the city has embraced highlydistinctive and contemporary architecture over the past tenyears and we wanted to embrace that at Sportcity Living.

It has allowed our designers to create a thoroughly modernstyle of 21st century progression.

“While the eye-catching cylindrical shapes of the latest phase compliment the earlierphases, it also simultaneouslyreflects the surrounding architecture of the Velodromeand City of ManchesterStadium, creating a bold statement of intent for thesurrounding area.”

New East Manchester andCountryside Properties has a

clear vision for this emergingquarter in which house prices have risen by

over 180% since 2001 (Hometrack 2005). More investment inregeneration is being poured into this square mile, which is animmediate area of Manchester, than almost anywhere else in theNorth West. Subsequently numerous private house builders areembarking on new schemes throughout the area as affordabilitybecomes a major attraction particularly for first time buyers.

www.countryside-properties.com/homes

Thinking beyond today

Image is indicative only

SETGET

Countryside Properties leads

the way in East Manchester’s

dramatic renewal

www.sportcityliving.com

NEW PHASE COMING SOON3 bed houses and 2 bed apartmentsGet ready, call for further information

0161 2316067

EN0757B8 Sportcity Advertorial 3/10/06 2:13 pm Page 1

With investment to date exceeding£274 million, the planned £2 billion regeneration of New EastManchester is well and trulyunderway. The area has alreadyseen a huge transformation fromnothing more than a neglectedindustrial area to a vibrant gateway to Manchester City Centre.

Countryside Properties, one of the catalysts for EastManchester’s impressive regeneration programme, has workedclosely with the New East Manchester Partnership to develop asustainable masterplan for this up and coming area.

A key part of that masterplan was to improve the standard of living for the existing residents and bring to life those key elements of New East Manchester that had been ignored fordecades. These include Philips Park (Manchester’s oldest park)and the Ashton Canal, as well as encouraging more businessesand people both young and mature, back into the area.

The development programme has already helped create animpressive array of facilities, which are fast turning the area into a highly cosmopolitan area. At the forefront of the comprehensive renewal programme is Sportcity Living byCountryside Properties. This is New East Manchester’s flagshipresidential scheme and the first to be built in the area for over 13 years. Following in Countryside Properties footstep many other developments are now underway.

The scheme is a huge statement for the area and is set to benefit from major regeneration along the Ashton canal and an integrated pedestrian network to nearby Philips Park. The new residential community will have easy access to a wide range of community, retail andleisure facilities, including the Velodrome, schools and a medical centre. In addition, the new ASDA Wal-Mart is located just across the road.

What’s more, the proposed metrolink that will stop just outside the Asda Wal-Mart will further increase market values in the area by significantly improving accessibility in and out of Manchester.

The City of Manchester Stadium, also located in East Manchesterand the UK's first major national stadium for over 75 years isnow home to Manchester City FC, and the nearby Velodrome alsoboasts world class sporting facilities.

As for those other great passions: food, drink, shopping andother forms of social therapy - with the city centre just a walkaway you'll find an exciting and eclectic mix of stylishrestaurants, hip bars and chic fashion boutiques to satisfy the most demanding devotee of urban living. The rejuvenatedAshton Canal and restored Philips Park both provide idealenvironments for peace and tranquillity away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Such is the success of Sportcity Living’s initial phases which haveto date created 360 new homes, that there are now further plansfor a significantly larger new community of homes. The recentlyreleased new phase, located adjacent to the Ashton Canal, willsee the creation of approximately 130 one and two bedroomcontemporary apartments and 73 two to four bedroom houses.The diverse allocation of homes has been specifically designed toencourage a range of buyer types into the area thus creating amixed and vivacious community of singles, couples and familiesboth young and mature.

The apartment element of the new phase will comprise aniconic cylindrical building to complement the straight lines andneedlepoint edges of the two earlier phases of the scheme,known as The Cube and The Frame.

Ben Coster, Regional Operations Director at CountrysideProperties (Northern) comments: “You only have to look atManchester’s skyline to see how the city has embraced highlydistinctive and contemporary architecture over the past tenyears and we wanted to embrace that at Sportcity Living.

It has allowed our designers to create a thoroughly modernstyle of 21st century progression.

“While the eye-catching cylindrical shapes of the latest phase compliment the earlierphases, it also simultaneouslyreflects the surrounding architecture of the Velodromeand City of ManchesterStadium, creating a bold statement of intent for thesurrounding area.”

New East Manchester andCountryside Properties has a

clear vision for this emergingquarter in which house prices have risen by

over 180% since 2001 (Hometrack 2005). More investment inregeneration is being poured into this square mile, which is animmediate area of Manchester, than almost anywhere else in theNorth West. Subsequently numerous private house builders areembarking on new schemes throughout the area as affordabilitybecomes a major attraction particularly for first time buyers.

www.countryside-properties.com/homes

Thinking beyond today

Image is indicative only

SETGET

Countryside Properties leads

the way in East Manchester’s

dramatic renewal

www.sportcityliving.com

NEW PHASE COMING SOON3 bed houses and 2 bed apartmentsGet ready, call for further information

0161 2316067

EN0757B8 Sportcity Advertorial 3/10/06 2:13 pm Page 1

32

Sportcity

Sportcity, at 26ha, is one of thelargest ?developments in theregion, representing the biggestinvestment in multi-purpose

sports facilities England has ever seen.Work started in 1997 on what was then apatchwork of derelict land, that used tobe one of the densest heavy industrialareas in the country, employing?thousands of people.

The ?stadium in fact stands over themine shafts of the main occupant of thesite, Bradford Colliery, which in 1965employed 1,600 men but was closed in1968 and demolished five years later.

The site now home to the sleekvelodrome once housed the huge StuartStreet power station, with its chimneysand cooling towers visible from milesaround, which was demolished in thelate 1970s. The only sign of the area’sindustrial past now is the Holt TownGasworks, to the north of the stadium,remaining as a gas ?storage and ?distrib-ution node for the city.

Sport has been the catalyst forregeneration of the area. The built legacyof the Commonwealth Games kick-started a new era of civic pride, interna-tional ?relevance and ambition. As asymbol of this new beginning, the B ofthe Bang stands on the pit-head of the oldBradford Colliery.

Everything on the site was designedfor the post-Games future. The ?stadium,host to all the track and field events, wasin fact designed with football in mind:

the north stand was only temporary, toenable it to be brought forward, closerto the pitch, after the games, and thewhole ?playing area was excavated(with the track going to good homes inathletics venues around the country)to enable more and lower seats, closerto the pitch. The ?maximum distancefrom any seat to the pitch is 90m,and ??disabled-access seats on everystand, level and price bracket make itone of the most accessible ?stadiums inthe country.

The stadium is full of technologicalwizardry – ventilation ?louvers above theseating maintain ventilation to the pitchand stop it getting too muddy, even inManchester’s rainy climate, and a nylonmat holds the pitch together. And it’sworked beautifully: the City ofManchester Stadium is now home toManchester City FC, which held its firstmatch there in August 2003, and canhold 48,000 fans.

“We’ve tried to enhance its role as avisitor ?destination,” says Tom Russell,New East Manchester’s chief ?executive.“We want people to come here, spendtime, spend money, and take a sense of

east Manchester back into the cityand the wider world. Connections arevery important. Deprived areas becomecut off very quickly: people don’t wantto visit them, and those living theredon’t want to venture out, they havethat enclosed feel. The visitor’s centre,the regional arena, and B of the Bangall increase ?visitor numbers. We getabout four million visits a year. Mostof them are football supporters, butthe other facilities are used as well.”

The benefits are already tangible.Cambridge Policy Consultantsidentified that since the games it hascreated 1,061 jobs, and seen£2.6?million of additional touristspending, and £6.4?millionadditional business come to the area.

The community was written intoplans for Sportcity. Under the sameagreement that saw MCFC take overthe stadium, 50% of the value of everyseat over 32,000 and 60% over40,000 is reinvested into sportingfacilities and projects in the eastManchester area. The sameagreement ensures that the local?community has access to the stadiumfacilities for 100 days each year. AsJane Deane, project director at NewEast Manchester, says: “Its meetingand conference rooms are in strongdemand – invitations to an event in aroom with a view of the pitch arebound to be more appealing than thenormal boring venues.”

Sporting chance Sprinter Linford Christie saidhe started a race on the ‘B’ of the bang of thepistol. Thomas Heatherwick’s 55m embodimentof this explosive start now stands at theentrance to Sportcity, the hugely successfullegacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

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Everything about thesite was designed for thepost-Games future

LE p32-35 sportcity:LE Pages 13/12/06 15:14 Page 32

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34The stadium can also claim to be

England’s largest open-air concertvenue, with a roof modelled to bothprovide the best possible acoustics, andshield the local population from noise.

Despite the stadium's new use forfootball, there's no shortage of athleticsprovision. The Games warm-up trackhas been turned into the 6,000-seatManchester Regional Arena. The eight-lane, 400m outdoor track, as well ashosting prestigious trials and events,such as July’s annual AAA NationalChampionships Athletic Meeting, is alsoa valuable community resource, used forthe ‘health walks’ ?programme, wherepatients are referred by their GP toundertake ?supervised exercise.

Next door the indoor athletics hallprovides a training venue for lottery-funded athletics, for both world-classand potential athletes.

The track is also home to threeclubs: Sale Harriers,Manchester Kestrels and BelleVue Racers. Manchester City

Council Sports Development (MCCSD)runs a full ?programme of ?activity forthe local? community, ?including anathletics, squash and ?tennis ?academyfor ?current and future athletes.

The English Institute of Sport northwest team is based here, ?providingmedical and coaching services to top-level athletes. Part of the same complex,and open to the public, is the Isospacommunity health and ?fitness facility,with gym, health suite and studio.

Another component of Sportcity isthe National Squash Centre, home toEngland Squash but also open to thepublic, with sessions run by MCCSD forthe community and children who wishto improve their skills. The facilitiesinclude six fixed courts and one glass-walled show court, which can be moved,via a cunning 'hovercraft' device, intothe athletics hall for annual majortournaments: the British Open, WorldDoubles and National Championships.

Across the Ashton Canal, which runs

from the city ?centre through the site, isthe Regional Tennis Centre, with sixindoor and six outdoor courts, all opento the public. Again, MCCSD runssessions for the local community duringthe school holidays, as part of anintensive ?programme to encourage thetake up of the sport. As it says: “Sportcan provide a ?positive focus forpeople’s lives, especially young ?people.We have a strong commitment to deliv-ering a sports programme which isrelevant and will provide real sportingand social benefits to the city.”

Outside the main boundary ofSportcity is its oldest venue, thevelodrome, home to the NationalCycling Centre, one of the best sportingvenues of its kind in the world. It wasactually built as part of Manchester’s1996 Olympic bid, and has beenrunning its community programme andtrack ?sessions, for all ages and abilities,ever since. It too is part of the GPreferral scheme

To complete Sportcity’s status as adestination in its own right, it also runs

tours of the stadium, has a visitor centre,the Reebok City Store, a museum andthe City Social café, complete withscreens showing Sky Sports.

The 17ha Philips Park, 100 years agoan oasis among the industrial smog, isnow Sportcity's back garden, withenough grassland, woods and trees toenable some quiet reflection, as well asmore vigorous ?pursuits. Ever since theCommonwealth Games, it has hosted anannual Party in the Park, underliningthe reborn community spirit of the area.

Across Alan Turing Way, one ofthe area's major roads, is theDistrict Centre, with the £40million Asda ??Wal-Mart,

opened just before the CommonwealthGames. This, the largest superstore inEurope, used an innovative partnershipagreement between recruitment andtraining partners to ensure that the vastmajority of staff were recruited from theimmediate area, while offering AsdaWal-Mart the skills it needed.

New East Manchester’s Russell is

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35

Sportcity

particularly proud of this. “I take greatsatisfaction from getting Asda Wal-Martto make up 90% of its workforce frompeople who live within 15 minutes’ walkof the store. Getting people into jobs is amajor focus for us. It’s less visible thanshiny new buildings, but equallyimportant.”

Sportcity's success as a leisuredestination has meant that theresidential fortunes of the area are onthe up. Just outside the gates, on theAshton Canal, is Sportcity Living, a?development of ?waterside ?apart-ments and family homes byCountryside Properties. The originalplan was for 360 homes, but such wasdemand that ?planning ?permission isbeing sought for nearly 400 more, nodoubt encouraged by the majority ofthe first two ?phases being bought off-plan. Countryside Properties even hadto shut its show flat, as it had no more?apartments to sell.

And the area’s proving popular with?commercial ?companies too – foodprocessor Seamark has built a major

heart a ?spectacular curving glassbuilding by Ian Simpson Architects, 10storeys at its southern end, tapering tofour at its centre, and rising once moreto eight at its northern end.

Even though the casino only occupiesa fraction of the total space of thescheme, none of the rest can happenwithout the presence of the regionalcasino as the economic powerhouse forthe plan. As Deane says: “The casino isthe area's best hope for regeneration.”

The proposals would create about2,700 jobs at many skill levels, withtraining programmes to ensure thosemost in need have access to the jobs. It’sa ???????nail-biting time – only oneregional, or ‘super’, casino scheme islikely to be allowed in the UK, with eighttowns and cities shortlisted to be its host.A final decision on the winner won’t beannounced until the end of 2007. Fingersare crossed all around Manchester. AsNew East Manchester said of the casinoin its bid: “It is an integral element of acomprehensive regeneration frameworkfor economic and social change.” �

new plant in the area, and is opening ahigh-quality Thai restaurant, with thechefs housed in two apartments inSportcity. The ambitious managingdirector even wants to build a hotel.

A number of objectives remain forthe site, in ?particular, the Metrolinktram ?system, which will connect thesite to the city centre and beyond, and agiant wind turbine, designed byNorman Foster, which will createanother huge landmark, at twice theheight of B of the Bang, while gener-ating electricity for all activities.

But the biggest plan for the future isSportcity’s bid for the license to build a‘super casino’ on a 7.6ha site, betweenthe stadium and Alan Turing Way. This£260 million project would be the UK'slargest casino, ?entertainment andleisure complex, a destination in its ownright, with a five-star hotel, apartments,an extreme sports centre, top-qualitybars and restaurants, an ice rink andperformance arena, a landscaped lake,shops, a hospitality training centre andoffices. The current scheme has at its


36

Thought process The redevelopment of HoltTown will see the kind of family-friendly,mixed-use community never built before. Butwhen planning inner-city family living, how canwe ensure the right mix of uses and density togive character and long term sustainability?

Family areas? Doesn’t that meanjust lots of low-density, housing,gardens, and cul-de-sacs?Sure — the ‘traditional’ familyenvironment has been mono-use andlow density. But as we’ve seen in bothManchester and across the UK, thiscan be unsustainable and unattractivein the long term. Holt Town needs toadapt the vibrant mix and density ofuses critical to urban developments toprotect and enhance family living.

But surely there’ll bepotential conflicts?Indeed. Active uses suchas bars adjoining familyaccommodation have tobe considered anddesigned out carefully.

And don’t families want gardens?Is it gardens, or private space? Well-designed enclosed space can beprivate, even if not huge. It could beon different levels, even the roof. Orwe can take inspiration from Londonsquares, where fine terraced houses,with small gardens, are designedaround public gardens, with allresidents having a key. It’s aboutfinding a balance.

That’s all very well, but how can thescheme create land values that will funddevelopment? How can the developerrealise a return on investment?To deliver the project, the expensive landassembly and infrastructure works have to beoffset by an increase in land values and housingnumbers. The masterplan reduces costs byusing land and infrastructure efficiently, andbalances the required unit numbers against theneeds of families and the quality of environ-ment. The resulting inspirational place will,hopefully, raise values. After all, there won’t beany return on investment unless familiesactually want to live in Holt Town!

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HoltTown

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But families traditionally liveout of townWhy should ‘urban’ and ‘family living’ bemutually exclusive? ‘Suburbanisation’ ismainly a post-war phenomenon.Manchester moved families out of theurban core into lower-density, purpose-built suburbs, replacing ‘inner-city’housing with an uneasy mixture of high-rise and low density forms which havelargely failed to attract, or retain, familiesand are now undergoing another wave ofchange — look at the Cardroom Estatenow being redeveloped as New Islington.?

Don’t they want houses?Families have been happily living inapartments for years, from Amsterdamto Berlin, or even San Francisco andBoston. Holt Town will contain amixture of houses and apartments,with developers, housebuilders andplanners learning from examples offamily living abroad to deliver a brandnew environment.

Can family life be downsized?Through efficient use of space,factors critical to family life can bedelivered at higher densities: internalstorage, private external space, asecure play environment, and good-quality schools and services. They arenot the exclusive right of those livingin lower density environments.

OK I’m sold. Who do we have topersuade?Not the developer or planning authority —they’re working together on this interestingchallenge. The real hard going will bechallenging the entrenched ideas of house-builders and the market, convincing themthat families can live in these locations andat these densities. Through Holt Town wehope to show that many families are waitingfor the opportunity to take advantage of allthat the city has to offer, in an environmentconducive to family living. �

Tell me more about Holt TownThis redevelopment, betweenthe city centre and Sportcity, isan amazing opportunity. Butstarting from scratch with noexamples to follow has meantthe masterplanner EDAW anddeveloper Cibitas have goneback to first principles to ensurethe economic viability of theproject. So far, its pioneeringnature has generated moreexcitement than confrontation.




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LE p40-46 waterside +ads:LE Pages 13/12/06 15:22 Page 40

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Waterside

Once rail and then road hadtaken over, in the 1950s, justseven tons of freight wasbeing carried each year along

the Ashton canal, which runs out fromPiccadilly basin through the east ofthe city.And canals, lined as they often were

by the polluting industries that they hadhelped spawn, had a poor image. Theytended to be seen as unsafe and cut offfrom their towns and cities.As a result, the waterways fell into

neglect. By the early 1960s, theRochdale canal had been filled in withconcrete. The local council also hadplans to enclose the nearby Ashtoncanal in a culvert until it discoveredthat the costs would add up to a theneye-watering £1 million. The samedismal picture was repeated onwaterways across the country.But today, just as the city that became

the crucible for the industrial revolutionis mapping out a post-manufacturingfuture, it is also showing how waterwayscan help to kickstart urban renaissance.In East Manchester, canals are becomingcorridors of urban regeneration.The seeds of the national canal

network’s turn-around were planted inthe late 1960s by the late BarbaraCastle. As transport secretary, she sawthe potential of canals as leisure facili-ties. The Ashton canal, which re-openedfor navigation in 1974, was one of thosesaved thanks to the efforts of thousands

of waterways enthusiasts. Within a fewyears, canals were beginning to beviewed as development opportunities.Roger Hanbury, chief executive of the

Waterways Trust, says: “There’s been arealisation that waterfronts are a greatplace to live and work. Developers havewoken up to the potential of water.”Mike Finkell is regeneration director

of Isis, a joint venture betweengovernment agency British Waterways,insurer Morley’s Igloo RegenerationFund and construction giant AMEC.He says: “A number of factors cametogether. The old land uses, such asindustry, were becoming redundant andnew ones had to be found. And therewas a revived desire to live and work intowns and cities.”Birmingham showed the way as it

embarked on the comprehensiveredevelopment of the derelict landaround the canals to the west of its citycentre, creating a new conference centreand indoor arena. Those developmentswere followed soon afterwards bydeveloper Argent’s regeneration ofadjacent Brindleyplace, which became atemplate for mixed-use waterfrontschemes throughout the country. All ofthese schemes allowed Birmingham citycentre to expand beyond the concretecollar formed by its inner ring road.The estimated £400 million of privateand public investment in the area hasgenerated 2,800 new jobs and attractedfive million visitors per annum,

On the waterfront Two hundred years ago,Manchester’s canals were the lifeblood of itsindustrial revolution, as the most effective wayof transporting goods in and out of the‘workshop of the world’. But by the middle oflast century, their importance had dwindled

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Waterside

according to a study carried out forBritish Waterways.Manchester, while seen by some

as relatively slow off the mark inrecognising the regenerationpotential of its canal network, has,like many other of the UK’s big cities,learnt from Birmingham’s success.Manchester council commissioned

a study to examine the existing andfuture role of Manchester’s waterwaysand how they can tie in with thebroader regeneration taking placeacross the city. The results of thatstudy have been fed into the council’songoing local development plan

review. Much of East Manchester’sregeneration is now focused on canals.Canals are so much back in fashion

that in some places, like New Islingtonin east Manchester, entirely newwaterways are being created (see page45). Bradford too is looking atre-opening the river that runs throughits city centre. “People are seeing theadded value of water and being able tojustify its creation for regenerationpurposes,” says Hanbury.He says developers are willing to pay

a premium for building next to water,which can add 15 to 20% to the value ofa residential project. People like

working next to water too, with one inthree of employees who work nearwater saying that it has a positiveimpact on their productivity, accordingto a poll carried out by YouGov forGlasgow’s waterside InternationalFinancial Services District. The samepoll shows that one in five workers saystheir productivity would improve if theycould look out over a river or a canal.The fact that such premiums are on

offer has sparked increasing interestfrom private developers. BritishWaterways has entered into a number ofjoint ventures with developers, includingMiller Homes and Isis, which is in themiddle of a £6 billion programme torejuvenate 68 hectares in nine UK townsand cities, with half the profits beingploughed back into running andimproving the UK’s waterways.To avoid waterside developments

turning into gated communities, barringaccess to ordinary members of thepublic, effective management is needed.“It’s important at the outset of theproject to come up with a coherentmasterplan that involves the needs of allof the interested parties, includingleisure users and not just the residentialoccupiers,” says Isis’s Finkell.British Waterways property director

Stuart Milne argues that ensuringdevelopments are sustainable isimportant for the long-term health ofthe canal network his organisation ischarged with running. “We have beenthe owner of much of the waterways inone guise or another for 200 years.We’re going to have to live with whatis built by the waterways so we want tomake sure it’s good quality andsustainable.” �

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Underlining the dramatic change inthe image of both the area and canals,new waterways are being created

Ancoats Urban VillageIf Manchester was the workshop ofthe world, Ancoats was its beatingheart. During the late 18th century, aseries of giant textile mills sprung upalong the Rochdale Canal which ranthrough the area.But by the 1990s, despite having

one of the greatest concentrations ofgrade II and II* listed buildings inManchester and being just a fewminutes walking distance from thecentre, the area was largelyabandoned. The North WestDevelopment Agency (NWDA) madeAncoats one of its top priorities whenit was established seven years ago,mounting compulsory purchase ordersto assemble sites for development, thefirst time this had been done by aregional development agency.By refurbishing the listed

buildings and redeveloping derelictland, the Ancoats Urban VillageTrust, set up to regenerate the area, isturning it into a new urban village.

The restoration of the largesthistoric building in the area, the RoyalMills, is well under way. ING RealEstate is creating 300 new flats, justover half of which have beencompleted and 58 occupied. Flatsrange in price from £144,000 to half amillion. Elsewhere, the shell of theequally historic grade II*-listed MurrayMill has been repaired and the basin ofthe canal it overlooks has beenexcavated. A spokesman for the trustestimates that £40 million-worth ofpublic money has been invested in thearea, including £9 million onenvironmental improvements.Nearby, a joint venture between

specialist regeneration developer ArtisanHoldings, Peel Holdings andManchester City Council is completingwork on its £100 million Lower EastsideValley development. Artisan chairmanCarol Ainscow says that the demand forproperties at the development disprovestalk of a lull in the Manchester city

centre property market. “Eastside provesthat the market is there, but the productmust be right,” she says.The Ancoats regeneration has also

won broader recognition, with a prize inthis year’s Waterway Renaissanceawards. The panel particularly liked“the high proportion of apartmentssuitable for families, the sensitive reuseof historically important buildings andthe low environmental impact designand construction.”


Waterside

A few years ago, nearly a third of eastManchester residents described thearea’s canals as particularly unsafeplaces. Now, underlining the dramaticchange in the image of both the areaand canals themselves, new waterwaysare being created. In 2000, thegovernment designated Ancoats’Cardroom estate, which had becomenotorious as a hotbed of anti-socialbehaviour and crime, as the site for thethird of its Millennium Communities.North-west based regeneration

specialist Urban Splash, in partnershipwith English Partnerships, is leadingthe regeneration of the area, using amasterplan created by Will Alsop. Aswell as a more than eight-fold increasein the number of homes on the 12hasite, to more than 1,700, the develop-ment will deliver a wide range of shops,bars and restaurants to make it athriving neighbourhood of Manchester.English Partnerships has funded the

reclamation of the site and created new

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New Islington and Islington Wharfwaterways, taking the form of a 1.6hawater park, containing 7 million gallonsof water, with 3km of canal-side publicgardens, linked with bridges.Next to the Millennium Community,

Isis is working on its Islington Wharfscheme, which includes 500 homes, ahotel, shops and business space. Thecentrepiece of the scheme is a 21-storeyresidential tower overlooking the AshtonCanal. Construction firm Laing O’Rourkehas begun work on the scheme, whichwill take around two years to complete.Prices for one-bedroom apartments

are expected to start at £100,000. Isis’snorthern director Alastair Dickens says:“We are breaking the mould in terms ofproviding generous sized living accom-modation at the right price.”Tom Russell, chief executive of New

East Manchester, says: “The IslingtonWharf development is the latest stage inthe development of a new, high quality,mixed use quarter of the city along theAshton Canal corridor.”


46

Waterside

The Medlock Valley is one ofManchester’s best kept secrets,” saysSean McGonigle, east Manchester’sNew Deal for Communities co-ordina-tor. Containing 90 hectares of publicspace, the valley runs alongside theRiver Medlock as it wends its waythrough the east of the city. Earlier thisyear, the NWDA awarded £1.7 millionto restore the valley, which includes oneof the world’s oldest municipal parks.The money will be spent on projects

such as repairing a historic packhorsebridge, putting in new fences andbuilding a new footpath to form part ofa continuous link between the citycentre and Droylsden in Tameside, onManchester’s outskirts.

McGonigle says the work is designedto safeguard the tranquil nature of thearea while making it more accessible.“It will ensure that this important pieceof open space becomes the green lungof east Manchester, creating a high-quality leisure facility and significantlyenhancing the environment.”Alongside this work, NEM has just

appointed a developer to regenerate the16ha lower part of the valley, just oneand a half miles from the city centre.The developer will draw up amasterplan for regenerating the area,which currently consists of a mix ofhousing and disused industrial land.New East Manchester chief executive

Tom Russell says that to prevent the area

becoming a series of disparatedevelopments, the masterplan must bothincorporate a range of styles and densi-ties and maintain a coherent sense ofplace. “Lower Medlock Valley representsa prime opportunity in the regenerationof east Manchester. Its scale, location,and ‘greenness’ give it the potential tobecome one of the most attractive placesto live in east Manchester.” �

Medlock Valley The worksafeguards thetranquil nature ofthe area whilemaking it moreaccessible

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Royal Mills, Ancoats Two hundred years ago,Manchester’s canals were the lifeblood ofthe city’s industrial revolution. Regeneration,after years of decay, is bringing thewaterways back into use, stimulatingresidential and commercial developmentalong their banks.

Then

LE p48-49 T&N :LE Pages 13/12/06 15:27 Page 48

Then&now

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Now

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Millennium Community to replace theCardroom Estate. Includes water park,orchard and reinstated canals.NEM contact Lyn FentonLead developer Urban Splash

SPORTCITYPage 32Details Reuse of 26ha CommonwealthGames stadium and facilities for both eliteand community sport. Associated housingdevelopment of 700 homes, and£260 million proposed 7.6ha regionalcasino.NEM contact Jane Deane

ANCOATSPage 12, 44Details Conversion and conservation of14 mill buildings, many grade II-listed, intoapartments and commercial use to createan ‘urban village’.On site 2005, completion dates vary.New East Manchester contactLyn FentonLead developers ING, Artisan

ASHTON CANAL CORRIDORPage 40Details Environmental improvements,created a pedestrian link to the city centre.Residential and commercial developments,started 2005, completing 2008.NEM contact Lyn FentonLead developer Artisan, Isis

CENTRAL PARKPage 18Details 185ha high-tech business park,500,000sq m commercial space, including12,000sq m new business centre OneCentral Park. Phase one has anchor tenant,and on-spec developments. Phase twounder way. Includes Gateway transportinterchange.NEM contact Jo DrakeLead developer Ask/Akeler

HOLT TOWNPage 12, 36Details 34ha, £500 millionredevelopment of ex-industrial area into‘uburb’ mixed-use family development.NEM contact Peter SkatesLead developer Cibitas

HOUSING, THROUGHOUT AREADetails Building 12,500 new homes andimproving and modernising 7,000 more inBeswick, Miles Platting and Clayton,Gorton, Openshaw, Miles Platting.NEM contactDevelopers Lovell, Gleesons, New CityVision, Persimmon, Inspired Developments

NEW ISLINGTONPage 12, 45Details £250 million, 12ha, 1,734-home

50

Directory

NEXT ISSUE

GORTONRestoration of historic monastery intocommunity use, plus adjacent 2.1ha housingscheme, and redevelopment ofshopping centre and surrounding area

OPENSHAWHow a 14,000sq m business park will create250 jobs in this formerly run-down area, aswell as leisure and commercial facilities.

LOWERMEDLOCK VALLEYThe ambitious plans for this river valley,right next to the city centre.

LE p50 directory v6:LE Pages 18/12/06 13:45 Page 50


LookingEast

High-tech industrial revolutionThe Commonwealth Games legacy

Sportcity’s bid for casinoThe new urban living

Waterside regeneration

New East Manchester’s official regeneration magazine. Issue One Winter 2006/07

www.lookingeastmagazine.com

LookingEastIssue

One

Winter

2006/07


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