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Joanne Roney OBEOur ambitious 15,000-home regeneration plan for Manchester
As a consultation deadline approaches next week, Joanne Roney explains more about the Northern Gateway project in Manchester
During the evolution of a major city there are precious few opportunities to drive forward a wide-scale regeneration project that will create the conditions for real change.
These opportunities can be decades in the making and may come to fruition only once in a generation.
In Manchester, over the past three decades, we have seen a couple of these regeneration programmes that have turned the tide on the city’s 30-year decline as the city’s industries faltered from the 1970s.
In the 90s we saw the transformation of Hulme – an area that is still improving with major investment from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) developing their Birley Fields campus, and One Manchester are continuing residential growth in the area.
Similarly, east Manchester remains one of the most ambitious regeneration programmes the UK has seen – using the 2002 Commonwealth Games as the springboard to major investment to create a globally recognised hub for sport and leisure, the home of Manchester City Football Club and a range of national sporting bodies.
East Manchester continues to grow, not least with another MMU scheme to locate a new sport and leisure focused campus in the area, complementing the world-class facilities already on offer at Eastlands.
“The key concept will connect seven new and emerging neighbourhoods.”
The Northern Gateway – a project area stretching north of the city centre into north Manchester – will undoubtedly sit within the same echelons as these regeneration success stories.
The programme is a £1bn joint venture with developer Far East Consortium and its key concept will connect seven new and emerging neighbourhoods through high-quality and extensive green spaces.
At 155 hectares, the Gateway is one of the largest residential-led development programmes in the UK, ready to deliver 15,000 new homes in the next 15 to 20 years and will include at least 3,000 affordable homes, helping people of Manchester meet their housing aspirations through high-quality homes our residents can afford in attractive neighbourhoods they want to live in.
The Gateway area stretches north from Manchester’s well-known NOMA scheme – the Co-Op’s headquarters – and Angel Meadow developments through the Irk Valley, a currently underused area characterised by the River Irk surrounded by mature and semi-wild green areas auspiciously close to the city centre.
The river itself will be opened up ensuring the blue artery running through the Gateway area becomes a key feature.
The programme will bring life to the waterways of the Irk Valley through open green spaces and public squares that will be beautifully connected through walking routes and cycleways, as well as improved public transport.
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The neighbourhoods themselves will each have a distinct character, separating each from the other while remaining connected, and to support the major residential investment, new services including primary care and school provision will complement new shops, cafes and restaurants.
We hope the Northern Gateway not only plants the seeds for fantastic liveable neighbourhoods, but also become family-friendly destinations in their own right, attracting people from across the city and further afield to north Manchester.
And our links to the Global Coalition on Aging in New York provides an opportunity to use innovative housing and urban designs to help people age with dignity.
At the beginning of this journey, it is important to us that we have the invaluable insight and input from local people.
We’re not interested in parachuting a regeneration programme of this magnitude into an area without understanding what the people who will live there – and already live there – want from their communities.
We want local people to be involved and to be as excited about these plans as we are.
We are currently undertaking a major consultation exercise, including drop-in events and an online questionnaire to gather as much information and evidence as possible before work starts in earnest.
“We’re not interested in parachuting a regeneration programme of this magnitude into an area without understanding what the people who will live there – and already live there – want.”
You can read more here: www.northerngatewaymanchester.co.uk – deadline for comment is 1 October.
At its heart, the Gateway project represents the scale of housing investment that we desperately need in the city to meet our population growth projections, and the associated demand for high-quality housing.
But above and beyond this, we want to be incredibly ambitious. We want the Northern Gateway to change the way we think about urban planning and the way we as residents interact with the city we live in.
Vital to this project will be the alignment of great transport with the major housing investment. Being part of the Greater Manchester group of local authorities gives us the ability to plan transport investment across the conurbation that will ensure the Northern Gateway will be truly connected to the city region.
We believe this project represents what an outward looking, modern global city should be – inclusive, sustainable and attractive. The Northern Gateway also sees a real step change in how regeneration project interact with our residents.
Joanne Roney, chief executive, Manchester City Council
