Comment

2017: A transformational year for Manchester

Turley will be once again supporting the Manchester Partnership at MIPIM and we’re looking forward to another productive week of forming new and developing existing relationships across the northern cities.

It doesn’t seem five minutes since MIPIM 2017, but the last year has been another transformational one for the city of Manchester (and of course its neighbour Salford).

The skyline is changing by the day and parts of the city centre and surrounds are unrecognisable from just a few years ago. Longstanding regeneration areas such as Great Jackson Street are now the home of the tallest buildings in the city. These are signs of pent up demand, sustained market confidence, and unprecedented levels of foreign investment. As confidence remains high we can look forward to other regeneration priorities, such as St John’s, Northern Gateway and Mayfield, starting to emerge as new, vibrant additions to the city’s modern heart, together with the evolution of the Corridor and the Chapel Street areas.

But with greater intensity and scale of development comes challenges. The last twelve months has seen a much more involved debate emerge about design quality, heritage, and social inclusion. Like any successful city, Manchester is now grappling with how to maximise the benefits of that success. It has the task of balancing interests without curtailing its ambition and pace of delivery.

Also influencing what is an altered context is the new Metro Mayor for Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. The city region is already benefiting from his established voice at a national level, particularly on infrastructure funding, but Burnham is introducing a new dynamic into the local political debate. How this interfaces with established leadership and influences property and development is an area to watch.

There is another new face in the form of Manchester City Council’s Chief Executive, Joanne Roney. As Sir Howard Bernstein said his farewells at last year’s MIPIM the message was clear: there would be business as usual. And so it appears to be, with no discernible difference in the proactive, positive, partnering approach adopted by the City Council in facilitating the city’s ongoing regeneration.

In the last year the city has also experienced great pain, with the terrorist attack in May. But if ever there was a sign of the city’s maturity, confidence and unswaying belief in itself, it was in its reaction to that dreadful event. The property industry, business community and wider populace of the city showed its resilience and only weeks later the city gathered itself and put on a fantastic show. The Manchester International Festival was bigger and better than ever, exhibiting Manchester as a truly international city.

Twelve months is clearly a long time in the life of a city but Manchester continues to thrive and evolve, regardless of the challenges it faces. As we discuss and shape what’s next at MIPIM, we can be proud of the great strides the city of Manchester is making in not only a national but international context.

28 February 2018