Manchester details Piccadilly Gardens redesign
Plans submitted for the Planit-led refresh of the contentious public space in the city centre include more than doubling the size of the children’s play area, planting 49 trees, and the relocation of the street food market.
Manchester City Council has been working on changing the 2.3-acre Piccadilly Gardens for years. The current iteration of the space, which was delivered in 2000, has been met with intense criticism from residents, visitors, and workers due to its lack of greenery and abundance of anti-social behaviour.
The new plans look to change that.
There is an 800% increase in ornamental planting, according to Planit’s design and access statement, with plants chosen so that they will flower year-round. These plants will benefit from being watered through retained rainwater, decreasing the maintenance required.
Providing a 10.47% biodiversity net gain, the project would see the planting of 15 different species of trees and 48 species of flowering plants.
The children’s play area has been relocated from by the Queen Victoria statue to the southern end of the site, an area that has the lowest pedestrian passing footfall, according to the plans. It will be 4,900 sq ft – a 280% increase from the existing area.
Technical play specialist Massey and Harris led the design of the playground, which is targeted for children 10 years old and younger. With accessibility in mind, it would include a wheelchair-accessible roundabout and trampoline.
Planit’s vision for the site also includes bolstering the existing seating provision by installing 32 benches. The central design feature – an oval lawn bisected with a pedestrian pathway – will also provide ample space for relaxation and congregation.
To tackle anti-social behaviour, the revised Piccadilly Gardens has been designed to improve sight lines. There will also be enhanced lighting installed and integrated CCTV. The city council is also working with the Greater Manchester Police to increase the force’s presence in the park. A more robust stewardship and management strategy is in the works.
The design and access statement from Planit includes a side-by-side of what the gardens look like presently and what they could look like, should these plans be approved. Credit: via planning documents
The Piccadilly Street Food Market is not part of the redesign, with traders due to be relocated to another unnamed part of the city. The existing fountains have also been removed.
The plans to refresh Piccadilly Gardens build upon the more than 400 responses the design team received from its consultation exercise earlier this summer.
“Residents have told us loud and clear what they want from Piccadilly Gardens,” said interim city council Leader Cllr Garry Bridges.
“They want the area to look better and feel safer and that’s exactly what we’re going to deliver.
“There has already been significant investment in the area – including extra police and council resources – with even more on the way,” he continued.
“This application will see a much-improved space: Putting the gardens back in Piccadilly Gardens, providing a better children’s play area, and supporting a more inviting place all round.”
This is just one phase of the city council’s Piccadilly Gardens plans. The restoration and cleaning of the three listed statues – those depicting Queen Victoria, James Watt, and Robert Peel – is also in the cards.
A flexible events structure, dubbed The Welcome Pavilion, is also due to be built. This will be part of a separate planning application.
Also on the to-do list: rethinking the existing transport interchange.
Planit was appointed to the project team for Piccadilly Gardens in March, alongside main contractor Galliford Try and engineer Civic.
Enabl led the planning process for the Piccadilly Gardens proposals. The project team includes Hoare Lea, Arbtech, Arup, and Counter Context. To learn more about the project search reference PLA-2026-001348 on Manchester City Council’s planning portal.
Manchester City Council’s plans for Piccadilly Gardens include a biodiversity net gain of 10.47%. Credit: Virtual Planit
LDA Design had previously been leading the redevelopment of Piccadilly Gardens, having been appointed to the job in 2023.
When asked about the change in team, a Manchester City Council spokesperson stated that between 2023 and Galliford Try’s March 2026 appointment that “the context and scope of the scheme significantly changed”.
They continued: “Transport for Greater Manchester secured multi-million funding to enable the delivery of a new modern transport interchange which, while a hugely positive development for the area, will take a number of years to deliver.
“This fundamentally altered the scope of the scheme as originally envisaged, but the council and partner agencies recognise that improvements to Piccadilly Gardens cannot wait and we are bringing forward a series of physical and operational improvements at pace aligned to intensive activity by GMP and other agencies.
“As such, we invited design-and-build tenders through the North West Construction Hub for a revised Piccadilly Gardens improvement scheme in January this year. Through this procurement process, we appointed a delivery team in March this year consisting of lead contractor Galliford Try working with landscape architect and lead designer Planit and civil, structural and highways engineers Civic.
“The council values the work done by LDA, which – together with the work we previously conducted to capture people’s views on, and aspirations for, Piccadilly Gardens – have helped inform the thinking around the new scheme.”
It looks better and more ‘robust’, until you realise the additional trees provide more shelter and cover for the wrongens to spawn in and set up camp. I can see complaints being raised about how people feel more unsafe here in the year after its completion
By Verticality
It looks great however without the police and council dealing with the ASB it will be a waste of money.
By Anonymous
It might be a short term improvement but this won’t sort the antisocial problems out or the fact that this is a massive, busy thoroughfare.
They need to get rid of the offices and bus station then turn it into a European style square.
By Anonymous
I can’t see this working unfortunately. I think MCC should be honest with people that the space cannot accommodate all these different uses well, and trying to make it do so will lead to many of the same issues that it has at the moment unless a significant amount of extra resource can be found to maintain it. I still think it just needs paving over with some high quality paving right to the edges, making space to have markets and events, and making it much easier to keep clean, maintain, control ASB etc. This is not the place for a lawn, ornamental plants, play area and so on.
By Anonymous
Looks like they just threw a load of trees in there at the top end. Should have kept it simple rather than chucking everything in.
By Anonymous
Maybe grass will work this time, believed nobody.
By MarvelousMsMary
This is really just the same again but with the pieces moved around. Grass has never worked here as it is not durable enough and is too difficult to maintain for such high pedestrian trafiic. And what a shame that the food stalls are to be been removed. They are probaly the most successful aspect of the current Gardens, always busy with people from across the city, but with nowhere to sit and eat the food provided.
The council need to be braver and decide if they want a green, well planted (and well maintained) ‘gardens’, or a multi-functional events ‘square’ that is durable enough for many different public activities throughout the year. Sadly this is neither.
By Anonymous
Agree with Anonymous at 11.46
It’s not the right location for a play area.
Should be low maintenance. Paved. Which will accommodate different uses throughout the year.
I also thought the bus stops outside Morrisons etc were being removed and that section pedestrianised.
By Darren
I cannot see this as a solution. The whole plan needs simplifying with good quality paving and tree planting. Its trying to please too many people. The play area is unnecessary for a large civic space in a city centre and will likely be abused, particularly during the evening.
By Anonymous
A police station / kiosk will do. The rest is a waste of money…
No drug dealers / no rough sleepers allowed, problem solved!
By Greg
Looks nice untill you realise that for the majority of the year the muddy grass will be cordoned off by ugly metallic barricades.
MCC are like all left wing governments. They live in a cloud fantasy world.
By Not annonymous
I commented on this the last time it came round, and, rather impressively, I’m still seeing exactly the same challenges.
We still have the trees, the planted areas and now, for the grand finale, increasing the children’s play area and putting it in an out of the way location. Because what could possibly go wrong?
The obvious question is: how long is that going to remain safe and usable if the underlying problems aren’t actually dealt with?
I’m slightly more reassured this time, though, having read the Council Leader’s statement that:
“There has already been significant investment in the area – including extra police and council resources – with even more on the way.” Well, that’s good to hear. Because clearly what we need is more investment in the same area while the antisocial behaviour and drug taking remain the elephant in the room.
I absolutely agree that something needs to be done. But the fundamental challenge to making any of this a success is removing the antisocial behaviour and drug taking first.
There’s a saying that repeating something that failed and expecting a different result is a sign of madness. So perhaps doing it a third time is just really committing to the concept.
Fix the problem first. Then invest in making the area better.
Otherwise, we’ll soon have a beautifully landscaped, well-equipped children’s play area sitting in the middle of exactly the same problem — which, I’m sure, was the plan all along.
By Steve5839
Just slap a police station in the centre and remove the ASB
By TJL
Looks nice and ANYTHING is an improvement – however as everyone else has said, I also can’t see this working. It needs to be a large plaza including the Oldham Street bus loop and parts of the Parker Street bus terminus. Unsuitable place for a play area and the grass will just not last (as always). I get MCC’s vision, but it won’t work in real life.
By D
@August 17, 2026 at 12:53 pm
By TJL
Excellent idea
By Rye
@August 17, 2026 at 12:48 pm
By Steve5839
Police patrolling on foot – the deterrent effect.
By Rye
I don’t think the designs are creating a safer space. If you’re coming from Portland Street end you are funnelled into the Gardens, the footway on Piccadilly is now to be planting which removes the ability to avoid the gardens unless you cross the road. There are many pinch points in the design where benches, cycle parking and planting narrow walkways in areas of high footfall. There’s a tree and planting proposed right in the desire line for the new crossing which leads from the gardens over towards Morrisons. Again, heading towards Market Street you are funnelled through narrow areas due to benches and planting. Aesthetically it’s a vast improvement; however, from a people movement point of view I don’t see this working well, it’s trying to pack too many uses and ideals into one space, less is more in this instance.
By Anonymous
“The current iteration of the space, which was delivered in 2000, has been met with intense criticism from residents, visitors, and workers due to its lack of greenery and abundance of anti-social behaviour.”
People criticised the lack of greenery? Erm no. Again that’s projecting a personal opinion on what limited and peacemeal consultation has taken place. One of the main problems is the existence of greenery, namely those useless lawns that are continually churned up and are unusable for most of the year. The mains for more flowers seems mainly to have come from certain councillors and people who think the area could rerun to what it looked like in a couple of sepia-tinged photos from the 1960s.
By Anonymous
I think the raised lawn area will do a lot for stopping it becoming unnecessarily trampled, as long as they don’t start putting market stalls and festival stages on it again. Do think everyone needs to be a bit more positive, this is clearly a step in the right direction, and the pledged increased investment into security should /hopefully/ help with the ASB.
By Anonymous
More “Kings new clothes” I’m afraid…if the city continue to use the use their ever so limited group of (frankly, mediocre) trusted partners, what do you expect to happen?
Other correspondents have pointed out the issues and repeatedly so.
No intellectual idea behind this, at all, whatsoever…odd shaped grass verge with no relevance to the place or the city….completely bonkers and low grade; so far away from what a European city would do.
Give it a year of so, post completion….
By anonymous correspondent
They can change the design all they want – it won’t make ANY difference until they solve the root of the problem which is the criminality, drug dealing, homeless. They are just changing the look of the space where all this happens, and will continue to happen.
By Sick of Labour
One the the main Reasons that Piccadilly Gardens is such a state ISN’T the Homeless People, but the sheer volume of Soup Kitchens rocking up Slap Bang in the Middle of Town every night. Sometimes two or three ‘Rival’ ones a night.
The NON-Homeless, the Drunks and the wasters will hang around all day, getting p*ssed and Angry, and present themselves for a Free Meal, before jumping the fare on the last tram home.
The people running the Soup Kitchens won’t turn away people who are talking advantage, and will treat them no different than the genuine Homeless – therefore enabling the scummy behaviour of the troublemakers and unfairly automatically granting them the same amount of Agency and compassion as the poor GENUINE folks who just want some food before they head back to their spot for the night.
Much of Badness in Piccadilly Gardens can be traced Back to 10-15 Years ago when the Soup Kitchens moved from the Trading Estate to Piccadilly Gardens.
The Council should work with the Soup Kitchens and find them a permanent place – Maybe by Embassy Village, with a Member of Staff directing folks from Piccadilly Gardens to there for six months or so. The Genuinely needy (homeless ot not) won’t mind the Walk to Deansgate – maybe a Single Use Bee Network ticket could be given out by the Council Representative each night.
Piccadilly Gardens (and St Peters Square) should be a Gem of the City, not a Soup Kitchen.
By Anonymous
Just build over it and get rid of it for good
By Anonymous
As long as the trams aren’t underground, and as long as the bus station is still there (it should be along Portland St), the amount of space available will be pathetically small. And lets not forget MCC selling off a big part of it for that tower block.
By Flixton resident
Bonkers proposal – would love to read the 400 responses. Can’t believe they were all in favour of this.
Not a good use of public money but it tells you that the City Council will do anything to put “green space” in the wrong place.
By Anonymous
A complete waste of our money, would you allow your children to play in that area? Changing the architectural layout, will not change the type of people who will hang around there, especially if you provide large seating and stepped areas. I would remove the gardens completely and just have a large paved area for events with no seating / steps etc just a large open space for no-one to hide and cause mischief. Will save money in the long run as all that proposed playground furniture will only need replacing after a couple of months due to vandalism. The days of this space being allocated as a nice open garden space has long gone unfortunately. Hopefully No10 North will sort it 🙂
By Anonymous
Once again Manchester forges ahead with poor design. There really is a limit to this YIMBY approach. Getting rid of an Ando designed public square and replacing it with a twee 1980s style small town square is poor. That is not even taking into account that it will solve none of the anti social problems either. People will look back on this decision in the future and wonder why this quite rare UK and E
uropean example of urban planning by a ‘starchitect’ was sacrificed and destroyed. Manchester is on its way to becoming one of the least architecturally interesting cities in the country. Just lots of tall buildings do not a nice city make.
By Anonymous
Just here for the Negative Nelly comments, don’t mind me…
By Bernard Fender
Need to stop using the area to host Christmas or other events which over the years have repeatedly ruined the grass so it has to be replaced at least once, if not twice a year! There were two or three well established Magnolia trees on the site which were cut down to accommodate tents for the Christmas market; the large stumps of these trees are still visible and a reminder of the beautiful trees that were once there.
By Anonymous
This will have to be the last chance for Piccadilly gardens and you have to hope the council get it right or the taxpayers will hold them responsible for wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers money at a time when good hard working people are struggling to pay their bills. The council must learn the truth and I’m sorry to say this but we have to put a stop to all the antisocial behaviour including dealing with the homeless people who are being feed with cheap drugs and alcohol by the dealers which in turn create crime and violence begging no more liberal treatment of these major issues or the problems will never get better . This means enforcement banning of all the people who been caught in the above antisocial behaviours cos they know fines and threats of jail time are just not possible.
By Kevin
We had perfectly good gardens until it was concreted over. Yet another waste of public money.
By Anonymous
It’s VERY….uninspiring. Is this really ground breaking? Anything regenerative about this Planit? LDA I’m sure would have done a better job… “Transformational” “world class civic space” and the “Heart” of the city….. really?! Must try harder.
By Anonymous
What would be really radical is getting rid of that awful statue of Queen Victoria, redirecting the buses away from the gardens and arresting people who indulge in criminal behaviour.
By Anonymous
Just go back to the original design, the flowers,grass and seating areas.
A central garden in a city centre does not need a children’s play area
That’s nonsense.
By Anonymous
Is it me or these 2 pictures not look much if any different apart from the moved playground. How much are paying for something that the vast majority of people know won’t work in practicality. Just give us a nice open plaza with some monuments that can be an adaptable space for the city and stop trying to be all things to all people
By Anonymous
Come on team, pull your finger out, it’s a buffet of averageness and ends up as a bland concoction of everyone’s wants and desires with a result of a mess , get to Madrid / Prague / bilbao and soak up some ideas and get it paved and raised planters and some multi use spaces with enough space for foot traffic and some play areas and sitting to enjoy food etc
By Bob the builder
This will not work and will be just the same as was in less than a year. It needs to be a much simpler outlay with no areas where certain ‘people’ can hide from plain sight. The police need to have a constant presence there rather than driving round the vicinity in ford transits. Anti-social behaviour would have to be ruthlessly stamped out. As stated in other comments why is MCC obsessed with having a play area here, it is totally unsuitable. I honestly believe the whole space should be concreted over and all seating removed and be ridiculous of it. But unfortunately MCC live in another world and like to repeat the same mistakes and waste money.
By Chris Chrindel
On site Security guards 24hr a day with powers x 4 or the problems we have now won’t go away.
By David broome
So let me get this right….
You want to increase the children’s play area and encourage more children into that area ? Has anyone actually opened their eyes ? The social aspect currently is an absolute danger to young children, their is accountability from now on, great of its a safe place but otherwise lets all have a reality check,
By Anonymous
There are thousands of children living in the city centre and thousands more visiting. Anyone saying that a play area is not required does not understand the concept of urban planning. It is critical, however, that the design, location and management of the play area are carefully considered.
As for those saying it should just be paved and the greenery is a problem – you’ve clearly spent the last 2 months hiding in an air conditioned box and never heard of the urban heat island effect. We need to be greening everything we possibly can, otherwise we might as well give up on everything because the city will become uninhabitable for a large part of the year.
By Anonymous
Worst place in Europe
By Anonymous
Children don’t live in the city centre, they live in the inner city, where there are plenty of playgrounds already.
By Anonymous
To me this is yet again a complete waste of money this is a dangerous area and this being the gateway to coming into Manchester from piccadilly train station 🚉.. to be honest this space needs to be built on rid the green space and tower blocks added or some type of venue built on the land. No matter trying to do up the gardens in today’s society it will never work.
By Wise
A lot of negativity here. I think it looks nice. More trees will make it a more pleasant greener space. Also nice shrub areas.
By Anonymous
Build a big hotel or office block on it.
By Anonymous
It’s the spice heads, drug dealers, alcoholics, and Deliveroo rider congregations that the council needs to focus their attention; a new patch of grass and children’s playground is hardly a deterrent nor a solution with the risk of the buses and metro routes converging nearby. Not to add the poor children will be tripping over litter.
By Anonymous
I welcome any sort of change than how it is currently. I don’t think this will solve the anti social challenges though.
It’s a shame not to include or consider the Piccadilly Street Food Market. This could’ve easily been integrated within the proposals.
By Anonymous
What a wasted opportunity!
This could have been turned into something beautiful and inspiring. It just looks the same.
By Anonymous
One of the simplest and most useful things would be the provision of litter bins, and then empty them!
By Margaret Schofield