Manchester signs off £33m Ancoats spend
The city council will use grant funding from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Homes England to pay for public realm improvements in the district and the development of the Ancoats Mobility Hub.
Manchester City Council has signed off capital expenditure of £32.7m for the projects, aimed at making Ancoats more pedestrian friendly.
Homes England is to provide £28m to develop the mobility hub, subject to Treasury sign-off.
Billed as a UK first, the mobility hub will operate as a shared facility to help the area grow as a ‘people first’ neighbourhood, with on-street parking removed and vehicle movements through the area reduced.
The hub, designed by Buttress Architects, aims to “break the traditional link between residential leases and car parking leases, allowing residents to acquire and relinquish a right to a parking space as their circumstances change”, according to the council.
The project will be built on land owned by the council currently occupied by low-rise warehouse units adjacent to Ancoats Green.
As well as the mobility hub, Ancoats is in line to benefit from a raft of public realm improvements.
The GMCA is to provide £4.7m from its Brownfield Land Fund to go towards upgrading the area around Poland Street.
Looking specifically at the section of Ancoats that’s bordered by the Rochdale Canal, Bengal Street, Butler Street, and Oldham Road, the plans include methods to promote active travel and improve public green space.
A public realm strategy for the area signed-off by the council earlier this month was drawn up by Civic Engineers and Planit-IE.
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…and the Central Retail Park site?
By RodDoyle
Chronic lack of parking in Ancoats
By Cal
Multi-storey car park meet one way roads.
Fascinated by the last mile delivery stuff though
By Brum
Its a lovely car park, I mean mobility hub
By Anonymous
We need apartments as the South Shore as no bungalow s for the older generation to get the benefit of this lovely sea front and this government is forever telling us to downsize …..let’s not be negative and move forward
By Roberts
“…promote active travel and improve public green space.”
Improving green space as in turning it grey. I.e. building an office block on New Islington Green.
Just great.
By Paul
Interesting experiment, spare us the green wall though, bet its dead within a couple of years
By Rich X
Why are ‘Homes’ England funding a a multistorey carpark (aka mobility hub)? Surely it should be putting money into schemes that unlock difficult sites in GM, larger BF sites in areas like Bolton and Wigan are much more in need of this enabling funding than an already established hipster area in mcr City centre.
By De'trafford
I actually think this is a good idea if it means pedestrianisation of other streets.
In fact, if it means Central Retail Park would be turned into a proper park then increase the floors!
By Anonymous
This will unlock more development in Miles Platting and along Oldham Road. The canalside really needs more use by the new Ancoats population. On a sunny day people do use the green space up to Victoria Mill, but the green space here in the middle of Platting Village has the potential to be something special.
By Bursting boundaries