Manchester’s newest regeneration agency to publish framework

Plans by the new Manchester City South Partnership aimed at setting the regeneration agenda for the area around Oxford Road will be launched in March.

An event at the Whitworth Art Gallery on 4 March will see the publication of a new development framework for the area south of the city centre.

The new agency's partners include Manchester City Council, The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust. The organisation is supported by the North West Development Agency.

The area covered by the framework stretches from St Peter's Square in the north to Whitworth Park in the south and takes in the areas bounded by Cambridge Street to the west and Upper Brook Street to the east. In the city centre, the framework will incorporate the plans for Ask Development's Central Spine off Whitworth Street West and the Southern Gateway.

An invitation to the event, sent out this week, said the framework was "partly prompted by the huge investment programmes currently being undertaken by the universities and the Health Trust and a need for these programmes to connect and deliver maximum value for the disadvantaged local residents in the wards surrounding the area and the city as a whole."

Studies by Manchester City Council have identified this part of the city as the most significant in terms of future economic growth.

The framework will also address transport, environment, culture, retail and linkage to surrounding areas of deprivation.

Speakers at March's event will include Sir Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese, chief executive and leader respectively of Manchester City Council, and Professor Alan Gilbert, chairman of the Manchester City South Partnership and President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester.