Next wave of project appointments for Victoria North
Design practices Maccreanor Lavington and Schulze+Grassov are to lead the masterplanning of the 5,500-home Red Bank neighbourhood, part of the larger Manchester development.
The multidisciplinary team has been appointed by Far East Consortium, Manchester City Council’s development partner for the Victoria North regeneration programme, previously known as the Northern Gateway.
The team is tasked with developing a masterplan and hybrid planning application for Red Bank, the latest component of the programme intended to deliver 15,000 new homes north of the city centre over the next 10-15 years.
The full list of consultants includes:
- Maccreanor Lavington and Schulze+Grassov – lead designers and masterplanners
- Open – landscape design
- Useful Projects – sustainability design
- WSP – lead technical advisor
- Arcadis – cost manager
- Avison Young – planning and EIA consultant
- Counter Context – consultation specialist
Red Bank is proposed to transform a largely brownfield site into a new mixed-use neighbourhood centred around the first phase of the City River Park component of Victoria North, a 113-acre park to be developed on the bank of the River Irk.
The project will also feature a mix of recreational, commercial and residential spaces, including around 4,000 homes across a range of tenures, 20% of which would be designated as affordable. Enabling works for Red Bank’s first housing development, Victoria Riverside, begun this year.
FEC expects to lodge an application for the scheme in spring 2022. The company’s project director Hilary Brett-Parr said: “Appointing this team is a major step forward in mapping out our vision for Red Bank, which will be transformative for the city.
“Our ambition is to create an aspirational neighbourhood for a mixed and diverse community that celebrates and revives the River Irk and connects people to the city as well as nature. We are focused on developing a sustainable neighbourhood with exemplar public realm and spaces with cycling and walking at its heart.”
Said Oliver Schulze, co-founder at Schulze+Grassov: “Our goal is to transform Red Bank into Manchester’s best urban neighbourhood, where a great public realm will invite people to live, work, and enjoy life in Manchester city centre.”
And Kevin Logan, director of Maccreanor Lavington’s Urban Studio, added: “Our ‘Wild Urbanism’ vision for a new community in Red Bank has been developed to positively respond to the challenges of the climate emergency, biodiversity breakdown and ensuring health and equality.
“We believe it offers Manchester a new model for delivering truly sustainable, distinctive and equitable neighbourhoods…for the next generation of Mancunians.”
FEC and Manchester City Council last week announced the project team appointed to carry out infrastructure works intended to support the wider Victoria North programme – particularly the first 5,500 homes to be delivered under the proposals.
The works would include brownfield land clearance and land decontamination, and linking sites to existing highways – constraints that would otherwise hinder future development.
