Place10 series

Place North West first began publishing 10 years ago, in August 2007, when the early signs of the financial crisis started hitting the headlines. To coincide with our 10th birthday, we are publishing a series of articles throughout August, looking back over the past decade at how business and property have changed. Find the articles below:

Bravehearts and land banks

Paul Smith, now managing director of Strategic Land Group, reflects on turning from land buyer to seller

A transformational decade for North West logistics

Jason Print of Gerald Eve reviews the evolution of the North West logistics market and its adaptation to the internet retail shift

A certain debt ratio

David Rainford of Cowgill Holloway looks at the changes in the development funding market

Changes in Cheshire

Gary Halman of HOW Planning looks at how Cheshire has developed and what we can expect for its future

Taking charge

Alex Vogt of Curtins reviews the evolution of Greater Manchester’s transport system, 10 years after the congestion charge was proposed

Fact, fiction and fantasy economics

Former Insider editor, now external affairs adviser to the vice-chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University, reflects on the rhetoric around the financial crash

On the up

Mark Canning, director of Canning O’Neill, looks at how the office market in Manchester has changed over the past 10 years, and why resi development has helped

Time for a Forward View

Jonathan Murphy, chief executive of Assura, reviews the policy shifts for primary care property

‘It’s not you, it’s us’

Mark Hawthorn, chief executive of Landmark Investments, recalls his experience of the tumultuous times during the 2007/08 market collapse

Finding skills to succeed

Caroline Kingsley, director of recruitment firm Kingsley, recounts the challenge of starting a business in 2007, and the legacy of the recession on skills supply

To a new Northern soul

Broadway Malyan director Danny Crump discusses the changing resi market in Manchester and the rise of placemaking over the past decade

Taking care of business

Main board director of contractor Mcgoff Group, Chris McGoff, gives his view on the difficulties experienced a decade ago, and the art of diversifying

Diversify and thrive

In 2007, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, wasn’t married, had no kids, no pets, was an outright retail planner working almost exclusively on a range of Tesco projects, and had a respectable hairline, says Sebastian Tibenham.

Running from Central America to Northern Rock

It was my first big bank run since Nicaragua in 2000. As the FT’s Central America correspondent, I wrote about the lines of desperate customers – many small-scale coffee farmers – lining up outside the shuttered branches of Interbank after it ran out of money.

SMEs, the new influencers

Kevin Horton, architect director at K2, looks over a decade of the changing machinery of policy and decision-making, making way for the rise of new and engaged smaller businesses.

Sowing seeds of growth

Researcher Ed Howe remembers 10 years ago, watching with wide-eyed adolescent enthusiasm as Manchester’s cityscape transformed. Excitement and optimism were in the air, jostling for space amongst the cranes which littered the city’s skyline at the time.

Grout expectations

Duane McEwan, founder and owner of Verde Ceramica, remembers the difficulty of the recession and his “enough is enough” moment

The cluster effect

Lauren Newby, associate director of Regeneris reviews the cluster policy in the North West and its shifting incarnations

Room for a view

Hugh Anderson, director and head of LSH hotels, North West, looks at the changes on the hospitality scene

Splash regroups around modular housing ambition

Tom Bloxham talks to Paul Unger about surviving the recession and rebuilding Urban Splash