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The Developers

The recent development of Manchester’s built environment has meant close collaboration between the council and private sector companies, especially developers. Council Chief Executive Howard Bernstein was described in a Management Today article as “a property developer disguised as a town crier”. In the same article he explained “We have worked hard at building those relationships and at giving the private sector the chance to get involved in the strategic shape of the city.” So close is the relationship that the foreword to the City Centre Strategic Plan is co-written by council leader Richard Leese and abseiling partner Chris Oglesby, Chairman of developers Bruntwood Estates.

The council-initiated Piccadilly Partnership was set up to promote the area between the station and Piccadilly Plaza and contains representation from three developers: Bruntwood, Argent and Albany, all of whom have since begun major projects in the area. Though partnerships such as this have enormous power and influence, controlling the strategic future of the city, their workings are hidden from public scrutiny and their activities unaccountable: Piccadilly Partnership doesn’t even have a publicly available postal or email address.

The council has developed the city centre using a mixture of flagship development and zonal ‘place marketing’ (the marketing of areas with specific identities, such as the Millennium or Northern Quarters). Flagship developments are intended to act as a visible sign of regeneration and encourage similar private sector developments around them.

Examples include: the GMEX Convention Centre, MEN Arena, Bridgewater Hall, The Lowry, URBIS and Sports City. These developments are piecemeal, exposing a shallow approach to regeneration. The huge cost outlays typically involve large public investments and risk, with the completed buildings either sold to, or managed by, private companies.

B of the Bang, sculpture with Blu-tak and cocktail sticks, UHC 2005

In 2001 campaigners fought against council plans to sell off a large portion of Piccadilly Gardens; they even tried to register the gardens as a village green. Despite this, the south side was sold off to developers Argent for prime office space and is now home to the European headquarters of the Bank of New York. This resistance was repeated at the Free Trade Hall. This public venue was built on the site of the Peterloo Massacre and played host to meetings of the suffragettes, Charles Dickens and other radicals. In 1921 the building was sold to the Manchester Corporation on the condition that it be used in perpetuity, by the people of Manchester, as a public hall. But in 1996 the council, having ‘lost’ the building’s title deeds, chose to sell it for a knockdown price to the Radisson Hotel Group. The proceeds went towards paying for the Bridgewater Hall, a privately run concert hall which generates a healthy profit for SMG Europe, the company that manages it.

Manchester’s building boom is a product of its pitch for ‘global city’ status, no longer seeing itself in a regional or even national context. In a globalised world, cities no longer act as centres of manufacturing or industry but as ‘command points’ in the organisation of the world economy. They are key locations for the financial and specialist service industries required to run the economic system. These are the businesses and the workforce Manchester now aims to attract, even if that means mortgaging its public assets and heritage and discarding the interests of its current inhabitants.