Holt Town: Enormous woodland dream vision for derelict and empty area in shadow of the Etihad and Co-op Live

A massive development blueprint to regenerate Holt Town was recently approved by Manchester council, which hopes to wholly regenerate the 30 hectare area sandwiched between Ancoats, Beswick, and New Islington.

Eventually, it’s hoped to become home to 4,500 homes, 1,500 jobs, a ‘culture hub’ for Hope Mill Theatre, a 1km-long ‘play link’ for families, and the city’s first lido in decades.

Council leader Bev Craig said Holt Town ‘has huge potential’ to become a ‘first of its kind in Manchester’: ‘A brand new woodland town’.

Added Coun Craig in January: “This neighbourhood will represent a people first focus around active travel, green spaces, new play spaces for young people – and a digital first approach that will better connect the community with local services.”

Building work is yet to start in the area, as council chiefs identified an ‘old fashioned problem’ standing in the way of work beginning in earnest. The site lies near Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and Co-op Live.

Shelagh McNerney, speaking at the annual MIPIM property conference in Cannes, France, said March 11: “There’s a level of investment needed within each plot. If you add up all of that across Holt Town that’s a big number.

“We need that not just to make a nice place but to address some of the things under the ground. It’s old-fashioned physical constraints that slow us down.”

However, it now looks like there’s activity behind-the-scenes to get Holt Town’s makeover going.

MCR Property Group announced on Tuesday (April 29) it has completed a deal to buy three plots of land in the area, totalling nearly 16 acres, and is planning to build up to 2,000 homes in the area.

The largest plot of land covers the site of the former Saxon Street gasometer, which sat behind the Bradford Inn pub until it was demolished in 2023. Other plots include grassland and a gas pipe, only accessible from a Manchester City FC car park, and a five-acre L-shaped parcel of land behind Co-op Live.

It’s the second ex-gasworks the company has purchased, with plans to build 1,200 flats on Gould Street, near Victoria Station, approved in 2023, four years after the firm bought the land.

“As our second former gasworks site in the city, we will be able to apply our proven expertise in unlocking brownfield land for transformational development and we are looking forward to contributing to the wider Holt Town regeneration,” said Nick Lake, from MCR.

No formal details of the proposed homes have been released, but the Holt Town neighbourhood development framework allows for towers up to 22 storeys tall. The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands MCR is in talks with the council over the specifics of any development.