Holt Town: quiet corner of Manchester where masterplans could lead to population explosion

Recently-approved ‘masterplans’ for Holt Town, a 30-hectare area sandwiched between Ancoats, Beswick, and New Islington, have paved the way for wholesale redevelopment. The new neighbourhood will include around 4,500 homes, workspaces, a lido, and a 1km-long ‘play link’ for families.

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

“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,” Coun Craig added in January.

Manchester council is now seeking investment in the plan, with top boss Shelagh McNerney revealing more details on what’s planned at the annual MIPIM property conference in Cannes, France, on Tuesday (March 11).

The authority wants to see ‘new approaches to streets with play streets, not for cars, in parts’, Ms McNerney added: “We want safe, compact streets with [its] population living and working.”

Building work has not yet started on the project, but Ms McNerney, the council’s head of eastern gateway regeneration, said plenty was going on behind the scenes.

She went on: “Since January we have pushed on with detailed work to look at Manchester City Council land near the three tram stops and prepare deliverable, viable schemes with our land first.

“We have a little way to go and a lot to do but our approach is underpinned to our approach to local realities to land ownership and partnership with the people who own the rest of Holt Town.”

However, she also revealed an ‘old-fashioned’ problem is preventing spades getting in the ground, telling delegates: “We are getting going with our land and developing up the detail on how that will work. We want to create a brilliant place.

“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.”

Should the vision for Holt Town become a reality, a lido will be constructed on fly-tipping hotspot Cyrus Street. That would be the first time since the 1980s Manchester would have an outdoor swimming pool after The Galleon in East Didsbury and Alexandra Park’s lido closed.