Manchester vision that could see green spaces encircle city centre including Ancoats Green and Medlock Valley

A series of green spaces could encircle Manchester city centre, it has been suggested by the city’s top boss.

Bev Craig, Manchester City Council leader, said that there is ‘an opportunity’ to ‘knit together’ a series of green spaces in the Ancoats, New Islington, and Piccadilly areas of the city centre. She was speaking at a meeting of the council’s executive on Wednesday (January 17), where the authority announced plans to build a ‘digital campus’ on the former Central Retail Park.

The retail park closed in 2019 and has been the centre of fierce debate over its future, with campaigners calling for the 10-and-a-half acre site to become parkland. However, council bosses have instead decided to build the ‘digital campus’, which government departments could move into.

That’s prompted opposition councillors in the area to call for more parks to be created instead. Coun Alan Good, Liberal Democrat, said: “Residents in Ancoats and Beswick are clear. With the cut price sale of New Islington Green and how overcrowded Cotton Field Park is on sunny days, Ancoats needs more green space. Now we see that the limited public realm planned next to the new offices might now be delivered at a later date, it’s just another example of the council’s leadership ignoring the 600 residents who said they wanted a proper park on the site.”

At the meeting, Coun Craig challenged similar points that residents’ feedback was in favour of building a park on the land, saying it was ‘mixed’. However, she added: “There was a real appetite for high quality public spaces and more green spaces in and around Ancoats and New Islington.”

And Coun Good’s fellow Ancoats representative, Labour’s Coun Irene Robinson, appeared at the meeting to welcome the move. She said: “The green space planned – linking Cotton Fields to Great Ancoats Street – is a real step forward from previous plans. It links to the work the city council is doing to improve other green spaces in the area, including Ancoats Green. I’m keen to see the planning application for the park on this space and work with residents on developing and getting my hands muddy in projects on the space. “

But Coun Craig went on to say that the green space included in the office development — which is expected to be revealed formally in the summer with a design team appointed — could be just the start. She continued: “I think that’s the point about where this sits in a wider piece of work.

“Irene Robinson has had me out looking at places like Medlock Valley and some of the opportunities that we could have there around green space on people’s doorstep. I think there is an opportunity to be able to knit a lot of this together to make sure that people enjoying Ancoats and New Islington continue to have high quality spaces on the doorstep.

“Ancoats Green is a start, but then thinking about how this site connects into Cotton Field Park at the heart of New Islington on the marina, how that reaches across to Medlock Valley, a very significant green space site that will then ultimately potentially connect into what we’ve got in Mayfield Park. I think, definitely, there’s a lot to be seen coming forwards in terms of green spaces in and around the city centre.”