Plans for Vimto Park squashed
SCHEME FOR SLICE OF ICONIC GREEN SPACE TO BE BUILT ON HAS NOW BEEN DROPPED
CONTROVERSIAL proposals to allow development on Manchester’s Vimto Park have been dropped after a public backlash.
A masterplan drawn up by the council and Manchester University for the old Sackville Street campus would have seen a slice of the historic green space taken up by a new building.
Following a public consultation, that idea has been scrapped – but modernist architecture could still be lost, despite opposition.
The plan, officially known as a strategic regeneration framework, will provide a blueprint for the area’s development in the coming years.
It would see thousands of new rental apartments, office space and bars built at the university’s former city centre base, while the listed Sackville building would be turned into a hotel.
The document sparked outrage among residents and councillors, because it could see Vimto Park ‘reduced in size’ as part a result.
An update going to council bosses on Wednesday reveals officials have now had a change of heart. It admits ‘a particular focus’ of responses from individuals, councillors and friends groups was opposition to any loss of green space, ‘in particular reducing the size of the area known as Vimto Park.’ Several responses had pointed out the floor space created by building on the park could easily be found elsewhere in the development.
In response, the report says: “In response to the specific comments and concerns relating to Vimto Park, the framework has been revised to reinstate the entire length of the park from Sackville Street to Cobourg Street. The volume of the proposed building on Coburg Street that impinged on Vimto Gardens has been redistributed to the taller buildings to the south east of the site.”
But despite objections from the Modernist and 20th Century societies, it does not promise to preserve the site’s 1960s architecture.
It agrees it would be ‘helpful’ to identify those buildings that could potentially be retained – including Renold, Pariser and Jackson’s Mill – but says that will not be determined until a more detailed design stage further down the line.
Meanwhile the listed Holloway Wall sculpture remains a ‘barrier’ to planned development in the area and may still be moved, it adds.