Ancoats stakes its claim for city centre status
It might be just outside Manchester’s traditional heart, but expanding the city centre makes sense for all sorts of reasons, say campaigners
LIKE all cities, Manchester’s boundaries have changed plenty over the years.
In fact, go back far enough and Manchester was a parish of ‘the hundred of Salford,’ an ancient division of the historic county of Lancashire.
Usually, tweaks to borders reflect an increase in population and economic activity.
And nowhere in the region is changing faster than Manchester city centre, where skyscrapers are popping up all over the place and the number of residents is expected to hit 100,000 by 2025.
But what counts as ‘Manchester city centre’ in 2021 and why is it important?
Traditionally, the city centre has been used to describe everywhere within the inner ring road, a tight area of less than two square miles.
It includes places like Deansgate, Piccadilly and Victoria station, and St Peter’s Square that are indisputably in Manchester city centre.
Inevitably, however, that definition is becoming more blurred.
In the north and east, the city centre expansion has been particularly successful. Ancoats and New Islington are now two of the most popular neighbourhoods for new residents, having been transformed from an industrial wasteland into a hipster paradise filled with trendy apartments, coffee shops and restaurants.
For the purposes of administration by Manchester City Council, they are in a ward with Beswick, split off from the city centre by Great Ancoats Street.
But for some local councillors and campaigners, that traditional boundary is starting to create some headaches and look increasingly artificial.
They believe more needs to be done to bring Ancoats and New Islington in line with the other city centre wards, Piccadilly and Deansgate.
One reason is policing. Greater Manchester Police divides the region up into wards of its own and, currently, Ancoats does not come under the city centre.
“My bugbear is police resourcing,” Emma Taylor, the Labour councillor for Ancoats and Beswick told the M.E.N.
“We did get some funding here and there to get more patrols and neighbourhood officers. But it wasn’t sustainable long term.”
Coun Taylor references Cutting Room Square, the heart of the ‘new’ Ancoats which is home to the Halle Orchestra, pizza hotspot Rudy’s and craft beer specialists Seven Brothers, as a particular problem. During warmer lockdown days, it has become a favourite spot for crowds of people to gather and drink outdoors. But residents have complained it has also brought anti-social behaviour, with reports of people urinating in the street, taking drugs, playing loud music and leaving litter.
When outdoor hospitality reopened last summer, the M.E.N. reported on a nasty incident that saw men brawling in the street for several minutes, using furniture as weapons.
“Last spring we got more [policing] resource on a Friday and Saturday night for Cutting Room Square,” said Coun Taylor.
“But it’s not just Friday and Saturday night, we have week nights as busy as any other urban area.
“Ancoats is seen as the city centre and it’s overdue neighbourhood officers to make sure it’s adequately staffed.”
GMP says it has a number of operations that are ongoing in Ancoats including work to reduce robberies, drug dealing an night time violence. The force also says its senior command structure covers both Ancoats and the city centre.
Such is the pace of change, Coun Taylor says that the number of potential voters in her ward has increased by more than 2,000 in just a year. And the evolving demographic could lead to political change.
Labour currently holds 91 of the 96 seats in Manchester Council.
The opposition Lib Dems hold just two seats, both in Didsbury, a traditional stronghold for the party.
But the M.E.N. understands there is an increasing fear in Manchester Labour that the Lib Dems could take a seat in or around the city centre.
Ancoats and Beswick, in particular, looks vulnerable following a number of clashes with residents over council policies.
The £9m revamp of Great Ancoats Street went down badly with many not just because the council decided to remove cycle lanes in favour of alternative routes elsewhere, but because many don’t believe the council delivered what they promised.
The roadworks - which caused months of headaches for businesses and pedestrians - was supposed to turn the busy stretch of the inner ring road into a tree-lined ‘European-style boulevard.’ Critics say it hasn’t lived up to expectation.
Perhaps even more damaging has been the council’s high-profile battle over its plans for the former Central Retail Park. The authority bought the site in 2017 for £37m and sees it as a key ‘gateway’ site connecting Ancoats, the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly and the long-term ambition is to develop it into an office-led neighbourhood.
But in the meantime, the council lodged a planning application to use the site as a 440-space car park.
It sparked a community campaign, Trees Not Cars, led by local residents who want to reduce the amount of vehicle traffic in the area.
The planning application was approved, despite Trees Not Cars attracting almost 10,000 signatures to a petition opposing the move.
A similar fight has played out over the fate of a large patch of green space known locally as ‘New Islington Green.’ The grassed area has been lined up for development for decades and plans have now been brought forward for another office-led development.
Again, residents have rallied in opposition, arguing that the green space has been well-used during lockdown and should be protected and enhanced.
It is in the shadow of these battles that Marcia Hutchinson is standing as the new Labour candidate for Ancoats and Beswick in the upcoming election. She has backed Coun Taylor’s calls for Ancoats to be allocated extra policing resource and agrees that it should be considered part of the city centre.
Alan Good, the Lib Dem candidate for Ancoats and Beswick, is an Ancoats residents and has backed the community campaigns against the council’s plans for Central Retail Park and New Islington Green.
He agrees that Ancoats has become a city centre council ward in all but name.
“Culturally and economically, the demographic for the city centre in Piccadilly is quite similar to Ancoats and New Islington,” he said.
“I don’t think people know about ward boundaries. I don’t think people look at Great Ancoats Street as the dividing line where the city centre ends.”