Council splashes £1m on repairs to water feature
MANCHESTER council will have spent more than £1m fixing city centre fountains in two years after it confirmed plans to refurbish the Exchange Square water feature.
The town hall’s executive has signed off more than £700,000 to upgrade the fountain near Selfridges - put in place as part of the IRA bomb rebuild 20 years ago.
It comes after £400,000 was spent fixing the Piccadilly Gardens fountain, itself less than two decades old.
The Liberal Democrats have slammed the expenditure, arguing it should be used to help the homeless instead.
The council last year laid out plans to completely overhaul the Exchange Square fountain, promising a redesign that will stop it from being blocked with debris.
The bulk of that covers mechanical upgrades similar to those in Piccadilly Gardens, however, which were closed for three years after they broke in 2014.
In both cases, the pump and internal have had to be replaced.
Council chiefs say the Exchange Square feature - part of a post-bomb design for the area by Martha Schwartz in 1999 - will now have a state-of-the-art pump installed to reduce future maintenance problems, also raising it up and encasing it in resin to avoid it becoming blocked.
In total, the move will cost £771,000, £440,000 of which will come from borrowing, with the rest from existing budgets used to maintain and upgrade the city’s public spaces.
Town hall leader Sir Richard Leese said Exchange Square had been a ‘real success’ since its redesign 20 years ago, its water feature becoming ‘renowned.’ The need for extensive public expenditure on the feature comes shortly after a £400,000 outlay on the Piccadilly Gardens fountains, however. In summer 2014 that feature installed in 2002 - broke down before remaining closed until April 2017, as the council replaced a huge broken mechanism under the plaza. Manchester’s Liberal Democrats have now slammed the latest expenditure. Spokesman Greg Stanton said: “In the last few years, we have wasted £1.2m on failing fountains. “Only Manchester Labour could talk about taking homelessness seriously whilst recklessly throwing away enough money to house every rough sleeper... on fountains.
“As with all of Labour’s vanity projects, the Liberal Democrats will oppose this with all our energy and fight to re-prioritise public money for social change, not vanity projects and endless failing fountains.”
Sir Richard defended the plans, contained in a budget report agreed by senior councillors this morning.
“World class public realm sets a city apart and Exchange Square has been a real success of the city centre transformation, creating a true focal point for local business, events and visitors,” he said. “The Square is a lynchpin for the surrounding retail - including the Arndale, New Cathedral Street and the Corn Exchange - building a hub of economic activity that helps to support thousands of city centre jobs.
“The water feature has always been a renowned part of this public space, and its revamp will provide a welcome uplift to the look and feel of the Square.”
The 80m-long Exchange Square fountain will see the original slate encased in resin under the redesign intended to prevent litter and other debris being dropped between the cracks.
A new wooden ‘boardwalk’ will be added, its entire pump mechanism replaced and the taps renewed.
The project will be carried out by the Fountain Company (Glossop), the firm behind St Peter’s Square’s water feature.