FEC opens the gateway to a new-look Manchester

“This is the biggest regeneration project you’ve never heard about,” jokes Tom Fenton when he talks about the Far East Consortium’s Northern Gateway in Manchester. The 43-year old Mancunian joined FEC last year as project director to deliver the city’s most ambitious regeneration – a £1bn, 390-acre redevelopment in partnership with Manchester City Council that aims to build 15,000 new homes in the north of the city over the next two decades. Northern Gateway is about to kick off after FEC appointed contractors – Bardsley Construction, Westfields Construction and China Zheijang Construction – to deliver Meadowside, a £200m, 756-home development around Angel Meadow, a park behind Manchester Victoria. Though not part of the Northern Gateway, Angel Meadow is FEC’s first step in breathing life into a part of the city that is disconnected from the centre. “Meadowside is the forerunner for the Northern Gateway. It’s the next natural stepping stone from the city centre, behind the NOMA estate,” says Fenton. “That unlocks the potential for the ripple effect from the city centre to cascade out through the Northern Gateway.” That ripple effect is desperately needed in that part of Manchester. Despite being a short walk from the city centre, much of what will be the Northern Gateway feels as though it is miles away. Why Manchester? The Far East Consortium’s short answer: Melbourne. FEC entered the Manchester market with the idea that the relationship between Manchester and London is like the one between Melbourne and Sydney in Australia. Melbourne has historically lagged Sydney economically and new-build values used to be 50% behind. But two decades later, Melbourne has cut that difference down to around 25%. In Manchester, prime values have started to hit £500 per sq ft – half of what they are in London. Between job growth and the council’s development ambitions, FEC sees opportunity in Manchester. By getting involved in projects such as the Northern Gateway, maybe it can play a part in closing the gap between London and Manchester in the way the gap in Australia has closed. Crumbling industrial sites give way to inhospitable thickets that some of the city’s homeless turn to for shelter. Residential areas lack shopping and services on top of the infrastructure needed to connect with the city in an accessible way. It’s a far cry from the area’s lively Victorian past when people would escape there from the city. These days, Fenton says, the area “doesn’t really exist to most people”. FEC and the council are planning to turn these areas into seven neighbourhoods, connected by the River Irk running through the area. Besides delivering 15,000 new homes, goals for the project include infrastructure – led by walking and cycling paths and potentially a new Metrolink station – schools, shopping centres and new health facilities to boost an area that has only two GPs, both with full patient lists. But the key here is green space – something Manchester city centre lacks. Fenton says: “This is an amazing opportunity, which will differentiate the Northern Gateway from everything else that is happening in the city. It’s a very landscape-driven masterplan.” The partners plan to build a park around the river, which joins up to Angel Meadow in the south and Sandhills Park and Queens Park in the north, bringing a stretch of green space to the centre of the project. With few green spaces within the Manchester ring road, Northern Gateway has the opportunity to draw in residents from across the city and turn it into the kind of destination it used to be. Delivering the project As a decades-long project, much of the detail is flexible and plans will come in waves depending on how residents’ wants and needs change over the years. Suzanne Richards, executive member for housing and regeneration at Manchester City Council, says: “It’s very important that residents feel they are a part and a partner in that process. “I don’t want them to feel that the regeneration is happening to them and their community. I want them to be part of the vision for the area.” FEC seems aware of the necessity of keeping residents on board with its plans. That is why the first phase of the development includes 400 homes in the Collyhurst area, 110 of which will be social housing. In other parts, Victorian railway arches will be retained, while the seven neighbourhoods will keep their existing names because residents, Fenton says, are “quite fiercely local” to their areas. The site has a history of let-downs and the partners are cautious about disappointing residents. Richards says parts of the Northern Gateway were due to be a PFI scheme before the government pulled back on funding in 2010. “This is about us meeting that commitment, which the government – as far as we are concerned – reneged on to residents in that area at that time.” Fenton is also aware of the situation, which is why his team has not shouted about the Northern Gateway or tried to dispel the idea that it is the biggest regeneration people haven’t heard about. “We recognise that, historically, there has been a lot of false dawns and legacies for this area. We are mindful of that,” he says. “We have tried to tread very carefully to make sure we are not over-promising on this, because the worst that could happen is that we set an unrealistic vision that isn’t attainable and we let people down again.” What’s next for the Northern Gateway? Consultations on the draft masterplan have now completed and FEC hopes to have it approved by December this year, with planning applications filed by April. Meanwhile, the company is hoping to get its business plan and financial model adopted by its board of directors by November. Once these are accomplished, the development at Collyhurst will signal the start of the development. From there, the Northern Gateway will emerge piece by piece throughout the area. “We want to be active close to the city centre, but we also want to be active in Collyhurst with the delivery of homes for affordable housing for existing residents straight from the off,” Fenton says. As the Northern Gateway opens up the north of Manchester, areas even further from the city will start to look like opportunities for development. What’s next for FEC? FEC has worked in the UK for five years and has been in Manchester for two. Fenton suggests that although the developer will be kept busy with its existing projects, it does have aspirations to repeat what it’s doing with the Northern Gateway in other parts of the country. As long as the right opportunity comes along for FEC to be a development partner in a massive scheme, it will likely follow the pattern it has in Manchester: enter the city, set up a local team, partner with stakeholders within the area and reimagine whole sections of the city. But before it does that, it will need to start delivering the Northern Gateway. To send feedback, e-mail karl.tomusk@egi.co.uk or tweet @karltomusk or @estatesgazette