Member Article

Manchester looks forward to a brighter future

Manchester is looking towards the future as town hall chiefs publish a blueprint for how the city will look in 2027.

If plans are implemented, it is hoped that the blueprint will put Manchester ahead of similar-sized rival cities like Munich and Helsinki and help it become part of the ‘front rank’ of European and world destinations.

The plans include 80,000 new residents, 60,000 new homes, the city centre will become more pedestrian friendly with a focus on more of the worlds leading businesses and high quality hotels. The Manchester sky line will be transformed with new skyscrapers and deprived inner-city areas will become community hubs.

Residents will have a wide choice of homes, twenty per cent of which will be ‘affordable’. By 2019, all new buildings will be zero carbon. One of the aims is to try and ensure that everyone in Manchester is within a ten minute walk of a park and a 15 minutes to an outdoor sports facilities.

There will be a real focus of reintroducing old-fashioned, stable neighborhoods where residents are born, grow up and grow old. There are also plans for eighty new pitches designated for travellers.

In 2008, plans for a super casino at Eastlands failed but there are now plans to redevelop the area into a leisure and entertainment centre which would produce many jobs for the region.

Council leader Sir Richard Leese told the Manchester Evening News that despite the country suffering the recession, Manchester is looking forward to the future.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Francesca Dent .