Ten of Manchester’s biggest businesses have agreed to finance a long-term plan to transform Salford Quays into the “South Bank of the North”. When complete it’s hoped the project will attract millions more visitors and boost the city’s economy by more than £300m.
Work to implement the blueprint — officially known as the Destination Management Plan — will start within weeks and, although benefits should be evident within three years, it will not be fully complete until 2025. By then the former Manchester docks site should be “a world class cultural, leisure and digital media destination”.
Among the businesses and organisations backing the scheme are BBC North, the Imperial War Museum North, ITV, The Lowry, Lancashire County Cricket Club, Manchester United, MediaCityUK, Salford City Council, Trafford Council and the University of Salford..
Following the 1982 closure of the city’s docks, at the far end of the Manchester ship canal, the quays underwent one of Britain’s first and most extensive regeneration projects with work starting four years later to improve the infrastructure and construct a waterfront promenade. By the early 1990s around £280m had been spent building offices, a hotel, a cinema and residential apartments.
An early part of the redevelopment was the 1988 opening of Salford Quays Centre for the Performing Arts, now renamed the Lowry Project. The Quays is also the home of GMG Radio and several of its flagship stations, and attracting more media investment is a major part of the latest plan. Barclaycard and Bupa are two of the biggest companies with offices on the site. The largest retail attraction is The Lowry Outlet Mall.
According to a recent survey the area has fully justified the two decades of investment and now attracts 2.8m visitors annually. The financial impact is currently estimated to be around £251.6m but the partnership believs more could be done to transform the Quays into “Manchester’s South Bank” by capitalising on major events.
“The Quays make an important contribution to the local economy,” said Lady Cobham, chairman of VisitEngland. “This destination management plan sets out an ambitious set of aspirations which will further build on the significant investment made in recent years.”
There is, claims the Salford blueprint, an urgent need to create a single brand to market the Quays. A co-ordinated events programme, covering all the area’s attractions, should also be drawn-up and publicised as early as possible. Other, long term projects include better parking and transport links and continued water quality improvements to “encourage the growth of water sports and wildlife”.
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