Central Manchester Development Corporation

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Central Manchester Development Corporation
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CMDC Aims

• To bring back into use land and property
• To support new developments sympathetic to
  incumbent land and buildings
• To improve the environment of the area
• To alter the character of the southern fringe of
  the city centre by supporting housing and
  leisure-based developments to assist
  diversification of the city centre.
• Reposition and rebrand much of CMDCs territory
  as distinctive within the city centre

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CMDC
Manchesters amazing urban renaissance was
kick-started in 1980s and 90s by CMDC.
(Williams, 2003)
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CMDC and Castlefield
UR/PM

• CMDC a discernable change of tack from earlier
  UDCs it contained some significant assets
• Roman ruins and canal network in Castlefield had
  tourism potential
• Some of the first residential developments in the
  city centre for many years
• Strength of the city centre economy

• 82.1 million from Central Government and 5.1
  million from the European Regional Development
  Fund

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City Centre Living
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CMDC
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Castlefield Walk
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Castlefield

• Roman origins of Manchester
• Early industrial canal Bridgewater

• First passenger railway station
• Thriving centre until focus moved towards the
  cathedral

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Dereliction

• Scene of scrap yards, abattoirs etc

• Canals not navigable and full of rubbish

• Warehouses derelict

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Castle Quay
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Merchants Warehouse
Commercial - studios and small offices, creative
industries.
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Staffordshire Wharf
Outdoor Arena
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Tourism product Heritage
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Pubs and restaurants
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Hotels
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High Quality Design
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Consequences

• See Deas, I., Robson, B., et al. (2000).
  Re-thinking the Urban Development Corporation
  'experiment' the case of Central Manchester,
  Leeds and Bristol. Progress in Planning 54 1-.
  A long report, but the section on CMDC is very
  relevant

Negative

• CMDC officials appeared to have disregarded
  questions of equity
• They developed little or no collaborative
  activity with the deprived areas immediately
  outside their boundaryeg Hulme
• Community organisations
• CMDC devoted only 1.7 of its budget to community
  projects

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Effects
Positive

• Property markets
• Heavy reliance on the purchase of land and
  buildings, combined with improvement, re-sale
  and, possibly, grant assistance
• CMDC higher spend on environmental improvements
  than other UDCs
• CMDC rental values (Castlefield and Whitworth
  Street) out-performed other parts of the city
  centre between 1989 and 1993.
• High quality office space, Barbarolli Square
• 100 million investment in 70,000 m2 office space
  without grant assistance (Deas, 2000) a
  compelling indicator

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Other output figures

• Employment
• CMDC created 4944 jobs
• Difficulties in gathering and interpreting the
  data(definition of local people)
• Housing
• Pop 250 in 1988
• More than 2500 new or refurbished dwellings
  (difficult to measure)
• five-fold increase in the proportion of land
  used for housing between 1989 and 1995
• Leverage (proportion of public sector resource to
  private money invested)
• 12.9- good

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Winding-up

• CMDCs solution
• Set up Castlefield Management Company two years
  before the UDC wound up.
• Partnership of local businesses and public
  agencies
• Responsible for maintenance and promotion.
• Manchester City Council took back responsibility
  for the areas and the tourist information centre
  closed in 2002

Gibson C Hardman D (1996) Winding Up or
Winding down? International Cities Management.
May/June 1996.