Manchester-based developer Capital & Centric is building up a £250m war chest to take on the volume house builders, as it shifts its focus to building high density, back to back housing around Greater Manchester’s public transport hubs.

Adam Higgins, Founder and Director of Capital & Centric, told our Greater Manchester Development Plans Conference that a £250m funding package would create ‘a challenger to the likes of Barrett’.

Higgins said Capital & Centric’s current projects include the Kampus development, which it is regenerating a 2.3 ha city centre site in the city centre. The first phase of the scheme, which includes the conversion of a listed former mill building into 55 loft style apartments and a new town, has been on site for more than a year. The development includes a further new element that is due to start on site in October after securing planning permission earlier this year.

Eddie Smith, Strategic Director of Development at Manchester City Council, revealed at the event that the authority would not proceed with a residential redevelopment of Ancoats Central retail park. The authority is now having a rethink about its plans for the Great Ancoats Street site, which is the city council’s ‘biggest ever acquisition’.

Of the change the plans, which has been originally eyed for residential redevelopment, Smith said: ‘’It will almost certainly not be residential going forward and we are thinking of it being commercial.’’

The Council are preparing to start the review this summer of its local plan when the Greater Manchester-wide spatial framework is also due to be published, whilst the authority is also developing plans for growth poles in the north, south and east of the city to help accommodate the expected increase in demand for development in Manchester over the next 30 years.

The area around Manchester airport has been lined up as the southern growth pole, with businesses already locating in nearby Wythenshawe town centre, with Smith saying: ‘’Virgin and Vodaphone are concentrating jobs from elsewhere in the UK into Wythenshawe anticipating not just the airport but HS2 which will be a mile and a half away with a tram link.’’

The northern gateway, along the A66 in Rochdale and Bury, is also providing opportunities for long-term investment, including a partnership with a Hong Kong based company to develop 15,000 homes.

In east Manchester the council is working with the Abu Dhabi investors on plans including what he described as ‘the world’s first sports business park’, which will be the home of Manchester Metropolitan University’s new sports campus.

In terms of individual projects in the city, the ‘most important’ are the new HS2 stations at Piccadilly and Manchester. The ‘under-used’ areas around Piccadilly have the potential to deliver 40-60,000 jobs and several thousand homes, with Smith stating: ‘’Getting the station right is critical to our future economic success’’.

He added that the authority has the be aware of occupiers’ changing requirements however on future office developments saying: ‘’Grade A may not be the biggest requirement: technical and digital companies are not after £35-37 sq ft space any more: we need a better understanding of what they want.’’

Michelle Rothwell, Managing Director of developer Watch This Space, said that much of the city’s office space ‘lacks personality’ and ‘looks the same’ saying: ‘’There are lots of schemes coming forward but we need to provide variety for new businesses coming into the city. Workspace is not helping to attract people to the city.’’

Instead of looking at what other office developers are doing, Watch This Space is focusing on the environments created by successful cafes and restaurants, whilst Rothwell warned that landlords would have to manage their space ‘much more intensively’ to cater for occupiers’ demands.

Watch This Space are set to bring forward residential developments in the near future to cater for households who wanted to remain in the city centre rather than move out to the suburbs.

Kurt Partington, Development Manager at Salford Council, said that work is due to start on site at the 100 Embankment scheme next month, which is part of the Greengate development in the city centre, whilst permission has also been granted for the 44-storey Exchange Court development which will be Salford’s tallest building when complete.

By making better use of the ‘huge areas’ of surface car parking that remained in the city centre, Partington expressed confidence that the council will be able to get landowners and developers to help deliver to council’s ambition to deliver a new central park.

Tim Gamon, Regional Delivery Director for the North West Regional Investment Programme (RIP) at Highways England, said the agency’s plans to upgrade access to Port of Liverpool along the A5306, has been held up by a judicial review. One of the area’s local councils is challenging Highways England’s decision to build a tunnel, which he said would have cost £1.2bn, rather than a road to improve the main link between the port and the motorway network.

But Gamon said that he did not expect the court challenge to hold up progress on the £227m project, which is due to start on site in January 2021. Whilst the review process continues Highways England is developing the scheme’s design and carrying out financial environmental surveys.

Highways England are also examining options for upgrading J18 of the M60 at Simister Island but Gamon said they need to get a better understanding of Manchester council’s plans for the nearby proposed Northern Gateway.

Steve Jordan, Assistant Director of Estates and Head of Capital Projects at the University of Manchester, said Vinci had signed up to complete its Fallowfields student housing project following the collapse of the previous contractors Carillion earlier this year. The project, which has been delayed for three months, is still set to have half of the accommodation reopened by September next year.

Jordan also said the £100m Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials is on site as part of the University’s estates development programme, which is currently being refreshed. The £1bn programme includes the 85,000 sq m Manchester Engineering Campus Development, including a new teaching block, which he described as the ‘single biggest project in the city centre’.