Didsbury rejection inspired MMU’s Hulme ambition
MANCHESTER Metropolitan University’s move to Hulme only came about after it met fierce resistance to expansion in Didsbury.
That’s according to the institution’s vice-chancellor John Brooks who related the story at the official opening of the new £139m Birley Fields campus in Hulme yesterday.
At its heart the campus has a 250,000 sq ft building for 6,000 students in 500 staff in the faculties of education, health, psychology and social care, and accommodation for more than 1,000 students.
It has been built on the site of the former Birley High School which closed in the 1980s. The site is one of the last major development plots in an area that has been the subject of a major regeneration initiative since the 1990s.
Mr Brooks told the audience that he had the idea of relocating to the area when he was returning to his office through Hulme after a stormy meeting in Didsbury.
He said: “The original plan was to rationalise our sites from seven to three and that included investing in Didsbury, but five years ago we were experiencing severe local resisitance and I was at an unpleasant meeting where people complained about students who were training to be nurses and teachers.
“I was driving to my office along what was Bonsall Street when I thought ‘why are we trying to develop health and education in Didsbury, why not come here to Hulme where we thought our values would be respected, where we would be welcomed and we could work in partnership to promote the wellbeing of the citizens of Manchester’.”
He added: “I thought ‘how on earth do we take that forward?’ I knew I needed a conversation with [city council leader] Richard Leese quite urgently and early on a Tuesday morning, within one-and-a-half hours, we had a strategy and the purity of that idea has been held right through the process.”
The site has been designed by architect Sheppard Robson and the main contractor was Sir Robert McAlpine.
Earlier this year the Trafford-based developer PJ Livesey struck an agreement with the MMU to take on the 17-acre Didsbury campus for housing.
