Manchester prepares for life without Mayfield ‘campus’
MANCHESTER City Council has begun preparing for life without the proposed Mayfield campus of up to 5,000 civil servants who were meant to relocate from London.
A report set to be heard by the council’s Economy, Employment and Skills Overview & Scrutiny committee later today will state that plans drawn up for Mayfield via a Strategic Regeneration Framework in 2009 for a civil service campus of up to 50,000 sq metres of offices to house up to 5,000 staff no longer look practical.
The proposal to set up the campus was concocted by the previous Labour administration as a way of decentralising Government departments and taking advantage of cheaper property costs outside of London.
However, the report states: “The change of Government and policy initiatives that have followed mean that this is no longer the case and so civil service involvement cannot be assumed as a key driver in the development – at least at this time.”
The northern part of the site is currently held by British Rail Board (Residuary), a government body which manages former British Rail assets.
However, BRBR’s assets are now being transferred into a Department for Transport-owned corporation known as London & Continental Railways (LCR).
LCR is now expected to work with the council and Transport for Greater Manchester “to bring forward a development strategy for Mayfield during 2012”.
“All the landowning parties have strong aspirations to bring forward development on the site at the appropriate time,” the report states.
In November BRBR, told TheBusinessDesk.com that the Government Property Unit had included the Mayfield requirement in a wide-ranging strategic review of government property assets that was set to conclude by the end of 2011.
Following that, GPU would be tasked with developing a business case for delivering the strategy.
“The outcome of this work will inform decisions on whether to provide accommodation for civil servants at Mayfield,” it said.
The report also highlights the strength of Manchester’s office market, which it describes as “the largest office outside London (at over 16.1m square feet) with prices higher than regional and national averages, including competitors such as Edinburgh and Birmingham.
It also said the city centre’s recent growth has been “driven by knowledge-intensive and high growth firms”, and was now home to more than 50 international banks and a professional services community of 63,500 that is now the largest employer in the city.
It points to the example of Bank of New York Mellon, which opened in the city several years ago and now employs 1,100 people in what has now become its main European growth centre.
“The development of Spinningfields and Piccadilly has added to the supply of Grade A office property, while NOMA, First Street and the new office space within the Civic Quarter will provide significant additional capacity at a range of sizes and prices.
“These developments are helping to make Manchester a desirable location for companies to relocate to.”
