Guest column: Watch out Manchester – if you snooze, you lose

Mark Canning, director at city centre office agency, Canning O’Neill, warns the continued rise in residential development could cripple the city’s growth

If Manchester is not very careful, the heart of the Northern Powerhouse could easily become more of a ‘Northern Dormitory’.

With the continued support of institutional and foreign money, Manchester’s headlong rush in pursuit of the residential gravy chain could have dire consequences for the future success of the city.

Manchester’s new mayor and chief executive will need to take one step back and appraise what has been happening. Permitted development to convert offices to residential use appeared at first sight to be an excellent and quick way of converting redundant offices into much needed residential units.

It has however become so popular that even viable offices are now being taken out of the employment use supply chain.

Office rents are rising and supply is dwindling at an alarming rate throughout the city centre, Salford and Trafford and unless something is done soon to turn these figures around, Manchester could become a victim of its own success and popularity.

Having worked so hard to establish itself over the last 30 years to be the UK’s “go to second city” there is a real danger that the inward investment tap could be turned off in favour of other regional centres that can provide better value for money and greater availability of office space.

With almost 7,000 residential units currently under construction in the city – many of them of average design and quality, and with thousands more in the pipeline, the work place opportunities to employ these new residents also needs to grow.

The need for additional schools, doctors’ surgeries, hospitals, transport infrastructure and general amenities is another whole ball game altogether.

And the solution is not just to rely on Spinningfields and other prime city centre sites to take up the slack with new buildings; it is the refurbishment and conversion of value for money, secondary and tertiary schemes that is equally, if not more important.

Perhaps before too long we will see average quality residential conversions that haven’t let, being bought and converted back into offices. No joke. It could happen.

There are, of course, always exceptions to the rule. There will inevitably be some offices which are well past their sell by date and would be suited for residential use.

That said, those in local government cannot afford to be complacent and let the Powerhouse become one a mass of residential schemes with little commercial development to drive it forward.