Trafford's ‘strategic zones’ (chapters 1 and 2)

Taken from Manchester Confidential.

Interesting article. Looks like TC are trying to kick start development, give those areas an identity and tie them in to an overall masterplan. Sounds very East Manchester Leisure destination esc.

Chapter 1: Trafford's ‘strategic zones’

Two part look at Trafford’s plans for Old Trafford, the Trafford Centre, Carrington and Pomona

Trafford Council is planning to create five new ‘strategic’ zones in the borough, including a new quarter around Lancashire County Cricket Club that will bring together its sporting attractions.

The council claims it will be ‘a new destination for business and leisure users combining significant commercial and recreational development for communities in the city centre and Old Trafford.’

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A new core strategy being drawn up by the council identifies the new planned locations - Pomona Island; Trafford Wharfside; Lancashire County Cricket Club Quarter; Trafford Centre Rectangle and Carrington.

The council said the funding and delivery of the five zones would be ‘the responsibility of the private sector and their development partners’ although some public land will be used.

The area around Old Trafford cricket ground is one of the most visited places in the borough but is ‘fragmented’ according to t he report.

Manchester United Football Club, Trafford Town Hall, Trafford College and the Stretford Leisure Centre are all in the same area but instead of operating as single use sites, the report says there is ‘a significant opportunity to improve the visitor experience for its sporting attractions and to create a new residential neighbourhood.’

A ‘major mixed-use development’ is planned for the area, as well as the redeveloped cricket ground, which was approved by government last week.

The proposal also includes 400 new homes and a renovated Trafford Town Hall, improved travel links and a new walkway that links to Manchester United, Trafford Wharfside and Salford Quays along Warwick Road and Brian Statham Way.

Pomona, part of the former Manchester Docks which has been vacant for more than 20 years, is identified as one of the largest vacant sites in the borough.

The council is planning a new mixed-use commercial district ‘to complement the offers of the city centre and Salford Quays/Mediacity:uk.’

The council claims it will be ‘a new destination for business and leisure users combining significant commercial and recreational development for communities in the city centre and Old Trafford.’

The plans assume 10 hectares of employment space, 546 new homes and ‘substantial’ areas of open space, making use of the canal basin.

‘Pomona is at Trafford’s northern gateway,’ says the report, ‘and the redevelopment of this significant area of long-term vacant brown-field land for high quality mixed-use development, offering scope for large-scale development including tall buildings, represents a major opportunity to assist with the regeneration of this part of the regional centre.’



The Victoria Warehouses are picked out as a possible site for tall buildings, which should be ‘well-designed and iconic.’

Trafford Wharfside has ‘great potential’ to link up with Mediacity:uk for new economic and residential development , according to the report, and also includes Manchester United.

‘The focus will be on opportunities for new economic (particularly digital and media industries), leisure (hotels and visitor attractions) and residential development,’ it says.

Around the United stadium , the council said it wants to see ‘development that supports the existing football stadium and associated hospitality, conference, retail and visitor facilities,’ including more tall buildings and 900 homes.

The council also wants ‘an attractive, direct pedestrian link across Trafford Boulevard, connecting Trafford Quays to the Trafford Centre Bus Station, and the Trafford Centre.’

A major mixed-use development is envisaged in the Trafford Centre Triangle around Peel’s mammoth shopping centre, providing new residential neighbourhoods and more than 1,000 new homes on Trafford Quays and ‘a landmark office building’ on the former Kratos site.

A high quality hotel and conference facility near Junction 9 of the M60 and a new Ship Canal Basin within Trafford Quays also form part of the plans.

The final zone, Carrington, is also the planned location for ‘a substantial new mixed use sustainable community’ on former industrial brown-field land.

The council thinks there is demand for 1,560 residential units, 75 hectares of land for employment activities and connection to the Metrolink tram system.

The plans are all based on a long-term vision, reaching as far as 2026.

Chapter 2: Trafford 'strategic zones'

Jonathan Schofield thinks it’s time for philanthropy at Pomona

Trafford Council are striving for a linked common identity – a ‘strategic zone’ around Manchester United, The IWMN, the wharfside of the Ship Canal and Lancashire County Cricket Club – as reported here.

This will be a difficult task. The mile long linear site contains big names but the various elements are pretty disparate.

However if the plan does succeed at last the weird borough of Trafford, really a series of towns with little in common, might gain a proper sense of itself. Maybe the vast new Tesco can act as this new centre’s shopping area - The strengths of the plan are plain to see. In its favour the area has an international profile, monumental structures and a real history, that reaches far beyond sport to include art, science and industry. This was where the world’s first major art fair took place in 1857 with the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition for instance, and where Manchester’s vast Jubilee celebration was sited in 1887.

The same can’t be said for the Trafford Centre area, which is another of the elements in the ‘strategic zones’.

This area has little heritage apart from the wonderful but rundown Barton Aqueduct and All Saints church. It stinks of sewage from over the canal half the time as well. Also Peel’s association with Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council is incidental. It revolves around the fact that there was a site the company could develop that was next to a motorway, if a better one had been available then they wouldn’t have bothered with Trafford.

Maybe any money spent at the Trafford Centre should be Peel’s own money. Maybe ideas for the area should come from Peel as well. Working elsewhere in their peculiar borough would be better for the burghers of Trafford, hence the ‘strategic zone’ ideas for Carrington are welcome.

The most intriguing space is Pomona. Named after the Roman goddess of fertility and a recreational area, maybe this is where ideas could really flower.



Pomona is an exciting area, wedged between the Ship Canal and the Bridgewater Canal, a five minute walk from Castlefield.

If anybody ever were going to design a major central Metropolitan green area or formal park – one which would be adjacent to the Waxi route (click here http://www.manchesterconfidential.c...is-could-get-green-light-this-month_15361.asp ) then this would be the perfect place, combining a dramatic location with great history and offering potential for immense creativity with garden design. Pomona would also be excellent for large scale events, celebrations and so forth.

Just as importantly it would link Manchester and Salford city centres with Salford Quays, MediaCity and the proposed new Trafford ‘centre’ around Manchester United in such a magnificent and fitting way that you, know, just know, that it’s too bloody perfect to ever happen.

Presumably Peel Holdings own this area too.

If they wanted to be the most popular property developers in the country maybe they could provide a wonderfully philanthropic gesture and kickstart the creation of Pomona into the Hyde Park of Greater Manchester.

There are plenty of precedents for this. After all a couple of miles away in Stretford, also part of Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, John Rylands (he of the famous library on Deansgate) gave his house and gardens to the Council a hundred or more years ago. In these straitened times a little philanthropy like that would be gratefully received.

http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/