Birley fields – the “missing” consultation
Article published: Wednesday, April 27th 2011
Tim Hunt on Birley Fields.
A friend of mine from Hulme asked me about the Birley fields development today. Specifically which councillors have conflict of interest issues around the proposals.
Finding out this information was relatively easy. Just a quick search for the minutes of a meeting where the Birley field development was discussed and Bob’s your uncle – Councillors Ashley, Donaldson, Leese and Shaw all declared an interest when the executive committee of the council agreed to the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) plans going ahead (I’ll have a look into this at a later date).
Anyway…
What was more interesting were documents that preceded the executive’s decision to go ahead with the MMU plan. Prior to the agreement reach with MMU the council had already agreed a strategic plan for the Birley fields. There are few specifics but there are some interesting findings in the recommendations made to the council executive in 2006.
Most interesting of all is the following description of the state of housing in Hulme and the need for more family homes:
“The residential market in Hulme has completely transformed over the last 10 years through a significant redevelopment programme. In the earlier phases this delivered a range of family housing in the affordable and for sale sectors but since then the construction of apartments both for sale and for rent has dominated the residential market in the ward.
“There is a clear gap in the market for family homes which local people can move into… Indeed, Hulme Evaluation undertaken by SURF in 2002, which reviewed the City Challenge Programme, identified that a key outstanding challenge for the regeneration of Hulme was the development of housing which is attractive to families. ”
This now seems to be completely forgotten as the MMU development will bring yet more student halls. The recent sale of the Salutation pub to make way for accommodation, following hot on the (Achilles) heels of the Arch bar, will only make this situation worse.
Also interesting were the results of the council consultation. This has been the only (supposedly unbiased) council consultation on the area. MMU’s more recent consultation, with its leading questions, doesn’t really cut it for me.
The results of the original consultation were as follows:
“Over the three days, over 400 people viewed the exhibition, 119 took part in a ten-minute interview using the
questionnaire whilst 36 people completed comments sheets.
In total, 86% of the participants lived in Hulme or close by and, of those who did not, over half visited Hulme almost every day. Almost all participants (97%) were aware of the regeneration of Hulme. After viewing the exhibition, participants were asked a series of questions in relation to the development plans. In terms of the three zones, people were asked the extent to which they agreed with a series of statements about the plans. Those issues with most agreement included:
• The fact that the framework should include open spaces in all
zones (94% either strongly or tended to agree);
• That each development should be built to eco standards (92%);
• That there should be a zone offering a mix of jobs at different
skills levels (90%); and
• There should be a zone for mainly family housing rather than
apartments (76%)
By frequency, the top three
additional comments were:
• Maintain existing green space / more green space
• No need for more office space / business park ; and
• Support small businesses, local shops, local job opportunities.”
While I’m no statistician, I would suggest that the results of this are pretty clear. People want family homes and jobs.
Clearly the new MMU campus offers neither -jobs will simply move from the Didsbury Campus and students will move into the area creating a much larger transient population, with all the problems that brings.
I’m still not sure why this development is going ahead. Who exactly benefits from it other than MMU? Even the Hulme councillors who have been salivating over the proposal risk losing out. With thousands of student votes moving into the area, it would be easy to envisage the Labour stronghold weakened, with more votes for Greens and other protest parties and independent candidates.
The negotiations are now underway as to the price that MMU will pay for the land. They recently announced that they will be charging £6000 minimum for courses, so hopefully that will weaken their negotiating position, while the council can ill afford to give away land to companies when they are cutting vital services.
The council maintain that the final price will remain secret but this seems unlikely given the nature of the deal. A Freedom of Information request may be needed but everyone must surely agree that the details of the deal are in the public interest.
More: Blog
Comments
-
Well, one thing is for sure. We Trees certainly weren’t consulted!
We would definitely have remembered if someone had asked us our preferences(on a scale of 1 to 10) about whether we wanted to be hacked down or not.
Is the potential destruction of so much green open space and trees, in hulme, going to be yet another potential PR “banana skin” for MMU to sip on, following their recent “banana-gate” debacle with the fruit stall at all saints?
Comment by Birley Fields Trees on April 30, 2011 at 1:37 pm
The comments are closed.
