Red Bank Masterplan, Manchester, for Far East Consortium, with Maccreanor Lavington, Schulze + Grassov, Op-en, Useful Projects and WSP

With £51.6m of HIF funding, the Red Bank Masterplan covers over 15ha and will include up to 4,801 homes. It is a part of the £4bn Victoria North project. The project aims for half the area to be public open space, linked by a kilometre-long pedestrian/cycle loop. The loop will connect a 210-place primary school, health centre, housing, and 6,300sqm of commercial space.

Who is on the project team? (designer, consultants, etc)

Maccreanor Lavington (Lead Designer, Masterplanning and Architecture)

Schulze + Grassov (Urban Design and Public Realm)

Op-en (Landscape)

Useful Projects (Sustainability)

WSP (Engineering)

Describe the context of this project, its neighbourhood and people.

Red Bank forms the first phase of Victoria North that will see the regeneration of Manchester’s neighbourhoods running north of the city centre along the River Irk. The fast-flowing river is nested at the bottom of a valley, with its dramatic topography providing a respite from the general flatness of the central Manchester. The surrounding area was formerly at the centre of Manchester’s industrial might. Red Bank itself had held gasworks, a railway depot, mills, small factories and workers’ housing. Infamously, it was this neighbourhood that Engels used to describe the appalling quality of urban living in the “Conditions of the Working Class in England”. The industrious character of Red Bank is long gone. Most of the site has been left abandoned for decades and it has an eerie character in spite of its proximity to the centre. Parts of the site turned over the decades into a dense wood that forms for the core of the proposed City River Park. Elsewhere, remnants of the industrial heritage remain, most prominently with the historic Barney Steps, a footbridge over the formed railway sidings. In recent years the area has started developing a somewhat bohemian character with art and event spaces, and a couple of food establishments. They co-exist with high-density mix-use developments that have been emerging immediately around Red Bank, including at Meadowside and Victoria Riverside.

Please describe your approach to this future place and its mix of uses. How will it function as a vibrant place? How does it knit into, and serve the needs of, the wider area?

The project is developed around the concept of “Wild Urbanism”, merging nature and city life by bringing the Irk Valley into the city and flowing the city back to the valley. “Wild urbanism” will offer the naturalised River Irk, the extended existing St Catherine’s Wood and a myriad of other interconnected green spaces to Mancunians. Cafes, restaurants, shops, community spaces and homes will be set among the nature to bring a dose of urbanity to the wilderness.

Three neighbourhoods form the future Red Bank: Red Bank Viaduct as the riverside destination with a mix of uses centred on the leisure offer along the Union Waterfront; New Town as Red Bank’s high street, a place to get groceries, a haircut or a health check on the way to St Catherine’s Wood; Plateau as the residential idyll of park-side pavilions with extensive views across Manchester, a primary school and lots of play facilities. Streets and squares form the civic core of the area, with Dantzic Street as a high street, Union Waterfront and Brewery Square as leisure destinations, and Red Bank Square and St Catherine’s Square as tranquil neighbourhood hubs. The Climate Loop is the community spine of Red Bank with social infrastructure located along it. A primary school and children’s nursery adjoins a residents’ clubhouse off St Catherine’s Square. Commercial uses define active frontages of the civic spaces, a health centre sits on the first floor of Dantzic Street while frequent front door addresses form active frontages elsewhere. 

What is the environmental impact of the project? How will the carbon use and material impact of the development be mitigated? What is the sustainability strategy?

Sustainability goals Our sustainability strategy is focused on the lifestyle carbon, and on creating the conditions to enable an active, healthy, car-free and carbon-neutral lifestyle. Six objectives have driven the design:
1) Carbon: enabling a net zero carbon neighbourhood
2) Biodiverse: resilient and biodiverse park
3) Circular: thriving circular economy
4) Healthy: resilient communities
5) Local: 5-minute neighbourhood and 15-minute city
6) Skilled: building social value.

These high-levels objectives are supported by detailed goals and indicative KPIs indicating how they can be met throughout the 15-year buildout of the project.

Net zero carbon journey

The project’s ambitions is to meet evolving and ambitious best practice guidance such as RIBA 2030 and LETI targets. In addition to that, the proposed development intends to:

• Minimise whole life cycle impacts within the develper’s control and influence, wherever possible,
• Investigate routes to achieving net-zero carbon in construction (A1-A5),
• Enable net zero carbon in operation, as far as possible, by reducing energy demand, providing an all-electric energy strategy, renewable energy generation on-site and pursuing credible and high-quality green energy procurement routes.