Urban regeneration and central-local government relations: The case of East Manchester

Dislocation and Uncertainty in East Manchester: The Legacy of the Commonwealth Games

“…Major firms closed down in quick succession. To name a few: Bradford Colliery (1968), the locomotive manufacturing industry based in Gorton (1965, 1968), English Steel (1973), Bradford Glassworks and Stuart Street Power Station (1975) (Tye & Williams 1994:45). The closure of these plants brought about huge unemployment, depopulation and also resulted in two hundred and fifty hectares of vacant, derelict industrial land.…”

“…The East Manchester Initiative was formed between 1982 and 1989. Its central aim was to bring private investment and jobs back in to the area (Tye & Williams 1994). The Initiative was awarded £9 million by the government, which was used mainly for schemes to acquire and demolish derelict buildings and landscape vacant sites in preparation for development.…”

Planning responses to major structural change: some experiences from British cities

“…East Manchester had contained the city's major concentration of heavy manufacturing industry, with local communities around many of the factory complexes, but by the early 1980s virtually all of that had gone. The legacy was one of dereliction, contaminated land, communities blighted by high levels of unemployment, and a local service sector struggling to survive in the face of a falling level of demand in real terms for what it had to offer because of this cycle of decline (Tye & Williams, 1994). When faced with something like this (and this description clearly relates to many of the things that have been said about West Leipzig), it is abundantly clear that the economic fortunes of the area are not going to be turned around quickly.…”