1996 Manchester Bombing - Redevelopment

Redevelopment

Much of the 1960s redevelopment of Manchester's city centre was unpopular with residents. Market Street, close to the explosion and at that time the second busiest shopping street in the UK, was considered by some commentators a "fearful" place, to be "avoid like the plague". Until Margaret Thatcher's third consecutive election victory in 1987, the staunchly Labour-controlled Manchester Council believed that Manchester's regeneration should be funded solely by public money, despite the government's insistence on only funding schemes with a significant element of private investment. Graham Stringer, leader of Manchester City Council, later admitted that after the 1987 General Election result "there was no get out of jail card. We had gambled on Labour winning the General Election and we lost." Thatcher's victory effectively put paid to Manchester's "socialist experiment", and Stringer shortly afterwards wrote a letter of capitulation to Nicholas Ridley, then Secretary of State for the Environment, saying, "in a nutshell; OK, you win, we'd like to work together with you".

Efforts at improvement before the bombing had in some respects made matters worse, cutting off the area north of the Arndale Centre – the exterior of which was widely unloved – from the rest of the city centre. A large building nearby, now redeveloped as The Printworks and formerly occupied by the Daily Mirror newspaper, had been unoccupied since 1987. Many locals therefore considered that "the bomb was the best thing that ever happened to Manchester", as it cleared the way for redevelopment of the dysfunctional city centre, a view also expressed in 2007 by Terry Rooney, MP for Bradford North. The leader of Manchester City Council, Simon Ashley, responded that "I take exception to his comments about the IRA bomb. No one who was in the city on that day, who lost their jobs or was scared witless or injured by the blast, would say the bomb was the best thing to happen to Manchester". Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP for Manchester Gorton, stated that the bomb provided the opportunity for redeveloping Manchester city centre, although it was not fully exploited. "The bomb was obviously bad but from a redevelopment point of view, it was a lost opportunity. While the area around St Ann's Square and Deansgate is not disagreeable, if you compare it with Birmingham and its exciting development, we've got nothing to touch that in Manchester". Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, has been quoted as saying "people say the bomb turned out to be a great thing for Manchester. That's rubbish." There was already substantial regeneration and redevelopment taking place in Manchester before the bombing, in support of the city's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, its second Olympic bid. Tom Bloxham, chairman of property development group Urban Splash and of the Arts Council England (North West) agreed with Bernstein that the bomb attack was not the trigger for the large-scale redevelopment that has taken place in Manchester since the early 1990s:

For me the turning point for Manchester came before the bomb ... it was the second Olympic Games bid when we lost but the city suddenly had a realisation. There was a huge party in Castlefield and people grasped the idea that Manchester should no longer consider itself in competition with the likes of Barnsley and Stockport. It was now up against Barcelona, Los Angeles and Sydney and its aspirations increased accordingly.