Manchester City Council

The Northern Quarter (N4) is strategically placed between the main Manchester retail and commercial core, Piccadilly Gateway, Ancoats and Shudehill. It represents a key piece in the city centre jigsaw, an area different in character and function to any other part of the city centre and of great strategic importance to Manchester as a city of distinctive quarters.

In 1995, in recognition of the evolving role of the N4, Manchester City Council commissioned a Northern Quarter Regeneration Strategy. The Strategy set out a clear Vision for the area to build on its creative base and proximity to the main commercial core to assist its development as an attractive mixed use area.

The area has seen substantial investment since the production of the Regeneration Strategy. This has included significant public sector investment in environmental and building improvement schemes and urban art - which all complement an increasing amount of private sector development activity in the Quarter.

It is fair to say, however, that the N4 has not experienced the same transformation - leisure, residential or commercial - experienced in many other parts of the city centre (Canal Street, Castlefield and now Southern Gateway). This is a strength in the sense that the individuality of the N4 remains - it is not currently a 'corporate' location, a place for large firms or for retail or leisure chains. It is the place for the independent sector, where residents of Manchester and visitors can buy high quality, unusual products and soak up the atmosphere of a truly 'working quarter'. It is also a weakness in that some of the underlying concerns and problems picked out in the 1995 study have not yet been fully tackled. The environment, crime and street nuisance, unsightly gap sites and derelict buildings remain serious issues.