Regeneration in Greater Manchester: Knowledge is power

GREATER Manchester needs to make sure that it is exploiting its huge knowledge base, derived from its top-class universities, to facilitate regeneration projects such as Medipark and the Corridor.

Speaking at TheBusinessDesk.com’s Regeneration in Greater Manchester round table debate held in association with Addleshaw Goddard, Bruntwood’s director of special projects, Colin Sinclair, said: “Other cities in the UK see the opportunity but Manchester has the greatest assets.”

The city’s knowledge base is key to many regeneration projects – not least the new £50m graphene hub, for which EC Harris was appointed as lead consultant yesterday.

It has been funded by a government which is keen to make sure that the benefits of graphene – a super-light, super-strong and extremely conductive material discovered by Manchester university researchers Dr Andre Geim and Dr Konstantin Novosolev, who have both been awarded the Nobel Prize for their work.

Stephen Kinsey, real estate partner at Addleshaw Goddard in Manchester, states that the hub “has the potential to be the most exciting thing to happen around Manchester since the Industrial Revolution”.

“But equally if Manchester doesn’t get it right it will be the biggest lost opportunity we had since the invention of the computer and we lost Silicon Valley to the US.”

Another key project looking to leverage the city-region’s intellectual property assets is Medipark – a scheme containing up to 100 acres owned by University Hospital of South Manchester (UHSM), Royal London Asset Management and Bluemantle.

USHM chairman Felicity Goodey said that the pharmaceutical giants who are currently looking to restructure as their pipelines of blockbuster drugs diminish are looking to do so by buying up early stage companies “of which we have a vast
number in the North West”.

“And 75% of biotechnology is clustered in and around the Greater Manchester area.

“This is an enormous asset base, you add that together with Airport City plus the fact we have land available at affordable prices and this public-private partnership in place with significant attractions in the Enterprise Zone, and suddenly we have one of the very few big ideas in the UK.”

Click here to download the Regeneration in Greater Manchester supplement in association with Addleshaw Goddard.