As Manchester Metropolitan University has grown, so has its revenue and associated funding. As a result, this money has now been made available to invest in new buildings so that the University can continue to grow. The new Birley Fields Campus has been built slightly away from the main university campus and as a result is located within a residential area and borders several others, including Hulme, Moss Side and Chorlton-on-Medlock. With the addition of the new campus there has been and evidently will be a further impact on the social and cultural life of local residents. I propose to investigate any constraints that needed to be met for the proposal to go ahead and whether there were obligations raised by the local community and how much these were overlooked when political entities were solely focused on business expansion of the MMU site. I will explore other proposals in Manchester to see whether they differ from Birley Fields and whether Moss Side's tarnished reputation played a role in the choice of the resulting venue. My goal is to get a first-hand account of whether residents feel an injustice in the redevelopment process, how subtle/sudden the change is between the two areas, and the extent to which Moss Side has been segregated. Furthermore, whether the resulting architecture provides any provisions for members of the residential community. The 40-acre site, which is located in a dense community of people, will attract 7,000 people to use its facilities, whilst also having an immediate effect on 5,000 of Hulme's current residents. . However, due to the scale of the proposal, the social and economic values of Moss Side are also at risk. When the plans arose, many in Hulme opposed the Birley Fields Campus and throughout the ongoing planning... middle of paper... rderland, which was created to the south of the site, via the B5219, which divides Hulme and Moss Side is even more significant. B5219 creates another dramatic break in the housing form and quality of life of Moss Side, compared to that of neighboring housing around the Birley Fields site and even more so to the £350m modern investment. As a result, the space between these two borderlands and the areas they intersect is the resulting space left as the "Hulme" community, completely erasing any sense of the word. Not only the physical boundaries but also the social boundaries between the Council, the MMU, the students and the community have been created due to poor communication between the people who receive the greatest effect, the community. Thus creating animosity in the area, contradicting the main theme of the “Community Strategy Spine” (MCC) proposals, 2009).
tags