Piccadilly Gardens Campaign begins to bear fruit

Following 8 months of our campaign to highlight the problems with Piccadilly Gardens, people such as Manchester Confidential took up the cause and this resulted naturally in other political campaigns in following our lead, as has become the norm for the last couple of years.

A very useful meeting was held and a walk around Piccadilly Gardens followed, with questions asked, some answers given by local businesses such as Kro bar owners, Councillor for Harpurhey Pat Karney, Manchester Confidential’s Jonathan Schofield and a senior representative from CityCo.

Above – Cathedtral Gardens is even worse off for turf!

All my concerns were mirrored and discussed, with differing views on how to move forward. The basic problem with the place as a location is the fact that 18 million people use Piccadilly Gardens as a right of way each year – the same number of people who pass through Manchester Airport in a year. One interesting remark was to note the difference in the level of policing between those two locations with equal numbers of people! In the whole time we were there, (about 2 hours) there were no police to be seen, or any other agents of any description. This, it was agreed, is par for the course.

There were many issues to be taken forward in my opinion. There are many conflicting directions, desires and functions of the area. One such conflict is the issue of the Mosley Trust, which states that a certain percentage of the gardens must be green/public space. I’d love to know how that rule was bent in order to allow the large No1 Piccadilly building to be built on the gardens.

 Main concerns are:

• low level anti-social behaviour. I’ve written about this many times, and it seems the local businesses such as cafe nero even have trouble retaining staff because of it

• It simply can’t be right to replace the turf so frequently, it was only 8 months since it was last done at a cost of roughly £8000.

• The fencing associated with the work is up for many weeks longer than initially declared, it looks dreadful and restricts the use of the gardens, deterring visitors

• The concrete wall is universally disliked – maybe a good piece of work, but simply in the wrong place

• The fountain’s function is incredibly restricted, it has always had problems. Even when it works, its only been on from 10-5, but why not in the morning when people are going to work, and in the evening when people are using place like Kro bar?

• The flaking paint on the bridge is evidence of the fact that the general maintenance of the gardens is poor

Some solutions discussed were:

• paving the area – grand city squares are usually ‘hard’ spaces, not lawns! The area needs a big re-think. So soon after its initial creation, this is a shocking waste of money and a disgrace
• My feeling was that a ‘green’ wall to screen the trams and buses was always better, why not large conifer screens, some kind of evergreen grand hedge could be engineered to be incredibly dramatic, do the job far better that the concrete wall. There are numerous ways in which this could be achieved with the wall there however.
• Greater terracing of the turf, although this hasn’t helped Cathedral Gardens where the problem is, if anything, worse!
• Since complaints have been made, funding has been found for new litter bins, steam cleaning planned for the stone, some replaced flagstones and of course the long awaited filtration system

A very general, but perhaps most important point, is that too many agencies seem to have a hand in this, and a more streamlined system, with clearer accountability needs to be found. CityCo area clearly taking this seriously and looking into many concerns, but this doesn’t seem to join up with coordination from the Police and other essential agencies in order for things to be improved. For me personally, it just makes me sick that anyone could have missed the things that were clear to residents from the start, it should never have been conceived in the way it was, and once again the fact that some things are better then they were simply isn’t good enough for our great city.