Moss Side - Redevelopment and Regeneration

Redevelopment and Regeneration

Moss Side has benefited from very substantial redevelopment and regeneration over the past ten years (1997–2007) including improvement of the existing housing and residential environment along with several major housing projects currently in process or nearing completion. There has been considerable renovation of existing housing stock, such as local terrace housing and the Alexandra Park Estate, which has been ongoing since the late 1990s.

A large site on Great Western Street has been developed by Moss Care Housing Ltd. to provide a mix of 2,3 and 4 bedroom properties, with different tenures, some rental and others offered as shared ownership or for sale.

The former Manchester City F.C. Maine Road site is in the process of redevelopment, marketed as Maine Place, primarily as 2,3 and 4 bedroom houses but including a limited number of flats, for sale or shared ownership, with many homes completed and occupied, along with a primary school, now open, and a health centre planned.

The Bowes Street area, adjoining Princess Road, has been redeveloped, at the cost of £17 million, including the renovation or transformation, with some new build, of 155 properties in five streets. Reported as being 'built or converted to a very high standard of eco-friendliness, with solar panels, water butts, thermal “skin” insulation and sun pipes being used' and aiming to offer 2, 3 and 4 bedroom homes with 'low running costs', the development plan states its aim, along with that at Maine Road, as being to provide mixed type "higher specification" housing, "diversify tenure" and promote the area as a "neighbourhood of choice".

Marketed as "Infusion Homes", the properties were launched on the market on 26 February 2011. On 9 May, sales demand was reported as strong, with 60% of the properties having been sold. On 11 May the development was awarded the UK's Best Affordable Housing Scheme at the national Housing Excellence Awards 2011

Land adjacent to the development, formerly occupied by Bilsborrow primary school and the Stagecoach bus depot, both demolished as part of regeneration, remains vacant with no clear future use at present, though local community groups have short term plans to utilize the space for a gardening/food growing project.

The impact of regeneration and redevelopment in changing perceptions of the area was demonstrated in The Guardian Saturday magazine, dated 8 September 2012, when Moss Side appeared in the long running Let's Move To series.