Christmas

Christmas WILL return to Albert Square this year, Manchester City Council confirms

There's been no mention of Christmas Markets but... maybe?

Daisy Jackson - 27th February 2025

Manchester’s Christmas activities will finally make a return to Albert Square for the first time since 2019, the council has confirmed.

The beautiful square in the heart of the city has been largely closed off for the last few years while the Town Hall is carefully restored, in a project known as Our Town Hall.

Before that it was the beating heart of the city every winter, filled with wooden huts for the Manchester Christmas Markets and overlooked by the giant light-up Santa.

Now, Manchester City Council has confirmed that ‘most of’ Albert Square will be made available this year to support this year’s Christmas programme.

There’s been no mention of the city’s biggest festive event, the Manchester Christmas Markets, but rather plenty of hints of ‘Christmas events’.

The latest report on the Our Town Hall project says that works on the the transformed and enlarged square will be ‘resequenced and accelerated’ so the Albert Square can be ready for a ‘welcome winter return’.

More details of the festive attraction will be shared later in the year.

The skilled contractors working on the Town Hall are now 80% of the way through the ‘construction’ phase, with completion currently pencilled in for August 2026.

Albert Square in Manchester will host Christmas events again in 2025. Credit: The Manc Group

When it reopens, it will include a new free visitor attraction which will open up the Town Hall’s history to the public.

Deputy Council Leader Councillor Garry Bridges said: “We know Mancunians and visitors alike are looking forward to having their town hall and their civic square back and better than ever and it’s great that we can now look ahead to that.

“We are developing a civic square to rival the best in Europe and it will be exciting to see it pilot Christmas events this year ahead of a full permanent opening next year.

“We look forward over the course of this year to announcing more details about Christmas in Albert Square and how people in Manchester can help us celebrate the reopening of their magnificent town hall.

“We’ve overcome so many challenges to get to this point and while the unique nature of the project is such that some inevitably still remain, we believe the end result will be something special.”

The Our Town Hall report will be considered by the Council’s Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee when it meets on Thursday 6 March.

The project is continuing to operate within its revised £429 million budget, adjusted in October last year, but some residual risks remain. A further update report will be brought forward this summer once negotiations with the management contractor have concluded and the completion date is confirmed.

Featured image: Geograph, David Dixon