A campaign has been launched by some of Manchester’s leading business owners and public figures to drive footfall back into the city centre post-lockdown.
Bury-born ex Manchester United star and pundit/commentator Gary Neville has joined forces with other prominent figures – with the backing of Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese, and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – to create United City.
The collective of business leaders want to encourage people to return safely to towns and the city centre.
United City says increasing footfall is “critical to the success” of the entire region, and will campaign to get Greater Manchester on the road to economic recovery, fix its “broken ecosystem”, and also commission independent research to back up its messages, with hard data and use findings to negotiate with central government.
The founders of United City are Gary Neville of Relentless Group, Chris Oglesby of Bruntwood, Lisa Morton of Roland Dransfield PR, Will Lewis of OBI and Frank McKenna of Downtown in Business.
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The group hopes to get the region “back on its feet” and back to supporting retail, leisure, culture, and sports businesses, as well as provide support and advice for business owners to make sure workforces are welcomed back safely.
Raising funds for vulnerable citizens is also included in the plans.
United City‘s strategy plans – which looks to creating COVID-secure environments – include input from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Manchester City Council, and its privately-funded research will help to bridge the gap by providing clear data to manage safety in workplaces, hospitality venues and on transport.
The research will also allow Greater Manchester leaders to negotiate with the government on local lockdown restrictions and navigate their own way out of them.
Gary Neville – Founder and Director of Relentless Group – said: “Manchester is built on community and entrepreneurial spirit [and] it’s imperative that this crisis doesn’t remove that from our DNA [so] United City will create a clear path forward for the region and will help to effect genuine change for the people and businesses that are based here.
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“To make this happen, we need as much support from the business community as possible.
“We are looking for business leaders to step up and lead the change to our working habits, to get our teams back into the office, and back together again.”
I’m delighted to be part of the launch of @UnitedCity. We are a collection of businesses coming together to get GM going again. We will fund independent research to support our messages with data to encourage people to return safely to our towns and cities in a Covid secure way
Chris Oglesby – CEO at Bruntwood – commented: “It goes without saying that the region’s ecosystem is broken without a confident and collective return to a more normal life, and that an economic recovery for the city – and millions of people who rely on that ecosystem – is impossible without a shared impetus to get things moving again.
“Within the UnitedCity steering group, we have professionals who can support and advise business leaders to ensure that they are able to practically and emotionally support their returning workforces.
“The city centre in particular needs life breathed back into it; it’s nothing without its people, and the culture, hospitality, retail and leisure businesses within it have helped create Manchester’s reputation as a hotbed of innovation and dynamism.
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“We’ll be looking to build a broad coalition with other business organisations and political leaders, with the long-term aim of ensuring Greater Manchester can recover in a way which is sustainable and healthy.”
'What we need is a balanced approach… Rather than the ups and downs that've existed and create anxiety.'
Will Lewis of OBI added: “A lot of people still haven’t even been back to the city centre since March.
“We’re so concerned for all sorts of different sectors, so we hope that this organisation will encourage and help Manchester and encourage people to get back to the city – not in a cavalier way, in a COVID-secure way.
“It’s got to be done safely.”
You can find out more about the United City campaign and objectives here.
Business
First look drone footage of £500m wellness resort Therme Manchester under construction released
Emily Sergeant
Impressive aerial drone footage has revealed the scale and outline of the £500m Therme Manchester development.
In case you hadn’t heard, after several years of planning, construction of the £500 million Therme Manchester wellness resort officially began last September, and now developers have released drone footage of the site showing the scale of the project and the work as it’s underway.
Once complete around the end of 2028, Therme Manchester will become one of the largest urban wellbeing resorts in the world.
Visitors can expect to make the most of a lagoon and wave pools, multi-sensory sauna rituals, steam rooms, water slides and affordably-priced luxury, across spa therapies, and health and fitness experiences.
CGIs of the £500m Therme Manchester wellness resort, set to open in 2028 / Credit: Supplied
From above, the outline of the project’s central circular hub – which is a key feature of the design, as previously seen only in CGI renderings – is now clearly visible on the ground in the newly-released drone footage as construction progresses at pace.
Spanning a site that’s roughly the size of 28 football pitches, developers say the emerging layout marks a shift from concept to construction, as the outline of the scheme starts to take form within the landscape.
Newly-released drone footage of Therme Manchester / Credit: Supplied
As groundwork progresses across the site, the aerial footage also begins to show how the development’s wider footprint will sit within the surrounding area.
Speaking on the release of the new drone footage, and what it means for the future of Therme Manchester, Chief Commercial Officer Jonathan Lingham said: “For the first time, you can see the design translating into reality. The central hub is a defining part of the scheme, and it’s now clearly visible on site as the project begins to take shape.”
Therme Manchester was initially touted as a £250m project that would complete in 2025, but it’s now up to £500m and is scheduled to complete for the end of 2028.
It marks one of the most significant building developments to ever take place in the North.
Featured Image – Supplied
Business
Manchester rent is now ‘41% more expensive than five years ago, according to a recent study
Danny Jones
Yes, that’s right, as per some of the latest data on leased housing in central Manchester, it’s now approximately 41% more expensive to rent here than it was half a decade ago.
If you’ve lived in and around the city centre for long enough, chances are that you’ve already been feeling that difference, especially of late.
The ongoing cost-of-living crisis roughly began in 2021, following the economy and the world essentially opening back up after multiple lockdowns, so it’s little surprise that new research has shown affordability when it comes to renting has been on a slump ever since, too.
As well as the price of seemingly most things in everyday life going up post-pandemic, the average rental rate for even just a one-bedroom flat/apartment has jumped up significantly between 2020 and 2025.
Even some ‘available’ housing in town is being hampered by claddin (Credit: Valienne via WikiCommons)
That’s according to the numbers crunched by credit card experts, Zable, anyway.
Not only did their recent report cite the rent prices going up even before the cost of living crisis – essentially following the outset of the Covid-19 outbreak – but if their figures, the rate of inflation and the unwaveringly high demand for housing are anything to go by, this trajectory is likely to continue in 2026.
As of February this year, around one in three UK households is now a single-person occupancy, which already comes with its challenges (the Manchester City Council tax discount being a thin lifeline for countless), not to mention energy bills and the cost of groceries continuing on an upwards trend.
Put in the simplest and most reductive terms, it’s now almost £300 dearer for most people to live on their own than it was back in 2020, and besides Liverpool clocking in as second on the list of increasingly expensive cities to live (a 42.12% increase), Manchester came in third.
You can see the full table down below:
Rank
City
% increase – 2020-2025
Difference from 2020 to 2025 in £
Average rental cost for a 1 bed 2025
1
Newport
47.39%
£2,611
£8,121
2
Liverpool
42.12%
£2,290
£7,727
3
Manchester
41.00%
£3,364
£11,569
4
Edinburgh
40.28%
£4,620
£16,090
5
Leicester
39.93%
£2,391
£8,379
6
Wolverhampton
39.22%
£2,049
£7,273
7
Nottingham
39.07%
£2,400
£8,543
8
Glasgow
38.02%
£2,679
£9,725
9
Colchester
37.63%
£2,617
£9,572
10
Cardiff
37.06%
£2,828
Average rental cost for a 1-bed 2025
Another fear is that with lots of people finding it hard to manage living in other major cities like London, even those moving to Manchester are also having an impact on how available affordable housing is here.
That’s why schemes such as the new ‘social rent’ development over in Wythenshawe are so important to the current generations of renters, with the possibility of owning your own property in the future becoming increasingly difficult for so many.
It’s also worth noting that Manchester ranked fourth among the British locations where the cost of living is said to have increased the most over the past five years, with the average difference in annual spend growing by an estimated 22.84%.
Emily Sergeant -
23rd November 2020 
