A new fly-through video shows what TraffordCity will look like over the coming years, including a surfing lagoon and a huge wellness resort.
The area is set to undergo a major upgrade, with £2.6 billion earmarked for investment over the next 20 years.
Projects in the pipeline include the creation of the £250m ThermeManchester Wellbeing Resort, which will feature 35 water slides, 25 pools, 30 saunas and stream rooms, an on-site urban farm and botanical gardens.
Work has already started on the site, with Peel L&P submitting plans to demolish the 28,000 sq metre EventCity conference and exhibition space on Barton Dock Road.
When it’s complete, the Therme site will span 28 acres and create more than 500 permanent jobs.
Another major development coming to TraffordCity is Modern Surf Manchester, an in-land surfing lagoon set to open by 2025.
Therme at TraffordCity. Credit: Therme Manchester
The £60m attraction will feature technology that will create consistent waves for all abilities, alongside a cafe, restaurant terrace, surf shop, beach bars, bouldering space and fitness zone.
TraffordCity already attracts some 44 million visits each year, and is hoping to attract another 2.5 million visitors a year over the next five years.
Fives Soccer Centres is also set to launch a next-generation football centre, with world class facilities across eight larger-than-standard pitches.
The future of TraffordCity. Credit: TraffordCity
The five-a-side pitches offer individual player tracking, as well as video replays and highlights.
The family-friendly attractions at TraffordCity continue with the NERF Action Xperience at Trafford Palazzo, which will take over a 35,000 sq ft space next summer and will include a branch of Archie’s burger and shake restaurant.
Other food and drink openings include high-end Italian restaurant Matterello, and Tim Hortons with its largest drive-thru in the UK.
You can watch a fly-through of the future of TraffordCity here:
Plans include a new development called Trafford Waters, which will create new affordable housing, retail and office opportunities, hotels, schools and a 20-acre public park.
It’s set to take around 20 years to complete in full, creating 5,000 jobs.
This month, plans were submitted for a new care facility to support older people and those living with dementia by Montpelier Estates – it will include facilities like a hair salon, cinema, rooftop garden and community event space.
Work on the first 350 new homes at Trafford Water has been funded by a grant of £4.08m from Homes England’s Housing Infrastructure Fund, match-funded by Peel L&P.
Phase one will include tree-lined footpaths and cycleways and the first acre of public green space at the development.
Trafford Housing Trust has submitted proposals for 83 homes on Trafford Waters that will be affordable homes for shared ownership.
Featured image: Therme Manchester
Trafford
Bob Vylan dropped from Manchester music festival following Glastonbury controversy
Danny Jones
English punk rap duo Bob Vylan have been dropped from an upcoming music festival in Manchester following the recent controversy surrounding their set at Glastonbury 2025.
The media storm surrounding their much-talked-about and heavily televised Glasto appearance has seen them reportedly dropped by their agency and their US Visas cancelled, along with multiple concerts – one of those being right here in Greater Manchester.
Bob Vylan were scheduled to play RADAR Fest at Victoria Warehouse in Stretford this weekend, but now the organisers have informed gig-goers that the artists will not be performing in their planned slot on Saturday.
The alternative music event did provide any additional details, posting nothing but this image:
For anyone unaware, Vylan were heavily criticised for the pro-Palestine chants, which Glastonbury itself has deemed as having “crossed a line”, labelling the chants against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as antisemitic.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also commented on the situation.
In addition to RADAR, Vylan were also due to appear at Kave Fest in France the following Sunday, 6 July, but the music event has also decided not to host them.
The BBC also opted not to broadcast Northern Irish band Kneecap as part of their coverage this year, as the Belfast rap trio have also been outspoken on the issue, among many other musicians of late.
Responding to the decision on social media not long after the news broke, the act simply shared the post on their Instagram story along with the caption: “Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting. Manchester, we will be back.”
‘Dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture goes on public display in Greater Manchester after fears it was lost
Emily Sergeant
A long-lost masterpiece of Victorian silverwork has been saved and is now on display to the public in Greater Manchester.
Anyone taking a trip over to the National Trust’s historic Dunham Massey property, on the border of Greater Manchester into Cheshire, this summer will get to see the ‘dazzling’ sculpture called Stags in Bradgate Park – which was commissioned by a former owner in a defiant gesture to the society that shunned him.
The dramatic sculpture of two rutting Red Deer stags, commissioned in 1855 by George Harry Grey, 7th Earl of Stamford, was said to be an ‘act of love and rebellion’.
It also serves as a symbol of ‘locking horns’ with the society that ostracised him over his marriage to a woman considered ‘beneath him’.
“This isn’t just silver – it’s a story,” says James Rothwell, who is the National Trust‘s curator for decorative arts.
“A story of a man who fell in love with a woman that society deemed unworthy. When the Earl married Catherine Cox, whose colourful past was said to have included performing in a circus, Victorian high society was scandalised. Even Queen Victoria shunned the couple at the opera and local gentry at the horse races in Cheshire turned their backs on them.”
Modelled by Alfred Brown and crafted by royal goldsmiths Hunt & Roskell, Stags in Bradgate Park is a meticulously-detailed depiction of nature, and was considered a ‘sensation’ in its day.
Showing the rutting deer positioned on a rocky outcrop with gnarled hollow oaks, it graced the pages of the Illustrated London News, was exhibited at the London International Exhibition of 1862, and at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867 – both of which were events that drew millions of visitors.
A ‘dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture has gone on public display in Greater Manchester / Credit: Joe Wainwright | James Dobson (via Supplied)
The silver centrepiece was the celebrity art of its time, paraded through streets and admired by the public like no other.
Gradually over the years, some of the Earl of Stamford’s silver collection has been re-acquired for Dunham Massey, and this particular world-renowned sculpture, thought to be lost for decades and feared to have been melted down, has miraculously survived with its ‘dramatic’ central component being all that is left.
“The sculpture is not only a technical marvel, with its lifelike depiction of Bradgate Park’s rugged landscape and wildlife, but also a dramatic human story key to the history of Dunham Massey,” added Emma Campagnaro, who is the Property Curator at Dunham Massey.
Daisy Jackson -
15th December 2022 
