Demolition work has begun just off Great Ancoats Street
Demolition work getting underway on Great Ancoats Street, March 13 2026. (Image: Manchester Evening News)
Mancunians have spoken of their sadness as another clutch of Victorian buildings in the city centre faces demolition. Construction hoardings have gone up around the block on Great Ancoats Street and Little Lever Street this week.
Work on a new 18-storey development – NXQ – is set to begin. The £77m ‘tech hub’ tower was approved last January, with its futuristic design intended to fit in with the Grade II* listed Express Building opposite.
The development will see the demolition of a number of buildings there since the 19th Century.
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Tour guide and cultural critic Hayley Flynn, known as Skyliner, said: “I don’t think many people knew the buildings would be gutted… that virtually the whole block is going.”
The corner unit, currently housing Bem Brasil, is to be retained, as are the facades of buildings along Lever Street and halfway along Houldsworth Street.
The former is historically significant as it was formerly the Land O’ Cakes pub, where the National Chartist Association was founded in 1840. A planning report acknowledged that this and the late 19th Century warehouses on Lever Street ‘form part of the area’s distinctive historic townscape’.
Work to gut the buildings on Lever Street has already begun (Image: Manchester Evening News)
The facades of the buildings are to be retained, but will be beside an 18-storey tower, while 36-42 Great Ancoats Street is to be completely demolished, as are the buildings along Little Lever Street and Little Ancoats Street.
Others within the block to be flattened includes a two-storey dwelling from the 18th Century, itself converted into a pub; a small shop; and a former bakery.
A planning report described the buildings as having local architectural interest, but ‘limited historic interest’ as mid-to-late 19th Century properties.
Hayley said her tours are intended to encourage ‘critical thinking’ about ‘demanding better of our cities’ and ‘better public realm’. “Who decides if something is of limited historical interest?,” she said.
This Victorian corner is set to disappear (Image: Manchester Evening News)
“Just because it was not a site of historical significance? It is still something people were fond of? How do we quantify that value?”
She said she knew many photographers who had used Little Lever Street and Little Ancoats Street as a backdrop for photo shoots. “It wasn’t particular pretty,” she added. “But it was textured and gritty and interesting.
“The one on the corner, it’s got a really interesting curve to the building and catches people’s eye. I think it’s that that people are more interested in.
“It might seem anti-growth, but in terms of tourism, people don’t visit cities to see identikit buildings. They like neighbourhoods that have retained their character.
42 Great Ancoats Street pictured in 1967(Image: Manchester Libraries)
“I’m not anti-progress – there is a lot of fuss about the new shop on Stevenson Square and I don’t have a problem with that. But then you have this huge plot of land around the corner that’s going to be gone.”
She said she ‘wasn’t surprised’ to see another tower block going up on Great Ancoats Streetm, adding: “If you are on a wander around Oldham Street, you naturally come to a stop at Great Ancoats Street,” she said. “Nothing welcomes you over there or compels you to go over.”
For its part, the Victorian Society, which ‘strongly objected’ to the planning application as it went in, said it was ‘greatly saddened’.
A render of the development viewed from Lever Street in planning documents (Image: Copyright Unknown)
In their objection letter, they described the area as having commercial, industrial and domestic structures ‘in a tightly packed, irregular, piecemeal fashion’ that retained a level of ‘historic fabric’.
“These buildings are predominantly working-class in nature and reflective of the rapid growth and industrialisation of Manchester. Over the last 60 years, these often-characterful, tightly packed small lanes and spaces have been swept away.
“Little Ancoats Lane is an increasingly rare survivor. The construction of an 18-storey tower would sweep away this lane and introduce a scale and form alien to this part of Manchester.”
They also took issue with the ‘facadism’ of the remaining buildings. “The construction of an 18-storey building directly against the modest pub would overwhelm it and isolate it from the wider historic streetscape,” they said.
A scale model of how the development is set to look (Image: Copyright Unknown)
Overall, the planning document noted that the site had ‘lacked significant investment for some time’ and had largely ‘fallen into disrepair’.
The initial planning meeting in December 2024 was deferred so that councillors could make a site visit, with Coun Angela Gartside saying in January that doing so had ‘allayed her concerns regarding the loss of working class heritage’.
A planning officer noted that none of the buildings were in a conservation area and said that the facades to be retained were the ‘best preserved and most attractive’, and would contribute to the area’s ‘continued character at street level’. The department were said to be ‘satisfied that the correct balance had been achieved’.
Manchester council said it was committed to ‘meeting the challenge of balancing heritage and growth’ and takes its ‘responsibility as custodians of the city seriously’.
“NXQ represents a huge opportunity to create a desirable and vibrant mixed-use hub in the Northern Quarter of Manchester where people want to work, visit and enjoy the vibrant neighbourhood,” architects Howells said in a planning statement in 2024.
“The scheme combines high quality office space in a dramatic landmark building alongside retaining and enhancing existing structures, connected by a central landscaped courtyard.”
Developer Soller was contacted for comment.