On a spring afternoon one one of the Northern Quarter’s busiest thoroughfares, white blossoms are blooming on the trees by the Church Street car park. A blackbird is singing somewhere, the first signs winter is over have appeared and Thomas Street is bustling.
Shoppers are strolling by sipping coffees, tourists are snapping pictures and groups of work mates are sitting down at an outdoor table for an optimistic 4pm pint. In fact, half the street is covered by outdoor tables, lining the bars from which faint music is pulsing, and peppered with colourful street art.
This is one of the Northern Quarter’s most important streets. And for the most part is a great advert for Manchester, lined by independent businesses, and linking Oldham Street, Afflecks and Stevenson Square with Shudehill, on to Great Ancoats Street or down to the Printworks and Exchange Square.
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Despite the best efforts of the 1970s, this is still by and large a handsome and characterful area. Architects and urban conservationists talk about a coherent urban grain, street scene and streetscape.
But there’s a spectre at the feast, and it’s one that’s difficult to avoid. Looming over it all is a half-demolished ruin. And it’s been there for the best part of a decade.
This is one of the Northern Quarter’s most important streets(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Your eye is irresistibly drawn to it – an ugly mass of tired old bricks, one half held up by more ugly metal girders and the other covered by green bursts of buddleia.
It has looked like this since 2018. Numbers 42 to 58 Thomas Street were once weavers’ cottages, warehouses and shopfronts dating back to the Georgian and Victorian eras.
Numbers 52-58 have lain largely derelict since the early 2000s, with the exception of the al-Faisal curry house on the corner of John Street, though that has now closed. Land registry documents show that it was bought by Agecroft Investments for an undisclosed sum in around 2001.
Numbers 42-50 were home to and owned by Manchester Shopfittings until at least 2017. They were bought that October by Real Estate Investment Limited, for just over £2 million. By the late 2010s, the row of characteristic red-brick shopfronts were looking fairly tired, but still bore Art-Nouveau style stained glass windows and sandstone sills.
Stevenson Square(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
The following autumn, both had been partially demolished over structural concerns, to outcry from the local community. Interior walls were said to be bowing and buckling; according to planning documents, numbers 52 – 54 collapsed on their own.
Both sites were soon the subject of ambitious planning applications – but nearly nine years on, works have yet to begin. In a special report, the M.E.N looks at why this has happened.
In 2017 REIP won planning permission to turn numbers 42-50 Thomas Street into a five-storey block of flats, demolishing the weaver’s cottages but retaining a warehouse on Kelvin Street, which is Grade II-listed. But before they could get started, in July 2018, an anonymous individual made a request for the buildings at 42-46 Thomas Street to be protected.
The site as it looks today(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Historic England agreed and gave them Grade II-listed status, meaning that the scheme was rejected by Manchester City Council in 2020.
In front of the crumbling ruin, people often stop to take pictures of the sight. A pair of women can be heard discussing it as they walk along. Kerry Robertson moved up to Manchester from West Sussex during Covid, and she’s showing her friend Corinne Coventry around the Northern Quarter.
“I’m always walking by here and wondering if anything’s going to be done about it,” Kerry told the M.E.N. “I don’t mind seeing development if it’s needed, but I think the council and developers don’t always take the aesthetics into consideration.
“There are places where it’s been done sensitively, made to look industrial and quirky and in keeping with the area,” she continued.
When told that the sites had planning permission for a five-storey scheme, she laughed. “Only five? That’s quite small for Manchester – it’s normally 20 or 30,” she said.
The saga around 42-50 Thomas Street rumbled on until 2021, when REIP resubmitted their application with consent to demolish the newly listed buildings. This time, they were successful.
How the site looked in April 2016(Image: Google Streetview)
Steve Slater, chief executive of REIP, said at the time that they had tried to find ways of retaining the cottages as part of the scheme, but that it would make the overall development financially unviable.
Another passer-by, who did not wish to be named, told the M.E.N. he had worked on Thomas Street for 25 years. “That building doesn’t look good for the environment of the Northern Quarter,” he said.
“A lot of people say it is an eye-sore and it could be housing another business. It doesn’t look good empty. If it got turned into retail it would bring more footfall.”
The 58-year-old said he was in favour of old buildings being retained. “Look at Chester, look at York, they’ve kept the old buildings there. They look fantastic and it brings in tourists. People want to see character and history, they don’t want to see multi-stories.”
REIP director Simon Gallander has told the Manchester Evening News that the 2021 application has not lapsed and is ‘still viable’, but that the project has been beset with problems, including lingering delays from the pandemic, rising costs and ‘viability issues’.
“We have started some internal works which keeps the application live,” he said. “We are still engaged and there is a contractor in place but it’s about the numbers.
“We are looking at the methodology of retaining the listed element in a way that respects and protects it. There have been further technical constraints but we are working on a solution, and are actively looking for indicative funding so we can deliver the full project.”
A mock-up of how REIP’s plan for Thomas Street would have looked. (Image: Real Estate Investment Partnership )
Mr Gallander, who said that the site is in fact owned by a ‘private family’ with REIP acting as the manager, insisted that ‘everything is in place to get going’ and that they are seeking dialogue with Manchester City Council.
“The site in its current form needs to be refitted,” he accepted. “It is a big frustration but we are desperate to see it move forward.
“We had several rounds of discussions with Historic England throughout the planning process,” he continued. “We had a contractor ready to start in 2018. It should have been completed and would have been a good addition to the Northern Quarter.”
Another business on the street, who also did not want to be named, kept it succinct. They told the M.E.N.: “It’s really ugly. It’s prime retail space being used for nothing. It’s a real shame. It’s a historic building and I would rather that stay than brand new ones replace it.”
They acknowledged that the colourful graffiti now covering the hoardings around the site made it ‘an Instagram destination’, and said that the area was still ‘lovely’, especially in sunny weather. Recalling the Chanel catwalk show which was held on Thomas Street in 2023, they said: “There is so much that could have been done off the back off that – it should have been a catapult for the area,” they said.
“It could be a main hub of Manchester. If there was a bit more to the area, it might make it more of a destination rather than just people passing through.”
As for the neighbouring block, Agecroft Investments won planning permission in 2019 for the conversion of the site into a five storey, 26-bedroom apartment hotel which would retain the facade of the corner building, which housed the Indian restaurant.
But no works have begun on this section either, and planning permission has now lapsed.
The building surrounded by scaffolding is a listed former warehouse(Image: Manchester Evening News)
The company’s offices in a shared block on Hewitt Street, a backstreet behind Deangate train station and facing Deansgate Locks. The buzzer bearing their name went repeatedly unanswered when the M.E.N. visited last week.
After being invited in by a staff member at a neighbouring firm, the M.E.N also got no response after knocking on the door of their first floor offices where the door was locked and the lights were turned off, with no one appearing to be inside
But in an official statement, a spokesperson for Agecroft Investments said: “Agecroft is aware of the current condition of 52–58 Thomas Street and recognises the concerns raised by members of the local community and neighbouring businesses. Over the past decades, Agecroft has invested significant sums in the Northern Quarter, refurbishing numerous dilapidated buildings for occupation by local businesses and helping to support the area’s evolution into a vibrant mixed-use neighbourhood.
“52–58 Thomas Street is the only building in the company’s ownership in the Northern Quarter that has not yet been refurbished. The property was historically occupied but, due to significant structural issues relating to its original construction, it became unsafe and had to be partially demolished in 2018.
“Following this, Agecroft invested substantial resources in appointing professional consultants and successfully obtained planning permission for a new development in 2019. However, the onset of Covid-19 required a shift in focus. Subsequently, significant increases in construction costs have meant that the previously approved scheme is no longer financially viable.”
They went on to explain the site presents a number of development challenges, but they remain committed to delivering a high-quality scheme that will “positively contribute to the Northern Quarter”.
In the interim, they describe the costs incurred by the company as “considerable”. This has mostly been down to ensuring the site is safe and secure – and that includes “high-quality hoarding”.
A mockup of how the new development on Thomas Street and John Street would have looked. (Image: GA Studios/Agecroft )
They added: “Agecroft continues to review options for the site and has been engaging with adjacent owners to explore potential synergies in bringing forward development proposals.
“The company does intend to redevelop the property and will look to submit a new planning application once a viable scheme has been established, although no definitive timeline has been set at this stage. In the meantime, the site remains under regular review, and appropriate interim measures will be considered.”
Only one person the M.E.N. spoke to had positive things to say about the site. “I personally love the buildings,” said a man behind the bar at Cane and Grain.
“I think they’re really characterful There’s not much like that left in Manchester that’s not developed or replaced with a big block. I think they help make this part of town what it is.”
A Manchester City Council spokesperson said: “We take our role of custodians of the city seriously. We are proud of Manchester’s heritage and as the city continues to grow, we have to meet the challenge of celebrating our historic buildings with significant growth across the city.
“Often the focus is on what has been lost, as opposed to what has been saved. The Northern Quarter in particular – along with areas such as NOMA and Ancoats – are good examples where the focus has been almost entirely on saving and refurbishing heritage buildings.
“We also have a number of conservation areas in the city centre alone, which helps us protect our valued heritage properties. And where development interacts with these buildings, these applications are given every scrutiny available to us.
“We remain in contact with the owners of underused heritage properties in the city – including those on Thomas Street – to urge them to bring their buildings back into active use.”