FIFTY city centre towers built in the last five years, another fifty on the way - but are they already 'outdated'?

Manchester's boom in high rise blocks could pose a threat to the city's heritage, says a new report. The 60-page assessment also says that Greater Manchester should lead the country in finding new uses for historic buildings - and that seeing towers as symbols of success is 'outdated'.

The report by SAVE Britain's Heritage, published this week, describes the scale of the transformation of the city skyline as "awe-inspiring". It says that since 2018, 27 towers - up to 65 storeys high - have been built in central Manchester. There are a further 20 towers under construction and another 51 have been granted planning permission or are planned.

In Castlefield alone, eight towers have been built in the last five years and 17 more are under construction or approved. Manchester now has more tall buildings than any other city in the UK outside London.

In a foreword to the report, Henrietta Billings, Director of SAVE, says: "Each tower brings with it a powerful, wide reaching impact. Tall buildings in the right places can make exciting contributions to city life but they should be planned for robustly. In the wrong places and poorly designed, they can do needless, longstanding harm to our cities."

She adds that the option of mid-rise, high density new buildings, "which could also mend streets in the city broken by surface car parks" has been discounted in favour of "a plethora" of tall buildings "competing for prominence".

Billings adds that in 2018 SAVE called for a strategic assessment of tall buildings in Manchester with policy to go with it.
"Five years and many towers later we are still waiting," she says. "This lack of oversight for how tall buildings and demolitions are managed or understood cumulatively across the city