City centre population 'could be 250,000 by 2035'

Manchester city centre could explode with another 150,000 people by 10 years' time, according to a Spinningfields property developer.

Allied London chair Mike Ingall said he believed 250,000 people could be living in Manchester city centre by 2035.

Speaking at the opening of Campfield, a series of studios and offices based in the former Upper and Lower Campfield Market Halls, on Liverpool Road, Mr Ingall said he previously predicted the city's population would rise to 100,000 by 2025.

The latest estimates put the city centre's population as very close to 100,000, a considerable rise from the less than 500 people who called it home in 1990, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Speaking to journalists earlier in the year, Mr Ingall said he was "on the record" 15 years ago saying that Manchester city centre's population would get to 100,000 by 2025.

He also used his keynote address on Wednesday to suggest Greater Manchester should rebrand to "Manchester, G.M.", citing the precedent of renaming the American capital from District of Columbia to Washington, D.C.

"The energy politically has gone from Greater Manchester to Manchester," he said.

"The tank of petrol is full in Manchester and the engine is ready to start. Greater Manchester is not quite on that journey.

"If we are all into growth, there's no reason to say in 10 years' time Manchester, G.M. could be the most innovative regional city in Europe."

Council leader Bev Craig, who also attended the opening of Campfield, would not be drawn on the calls to rename the city-region, but said she could not "think of a better representation of the history, present, and future of Manchester than this building".

"In the week we lost Hotspur Press, it's good to show what our history means to us," she said.

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