Great Ancoats Street is one of Manchester’s most important roads. It forms one of the crucial stretches of the city’s inner ring road. It’s a gateway to north Manchester and Oldham.
It’s also a dividing line — in a literal sense — between the council wards of Piccadilly and Ancoats & Beswick, which share one side of the carriageway each.
It was revamped at the start of this decade, with more than £8 million being spent to improve the road and its surroundings. The aim was to 'improve the look and feel of the area for pedestrians' and provide a more natural link between the city centre and the rapidly-expanding Ancoats and New Islington neighbourhoods. Work included installing new crossing facilities, 'modern' road surfacing to reduce noise and, tree planting down the central reservation.
