'Once in a generation' plans were recently submitted to completely redevelop Wythenshawe Civic Centre.
The proposals were part of a £20m levelling up bid to revamp the town centre which include the creation of a new public square, cultural hub, food hall and 1,500 new homes. Although Manchester Council was to receive the disappointing news that their bid for the cash had been rejected, bosses vowed they were still "completely committed" to the redevelopment.
The proposed changes to the Wythenshawe Civic Centre have been widely welcomed by councillors and campaigners, with shoppers saying late last year the precinct was a far cry from the bustling hub it once was. The shopping centre opened in 1963, and has been expanded further since it was first built, most notably between 1999 and 2002. Here, the M.E.N's Lee Grimsditch looks at the precinct's ups and downs through the decades.
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In 1971, the Civic Centre Forum, containing a swimming pool, theatre, public hall and library, opened - completing a modern town centre in a vision of Wythenshawe as a 'garden city' away from industrial Manchester.
Meanwhile, nearby, a few years earlier, Wythenshawe's Golden Garter cabaret club had opened its doors to some of the biggest names in showbiz - with stars including Dusty Springfield and Roy Orbison walking the lavish gold and crimson carpets of the former bowling alley, on Rowlands Way.
However the fortunes of the Civic Centre took went into decline in the 1980s and 1990s. Paul Goggins, MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East from 1997 until his death in January 2014, was in a perfect position to give his take on the district's decline in 1999.
He told the MEN: "For 30-years or more, the development of Wythenshawe went well. But the economic and industrial decline which began in the 1960s hit the area hard.
"In the 1980s, mass unemployment was followed by a huge reduction in government cash for council housing and other public services. Whole families were out of work, and many had to live in homes which were badly in need of repair.
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"People started to shop differently, making it very difficult to keep the small shopping parades going. The Forum and the Civic Centre, built in the 1960s, started to look shabby."
An indictment of how far the fortunes of Wythenshawe's Civic Centre had fallen came in 1995, when it was labelled the "Manchester's own Red Square" following the fall of communism in Russia.
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As reported back then by the M.E.N, Liberal Democrat campaigner Bill Fisher compared it to a "concrete wasteland which could win prizes as Britain's most unwelcoming civic space," adding that the civic centre was "looking more like Eastern Europe under Communism with every day that passes."
By the turn of the millennium, the Forum was under-used and the vast concrete building was costing the taxpayer £1.9m a year. And in 2002 the Forum Theatre, where so many productions had once entertained theatregoers, from Victoria Wood - starring in her own play Talent - to Frank Foo Foo Lammar in The Rocky Horror Show, closed for good.
While renovation of the civic centre continued, the council relinquished their ownership of Wythenshawe Civic Centre to a private property developer in the early Noughties. But, fast forward to 2022, and Manchester Council has since taken back control as part of their plans to invest in the redevelopment of the town centre.
The authority says this is the latest step in regenerating the south Manchester neighbourhood, following leisure, health, learning, childcare, jobs, exercise and library services being revamped within the main Forum building.
The aim of the redevelopment work, the council says, is to create a "large new focal point for the local community in a new civic square that celebrates Wythenshawe’s roots as a garden city, developing open areas for planting, trees, and boulevard-style public realm".
"The ambitious vision includes a new cultural hub, food hall and workspace – as well as helping to fund decarbonisation investment in the existing building, while creating hundreds of new jobs".
Click below to view gallery of Wythenshawe Civic Centre and Forum from years past
In December last year, Wythenshawe Civic Centre's shoppers complained that the precinct was 'all pound shops and charity stores' with many of the units now lying empty. Vera Bedford, 70, and Kate Bridgeman, 71, welcomed the new plans, agreeing that the town centre desperately needed to be 'brought into the 21st century'.
"We don’t just need food shops, we need clothes shops. We’ve got no indoor market. We used to have the best market going and it was so good people from miles now it’s turned into a s*** hole," said Vera.
Exciting CGI images show how the now tired and run down town centre could be rejuvenated with a new boulevard-style town hub surrounded by trees and greenery – a nod to Wythenshawe's original 'garden city' vision.
Thousands of new homes are also planned as part of the proposals on the council-owned brownfield land next to the town centre – with many of them promised to be affordable.
Does this story on Wythenshawe Civic Centre awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
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