With the former Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham now firmly installed as Prime Minister, now might be a good time to summarise development and regeneration activity across each of the boroughs of his former stamping ground.

Bolton
Once a major commercial and retail centre, Bolton town centre has been impacted by retail and commercial decline in recent years. However, regeneration has been ongoing for some time. Key projects include the new Market Food Hall, Central Library, The Wellsprings coworking hub and extensive public realm improvements. Projects at Moor Lane and Deansgate have commenced what seems to be a retail-to-residential reorientation of the centre.

Upcoming is Church Wharf, a new neighbourhood with 415 homes and a hotel. Bolton’s big redevelopment story, however, is Crompton Place. Demolition of the sizable retail mall has now begun, and it will be replaced with 340 new homes, a 110 room hotel, 80,000 sq.ft. of office space and some smaller-scale leisure and retail use.

A very significant future development could be Health Innovation Bolton (HIB). This is a partnership involving local authorities, Peel Land and Bradford Estates for a potentially £1bn health-led, mixed use regeneration scheme at Northfold between Wigan and Bolton. There could be 9,000 homes, 3.7m sq.ft. of industrial space and 312,000 sq.ft. of offices built over the next decade.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is proposing a Bolton Town Centre Mayoral Development Corporation to guide future development. Andy Burnham has previously suggested this could offer similar benefits to Stockport’s successful MDC.

Bury
Bury comprises Bury itself plus the smaller settlements of Radcliffe and Prestwich. It benefits from good connections to the M60, M62 and Manchester city centre via the Metrolink tram system.