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Campaign saves Platt Fields from development

Beanie B | 24.05.2004 09:56 | Ecology

U-turn on green haven car parks
CAR parks will NOT be built on two historic city-centre parks after plans were dramatically withdrawn.


Health chiefs wanted to pour concrete over green space in Manchester's Platt Fields Park to create a 416-space park-and-ride for hospital staff. They also submitted plans for a second car park, for 191 vehicles, in Whitworth Park.

Both projects have been scrapped after provoking fury among local residents and environmental campaigners.

It is understood that council leader Richard Leese - who branded the plans "appalling" and said he found out about them only after the Manchester Evening News story - stepped in to demand a re-think.

The M.E.N. revealed last week how the Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust had applied for a "temporary" car park on Platt Fields Park during work on a new £350m super-hospital.

The trust - which controls Manchester Royal Infirmary, St Mary's, the Royal Eye Hospital, Booth Hall and three other hospitals - said it needed the facility for staff who were displaced by the building work.

The car park would have provided them with a park-and-ride service from Rusholme to their hospitals. After two years it would have been passed back to the council, whose parks department admitted they wanted to keep it their permanently.

A second application, for a car park in Whitworth Park, would have involved cutting down more than a dozen trees.

The M.E.N was flooded with messages of complaint and residents organised local protests and began signing petitions in their hundreds.

A trust spokeswoman confirmed: "After consideration we have decided to withdraw our planning application for a temporary park-and-ride facility at Platt Fields.

"The trust recognises the strength of local feeling for Platt Fields to remain as it is and wishes to respect the desires of the local community. The trust is exploring a number of options to provide adequate car parking facilities during the new hospital's development."

The spokeswoman confirmed the Whitworth Park application had also been withdrawn.

Paul Shannon, Lib Dem councillor for Rusholme and a leading campaigner against the Platt Fields Park car park, said: "We welcome this u-turn. These plans show the council cannot be trusted to protect green spaces."

Coun Leese said: "It was a bad idea and there should have been public consultation before the planning applications went in."

Beanie B

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Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Well done

24.05.2004 11:15


well done!!

Not to Richard Leese or any local councillors but to all those grassroots campaigners who responded quickly and intelligently to these developments with the threat of direct action, tree camps and a serious fuss as the local elections are coming up.

You were the ones who really stopped them being built.

There are also plans by the university to destroy the area of green space in between the architecture building and the precinct centre when the universities merge.

The battle continues.

Coolin Poowell


uni trees

24.05.2004 13:31

after the university's already cut down a bunch of mature trees on the corner opposite the MRI & next to the evil Bioscience Incubator (some months back, unfortunately without a breath of opposition)

uni-te


hooray well done

24.05.2004 14:53

I had not even got round to doing anything after I saw the previous posting,this is GOOD NEWS.Keep our few green spaces.
Cars are a menace in Cities but what is the solution?
My street is like a car park.One walks round Manchester in the suberbs and centre and every bit of space is filled up with cars.
I use the bus because I am unable to ride a bike but I sometimes feel I would like a car because the public transport is soo unreliable and expensive.

anna


brilliant

24.05.2004 16:16

i'm chuffed..
but they weren't supposed to roll over and give in so quickly as soon as they got kicked!! don't they know the rules of engagement yet?

:)

heather


Salutations..

25.05.2004 12:37

The green spaces behind the uni have been rapidly disappearing over the last few years, I remember with fondness the small park next to the Salutation pub (now another halls of residence) which was bulldozed despite being sorrounded by wasteground at the time. Thanks for saving a bit much needed of Manchesters greenery.

Desmond


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