Why a shifting sense of community in Salford shows the importance of listening to local people

Those of a certain age or musical persuasion will be familiar with Salford Lads’ Club, which graced the inside gatefold sleeve of an iconic 1986 album by Mancunian miserabilists The Smiths. 

Front and centre in the The Queen Is Dead photograph is lead singer Morrissey, who has more recently donated £50,000 to the club in response to an existential plea that it must raise £250,000 by the end of November or close for good. 

Launched in October, the lads’ club’s campaign had raised £228,732 at the time of writing, with other benefactors including Salford City Council (£100,000), fellow Mancunican musicians Courteeners (£10,000), and local property business Soapworks Estate Management (£2,000). 

The lads’ club’s future now seems secure and rightly so. It is a wonderful space, steeped in social history and attracting visitors from across the world. The makers of period drama Peaky Blinders used it as a location. Officially opened in 1904 by Robert Baden-Powell, it continues to serve as a traditional youth club, the last such institution of its type in the country.  

Not two minutes’ walk away and in the same Ordsall ward of Salford is the Regent Retail Park. Here developers Henley Investment Management have submitted an outline planning application for 3,200 homes across ten buildings, including the UK’s tallest tower outside London at 77 storeys. 

The site is said to have a gross development value of between £900m and £1bn. It is proposed that a high-density residential community would be built around a 3.5-acre public park. 

It would replace an estate of big box retail units which is currently home to tenants including TK Maxx, Boots, Home Bargains, and several charity shops. 

What may seem counter intuitive to some is that these are also assets that some members of the local community are loath to lose. 

More than 2,000 people have so far petitioned against the plans to demolish Regent Retail Park. Opponents cite lack of affordable housing or investment for the additional schools, healthcare and transport infrastructure needed, and a loss of community assets. 

Residents told the Manchester Evening News that the shops at the retail park are cheap, affordable, and accessible, and are relied upon by people in a community where 689 children under the age of sixteen live in low-income families. Whereas charity shops are often seen as a symptom of a retail setting that is failing to attract prime tenants, some members of the Ordsall community see them as vital to their lives. 

Nic Leonard, secretary of the Ordsall Community Arts Centre, told the MEN: “This is the only place left for Ordsall, where people who feel isolated and disenfranchised anyway, where the elderly and isolated come and meet. 

“We have the charity shops, which we need for clothing due to high poverty and high unemployment. The developers say there will be commercial space provided but for what - artisan coffee shops and the like.” 

Residents living near the proposed new towers told the BBC that they fear being pushed out by the plans, with many local people relying on the discount stores and working for them. 

Local Liberal Democrats, who make up only two out of the 60 seats on Salford Council, have been leading opposition to the plans. MP for Salford, Rebecca Long-Bailey has expressed concern over the plans with a loss of retail siting, a low number of parking spaces and a lack of affordable housing. Labour councillors in Ordsall have also called for plans to be rejected.  

Salford Council deserves credit for attracting transformational investment into Ordsall and must now continue to find ways to balance the desires of incomers and developers with those of its longstanding local communities. It has pushed back a decision on Regent Retail Park from November until February. 

That defining picture of The Smiths dates to back a different age in the Ordsall ward of Salford. The album captured the antipathy in ailing working-class communities towards Margaret Thatcher’s government. The album’s working title had been Margaret on The Guillotine. 

The more contemporary image of Ordsall is that of an area which has lived through an enormous era of transformation since the early 1990s, when it was one of the most deprived areas in Greater Manchester, if not the whole of the UK. 

Sandwiched between the high-rise building boom of Manchester city centre and the waterfront cool of Salford Quays, what was once a troubled area is now increasingly seen as a desirable location to live.  

All of this is a lesson in listening to the wants and needs of diverse stakeholders and taking time to consider the things that people hold dear. Salford Lads’ Clubs is a clear community asset. But big box retail stores and charity shops? Surprisingly, yes. 

Alongside thorny recurring themes like the availability of affordable homes sit issues which could be so easily overlooked, demonstrating why insight, engagement and communication continue to be such vital components of the planning process. 

Find out more about Salford Lad And Girls Club and donate here.