Onwards and Upwards

Attended an early event in Salford, the launch of Deloitte’s Manchester Crane Survey 2019.

For this purpose, “Manchester” is defined as the city centre in both Manchester and Salford.

The regional cities outside London are performing well, and Manchester is performing especially well, notwithstanding the London slowdown. There are loads of cranes, reflecting lots of development taking place. The outlook for the next two years also looks good, although there are lots of jitters about the prospect of a no deal Brexit. Investment decisions are being put off.

Leaving I took pics of a few cranes, all in Salford.

Two interesting stat’s:
* there are 100,000 students at Universities in Manchester and Salford.
* 30 years ago there were very few people living in the city centre. By the early 2020’s approx 100,000 people will be living here

These two facts may not be unrelated. Retaining talent is crucial to the success of the GM economy, those young professionals need places to live.