Big projects require project cargo, and projects don’t come much bigger than the radical plans for the redevelopment of Manchester United’s football stadium. The project remains at an early stage, but momentum is growing. Alongside the stadium rebuild, a container terminal move, and a whole new city quarter, add to the mix the proposal to service the project with heavy-lift canal barges.
This could become Britain’s next national infrastructure project. Don’t, though, suggest to anyone around Manchester that it’s a consolation prize for missing out on HS2, the high-speed railway plan. Instead, Manchester United’s vast but ageing football stadium could be transformed into the centrepiece of a sports and residential complex. Now, the stumbling block of a ten-year build phase may be solved, with the utilisation of some existing and underused infrastructure, flowing right alongside the site.
Construction phase compressed
Manchester could have a striking new national sports complex and a whole new city quarter, if it were not for the timeline to build it. There are several obstacles in the way of turning Old Trafford into a new Trafford Park, but at the top of the list is the projected buildout, which, even the optimistic developers say could be ten years. If only the construction phase could be compressed. That’s where the radical plan to use barges could help, slashing that time in half.
“Teamwork and the city’s renowned spirit of innovation are cornerstones of this remarkable project, which would look to embrace the network of the Manchester Ship Canal and cutting-edge prefabrication technologies to build the stadium in record time,” said Nigel Dancey, Head of Studio, for the globally recognised architects Foster + Partners. They say that the development site lends itself to using barges to transport prefabricated sections, and to remove debris from the site, all without congesting Manchester’s already busy roads.
Canals were made for this operation
Tim West, Director at heavy-lift barge specialists Robert Wynn & Sons, says that the concept of using a combination of barges and the existing waterways infrastructure of the Manchester Ship Canal and the Bridgewater Canal would represent a very sustainable way of advancing the project. “It’s the right time to be considering the options for using the canals, which made much of Manchester’s prosperity possible in the past and can contribute to future prosperity too,” he said.
Wynns is already a well-known operator in the field of moving project cargo by inland waterway. The benign waters of Manchester’s canals are as good as made for their operations. They’ve certainly had to deal with more complicated navigations, and this would be a simple sail by their standards. “There is an existing government policy to maximise the use of inland waterways to ensure the road movements for oversized and heavy loads are as short as possible. Here, we have waterways and infrastructure that could not only meet that policy but could also play a significant role in the wider redevelopment project. For example, the inland waterways adjacent to the site could facilitate the waterborne carriage of materials within the demolition and construction phases as well.”
Growth for the whole region
The project has a long way to go before sections of any stadium start arriving on the decks of barges. A substantial part of the site is occupied by a Freightliner-managed intermodal terminal. Negotiations are far from concluded on any possible sale of the land. Also, while Trafford Park is not the industrial powerhouse it once was, it is still a hive of industry. Construction on such a scale would inevitably be disruptive, no matter how many barges service the site. Lord Norman Foster himself says it would take 160 such prefabricated elements, delivered by barge, to build just the stadium part of the project. Those movements would be in addition to what some reports (such as the Trafford Park Masterplan Baseline Assessment) claim is upwards of one million tonnes of cargo already handled annually on the waterways around the site.
Nevertheless, Manchester has a reputation for innovation, enterprise and building on its successes. Andy Burnham, the outspoken Mayor of Greater Manchester, who had perhaps not got the memo about speedy, barge-serviced construction, said transforming the area was an important part of a ten-year plan for growth across the region. “By investing in public transport infrastructure, homes and amenities around the new stadium district, and relocating freight from the Trafford Park container terminal, we can unlock huge benefits for the whole of the north-west,” he said. “We are ready to move forward to make sure we maximise this opportunity.”