'Not just a city you go to for night out'

As Manchester attracts record levels of investment, as well as English National Opera and Chanel, city could be on brink of Golden Age says council leader

- ETHAN DAVIES

BEV Craig has been leader of Manchester City Council for exactly two years. And when she’s asked a big question by the Manchester Evening News about the city’s progress, the answer that comes back is brimming with optimism.

IS MANCHESTER ON THE BRINK OF A NEW GOLDEN AGE?

“If you look at the city’s resurgence, and the trajectory that we’ve been on, from the late-80s or early-to-mid-90s, the rising economy that we’ve seen — all of those things — I think the conditions are right for it,” she replies.

Days after the M.E.N. interview, the first signs of Chanel’s Northern Quarter catwalk came into view, in the build-up to fashion house’s eagerlyanticipated Métiers d’Art show, and the English National Opera announced its move to Manchester.

Weeks before that, Danny Boyle’s reimagining of The Matrix opened at Aviva Studios, the biggest investment in culture seen in Britain for 20 years. Meanwhile, huge leisure attractions Co-op Live and Therme Manchester are set to open soon.

And, in May, Manchester City completed their historic treble, a generation after United’s feat - which means that, of the only two English clubs to reach those heights, both are Mancunian.

Meanwhile the city centre’s development boom roars on. This week, the starting gun was fired on the latest race to build Manchester’s tallest skyscraper.

Meanwhile in late November, city leaders and business bosses mingled at No.1 Circle Square - 12 storeys above the ground - to announce the launch of Manchester’s latest economic strategy, which promises to grow the city with a less ‘trickle down and more interventionist’ approach for the next decade.

At launch, Coun Craig said: “We want good jobs, we want to keep people and attract people.