As we prepare to share the next decade of Greater Manchester’s growth mission at UKREiiF, Katrina Davis Director of Communications at Civic shares her thoughts on regeneration, placemaking and how taking a system thinking approach can help our region deliver for communities and the environment.
With a track record of delivering growth and a new strategy in place to accelerate this at a scale never seen before, all eyes are on Greater Manchester as it pioneers a new place-based approach to growth and sets out its stall as the UK’s Growth Opportunity
Now, with UKREiiF on the horizon, Greater Manchester is working to accelerate its growth plan and use its single integrated settlement to deliver large-scale regeneration projects that can create better connected communities, embrace climate resilience and support residents to live well.
Civic are a longstanding member of the Manchester Invest Partnership that supported the region throughout its growth journey. Civic has played an integral role in the changing face of our region, including supporting with Mayfield Park, the city centre’s first new park in over 100 years and the new Strangeways regeneration framework which will maximise regeneration in an underutilised area of Manchester and Salford.
Civic believes that building strong and lively neighbourhoods, towns, and cities starts with system thinking. By combining creative ideas with technical expertise, they consider urban challenges as a whole - connecting infrastructure, communities, and the environment. Its teams work together across different fields to design places, spaces and buildings that are people-focused, inspiring, and sustainable.
As we prepare to share the next decade of Greater Manchester’s growth mission at UKREiiF, we sat down with Katrina Davis Director of Communications at Civic to discuss regeneration, placemaking and how taking a system thinking approach can help our region deliver for communities and the environment during this exciting new chapter.
Greater Manchester has just revealed its ambitious plan for growth over the next 10 years, why do you think a place-based approach is critical in achieving growth?
As Civic, we describe ourselves as being system thinkers in the built environment. GM’s 10-year plan for growth shows you can’t think of things in isolation, for example just as an individual building or street. You have to look at things as a whole system or place if you’re going to tell the next chapter of the city or an area’s story.
By looking at things from that more macro perspective you’ll gain more from the growth and opportunity as you’re looking at everything that’s there. The Strangeways Regeneration Framework is a great example of two cities working together, it’s not each in isolation, it’s collaboration and shared areas working across city boundaries.
Regeneration is a huge part of Greater Manchester’s growth plan, how can we make sure these developments contribute positively to existing communities?
It’s all about meaningful engagement with communities and understanding how you develop and regenerate with a conscience. So how can you work in a meaningful, not a token, way? You need to engage those communities and understand their character, their heritage and what's important to them. If you can do that, and you can bring them on the journey with you, that's when you get the developments that really make a difference because they've been part of it all the way through.
How important is sustainability in the future of placemaking?
It’s vital. We’ve always been a company that has placed climate sensitivity and sustainability at the heart of everything that we do. That's just part of our DNA, We're in the middle of a climate crisis, right here and right now. It's not something that's going to happen in the future. We can see it now with some of the extreme weather that we're experiencing.
If you look at Mayfield Park, that's a climate-resilient development and creating climate-resilient places should be something that should be a given, not a nice to have. It’s vital that there are measures in place to protect our communities from threats such as flooding.
We've worked with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority recently to help them develop their sustainable urban drainage guidance to ensure that nature-based solutions are placed at the heart of the approach to development and place-making.
How can placemaking support wellbeing and encourage healthier, happier lifestyles?
If you build on all the points we've talked about already, about engaging with communities, climate-resilient development and looking at places as a whole, rather than dealing with them as individual areas, you can create places that people want to live in, to work in, to visit and to spend time in. You need to put people and climate at the heart of things. This ultimately helps to create that community, and it also brings economic, social and environmental benefits as well.
If you use nature-based solutions, you get climate-resilient benefits as well. But you also get the benefits of a lot more biodiversity and amenity, so you benefit from beautiful streets and beautiful places where people can dwell. These things are all interconnected. If you've got places that people want to be, they're generally happier, healthier places.
What do you think should be the main priorities when creating neighbourhoods fit for the future?
Focus on people and inclusivity, access to affordable housing and ensuring they’re climate resilient. You need to make sure that neighbourhoods tell the next chapter of the place’s story and build on what was there before. As well as provide people with opportunity and access, whether that’s access to facilities and amenities with everything on their doorstep or access to job opportunities.
To learn more about Civic and its approach to engineering great places, click here.
You’ll find representatives from Civic on the Manchester Stand, The Canary at UKREiiF 2025 to discuss current and future projects.