All systems go for main phase of city Town Hall works

The main phase of work to refurbish, partially restore and upgrade Manchester Town Hall will get underway at the end of this month, March 2020.

The once-in-a-lifetime project to safeguard the Grade I-listed gem, while bringing it up to modern accessibility and safety standards, is one of Britain’s biggest heritage schemes.

The work will also see Albert Square transformed to become one of Europe’s finest public squares and events spaces.

At the project’s peak as many as 560 people will be working on site. 

A large proportion of those people will be from Manchester and Greater Manchester.

The project has a strong focus on delivering the maximum benefits to local people and leaving a wider legacy in jobs and skills as well as protecting and improving access to the iconic building. 

Councillor Nigel Murphy, lead member for the Our Town Hall project, said: “This is a hugely complex scheme which will protect and improve access to an iconic building and its treasures for current and future generations of Manchester people. 

“Allowing it to sink into decay was not an option.

"Instead we are taking ambitious steps to ensure this mangificent structure can be a source of enduring pride and pleasure for Mancunians, on whose behalf we are its custodians. 

“There’s been a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes but we are now entering the main phase, when much of the activity will be more visible.

"There’s still a lot of work to go but we look forward to the Town Hall reopening in 2024.” 

An array of work has already taken place in the last two years, since the building closed to the public, to get to this point. 

Once services based in the building had been relocated, thousands of heritage items had to be carefully catalogued and removed, either to be placed in storage or go on display elsewhere. They included 35 statues collectively weighing 10 tonnes. Some of these treasures will go on public display in a new ground floor Visitors Centre when the Town Hall reopens in 2024. 

Once the building was empty experts were able to carry out almost 600 ‘intrusive’ surveys - getting under the skin of the building to refine the project’s understanding of its exact condition and materials.

Early works, including putting up scaffolding and the removal of asbestos, have taken place to help get everything ready for the start of main works. 

The project remains on budget and on schedule. 

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