Bennetts Associates is behind plans for a civil service campus in the middle of Manchester dubbed the “Whitehall of the North-west”.The practice is doing a feasibility study into the scheme, which will bring civil servants currently dotted around Greater Manchester on to a single site next door to the city’s Piccadilly railway station.
The move will see more than 5,000 people housed in a string of hi-tech offices, with staff expected to be joined by colleagues moving up from London.
The BBC is already in the process of moving around 2,500 staff to the MediaCityUK development in nearby Salford.
The proposed civil servants campus has been earmarked for a derelict site which used to house Mayfield Station. The development would feature 65,000sq m of office space and could see all the civil servants moved in by 2014.
Part of the Civil Service in the English Regions initiative, which was launched last spring, the campus would also feature retail elements, along with parkland.