Boddingtons Brewery is a symbol of the city.
16:23, 12 Sep 2025Updated 17:08, 12 Sep 2025
Brewery Gardens, where construction of more than 500 homes has started at the site of the former Boddingtons Brewery.
Work has started on building hundreds of new homes on the site of the former Boddingtons Brewery in Manchester, dubbed a ‘sacred site’ in the city by the region’s mayor Andy Burnham.
The iconic Strangeways brewery closed 20 years ago but was once the production centre of the beer known as the ‘cream of Manchester’, which was exported around the world.
Now the land is being turned into a new community, fittingly named Brewery Gardens, with 505 new homes and the majority set to be at ‘affordable’ rates, including the first new social homes in the city centre in 40 years.
To see planning applications; traffic and road diversions and layout changes; and more, visit the Public Notices Portal HERE
The landmark project is being led by Latimer, an arm of Clarion Housing Group, in partnership with the council and Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
To celebrate the start of construction at the old Boddies’ site, council leader Bev Craig and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham paid a visit to the area on September 12.
The mayor said he’s a big fan of Boddingtons and was ‘gutted’ when the former brewery closed.
Andy Burnham said the site is a ‘sacred’ part of Manchester.
“Boddingtons and its association with Manchester is massive, it feels significant to me that something massive should come to the site where it was,” he said.
“We are giving something back to Manchester from what it lost when Boddingtons was ripped out.
“I think this is the best symbol of what we are trying to bring about across Greater Manchester with housing.
“We are a housing first region, if our residents don’t have good housing they don’t have anything, you can’t have a good life without a good home.”
Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE
The new homes at the site will be a mixed community, with 132 homes for social rent, 202 for private sale, and the rest for shared ownership.
Massive changes are coming to the Strangeways area in a joint action plan by Manchester and Salford councils to redevelop their city centres.
The work includes 7,000 new homes across seven new neighbourhoods, a new city centre park, and spaces for shops and businesses.
Manchester council leader Bev Craig said the former Boddingtons Brewery site has ‘sat derelict for too long’ and needs to be transformed.
Manchester city council leader Bev Craig at Brewery Gardens.
“It shows that we can build social rent homes in the city centre, for too long Manchester’s story has been defined by what happens in the city centre, but we have to own that.
“We’re a city of 630,000 people and there are 18,000 on the housing waiting list, so we have got big challenges.
“There are more baristas than barristers living in the city centre but we don’t get to tell that story enough.
“What we’ve tried to do is show that actually this is what the future looks like, mixed schemes which people can afford.
“It’s a massive deal in terms of getting affordable homes in the city centre, there’s lots more to come and it’s beginning to shift the market.
“We’ve got massive plans for this part of the city, this goes about sending a message that the work is starting, it’s not pie in the sky.”
Boddingtons Brewery in 2004. (Photo: Aidan O’Rourke)
The council leader also spoke about the future of Strangeways prison, where there have been calls to close and move the site.
“Everyone always asks me about the prison, how do we deal with it, we are pushing this government like the last one to say the future isn’t a prison in our city centre, let’s work together to get it relocated to do something special in the area.”
Richard Cook, chief development officer at Clarion Housing, said the building work at the former Boddingtons Brewery is set to finish in around three years’ time.
“In 2028 we will be giving you the keys to get the residents in here and get people off the housing waiting list.”
News of progress at the sites comes at a time when Boddies is making a comeback in Manchester.
The pint which has become synonymous with the city and has more than 200 years of history is once again being made, this time by Manchester’s oldest brewery, JW Lees, which will brew and distribute Boddingtons under licence by the Budweiser Brewing Group.
September saw Boddingtons Cask Ale flowing in select pubs across the city and north west once again, and it was also enjoyed by the Japanese ambassador who nearly necked a pint of it as a sister city agreement was made between Greater Manchester and Osaka.