Stepping off the tram at Castlefield, Deansgate — Manchester’s Roman centre — travellers are greeted by an industrial-era spaghetti junction of trains, canals, bridges and tunnels. Its centrepiece is a majestic Victorian viaduct, once used to carry heavy freight trains in and out of the Great Northern Warehouse.
This landmark, derelict since 1969, has been relaunched as a temporary “sky park” created by the National Trust. The 12-month pilot, which opened to the public last month, covers half of the Grade II-listed structure. It’s one of a rash of projects inspired by New York’s famous High Line, though at 330 metres the full-length viaduct is less than a sixth of the High Line’s size.
The elevated park on Manhattan’s west side, itself inspired by the Promenade Plantée in Paris, is a 2.3km stretch of decaying railway turned into a new park and tourist draw, attracting 8mn annual visitors. It sparked a global craze, providing a blueprint for how other post-industrial cities could recycle disused infrastructure. But as well as its successes, there are lessons to learn from the New York trailblazer, which had the unintended consequence of accelerating gentrification by pushing up property prices in surrounding areas.