This is a guest post from Andrew Catcheside, Place Shaping Team Lead at Enfield Council and Steering Group member of Place Collective UK, a free, volunteer-run network whose 1,600 members travel the UK (and beyond) to share best practice via field trips and socials. This joint event was a natural for Future of GM, since PCUK trips are open to all levels, look at all aspects of place, and the programme is co-designed by members. 2026 programme coming soon!
Thanks to all our field trip hosts including: Stockport MDC & Stockport Council hosts Paul Richards (FoGM Board member, speaker, mentor), Laura Green (Leaders Plus alumna) and Peter Haymes & Sarah Mulligan (Future Leaders alumni), Muse Project Director Max King (also a Future of GM mentor) and shedkm Director James Spencer (also a Future of GM speaker).
Watch for a mid-November post on the intriguing Pitch Party talks we had, along with 3 new ones from our Diverse Voices Nov 5th event.
It started with a car park.
The story of my first visit to Stockport starts the same way as the story of the town’s regeneration — with a car park.
During a week away on a farmstay in the Peak District, I took a day out of solitude to explore with Place Collective UK (PCUK) and Future of Greater Manchester, hosted by the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) and Stockport Council.
It was whilst planning my journey that I started to orient Stockport amongst the constellation of great northern towns and cities. On Google Maps it could easily be mistaken as a footnote to Manchester, and at a certain zoom level its name was set smaller than Manchester Airport. As my drive took me from the breathtaking expanse and rollercoaster topography of the Peaks into urban sprawl, I couldn’t quite tell what I was entering — suburb, town, or city.
Initially routed to a car park a little way from the meeting point with a plan to walk and orient myself, a glitchy parking app and no change for a paper ticket meant a reroute to a shiny-looking NCP. Flustered and finally parked, I dashed out into an expanse of public realm.
It was here at the Stockport Exchange where our walkabout was to start. Paul Richards, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Place for Stockport Council, began by explaining the site’s significance — the reprovision of a surface-level car park with a multi-storey NCP had created new public space for the station’s arrival and, with it, kicked off over £1bn of investment into the town’s future, slated as one of the most ambitious regeneration programmes of its kind in the UK, with up to 8,000 new homes planned.
Big numbers — and without much time to personally orient myself — we quickly arrived at another site that initially appeared to be an enormous oval void framed by more new development and public realm. It transpired we were standing on a roof: the roof of the new Stockport Interchange, a multi-award-winning transport hub.
We began descending a complex corten-steel stairway that framed a Victorian viaduct towering above us. Around it were smart new residential blocks and warehouse conversions, and below us, lush green landscaping alongside the river. As we reached what I presumed was now ground level, we were presented with a pristine, Scandinavian-looking bus terminus.
Stockport doesn’t escape the topography of the region, and this complex piece of engineering quickly put the full scale and aspiration of the place into perspective. There’s some seriously chunky urbanism going on here — big moves, big sites, and a visible sense of momentum.
From the Interchange we made our way towards the Underbanks, where the town shifts in scale from large development sites and infrastructure to something finer-grained. The ambition didn’t lessen though, nor the energy being put into shaping this part of town.
The full playbook of high street regeneration was on display — collaborative partnerships, public art and creative programming, heritage restoration, and targeted property acquisition by the Council to help curate a mix of independents, food, and culture.
Our final stop was at the main shopping precincts that cross the town, and a visit to Stockroom — formerly empty shops in the Merseyway Shopping Centre that were purchased by the Council and converted into a multi-use library and community space. Opened in early 2025, it’s already drawing big crowds and, I’d predict, is lining up to be another award-winner for the town.
As I was writing this up, I started to notice the contrast between how I first arrived — slightly ignorant, seeing Stockport as a subset of Manchester — and the scale of investment being described: the billions, the awards, the big regeneration language that could easily sound like bravado.
Stockport is neither of those things. It’s certainly not a footnote, and it’s not brash either. The people stewarding its growth are doing so with enthusiasm, care and an assertive, strategic hand — delivering change piece by piece, in a way that feels distinctly Stockport.
And I’m glad to now have a sense of what that means.
