Civic Engineers were appointed to PP O’Connor as Lead Designer and Civil and Structural Engineer for the delivery of the Mayfield Park, which is Manchester City Centre’s first new public park in over 100 years.  The park consists of 6.5-acre of new green space and will be the jewel in the crown of the transformational £1.4bn Mayfield Development on the former industrial site near Piccadilly Station.

The site was previously a fully utilised industrial site, including warehouses and portal frame buildings that required demolition, the site was then levelled. A key part of the development involved the de-culverting of the River Medlock, which had been hidden under a concrete culvert on the site for more than 50 years.  We developed the design of the site infrastructure to reuse as much of the historic structures as possible including the historic cast iron beams of the culvert for various new bridges within the park. This not only had cost and carbon savings but helped preserve the site heritage. Adding interest, and context to help visitors understand the history of the site. The park is interactive and aimed at the whole community with a multi-sensory playground and the landscape is designed to maximise biodiversity.

Works included: making good and repurposing of the Mayfield depot building for use as an events space, dredging and reworking of the river banks; modifications to the existing river walls; construction of new bridge structures; creation of five jetty boardwalk structures across the wetland area along the river; extensive restructuring and creating of retaining walls creating different platforms across the site; new structures to facilitate events; and the design of earthworks and pavements structures.

There are significant historic archaeological features in the ground which needed consideration when designing specific areas of the park.  Many of these are Victorian age structures that either required to be designed in or designed around.  An example of this is an old chimney structure that was found which we plan to reuse as part of the abutment to the new boardwalk structure.

The paths and walkways throughout the park all slope slightly towards the soft landscaping in order to reduce surface run-off while limiting the need for visible drains. Using hidden ‘letter boxes’ drains to help the water find its way to the planted rain gardens.

The Park opened in Autumn 2022 and is the first phase of the long-term vision to create a thriving, mixed use urban neighbourhood in the heart of Manchester City Centre.