Manchester Digital Campus slated to become No 10 North

An office campus in central Manchester, designed by infrastructure company AtkinsRéalis, is tipped to become the future home of No 10 North – the northern outpost of 10 Downing Street.

Named the Manchester Digital Campus (MDC), the building is being built on brownfield land in the vibrant suburb of Ancoats, which was once the heart of Manchester’s cotton mill district.

It has been billed as the future home of No 10 North, under British prime minister Andy Burnham’s plans to decentralise government power from Westminster. It will serve as an extension of the No 10 Downing Street office in London, which has been the base for British prime ministers since 1735.

Groundworks have now started on the building, with the main build and completion expected for 2028 and 2032, respectively.

MDC will accommodate 8,800 civil servants

MDC is designed by AtkinsRéalis to accommodate approximately 8,800 civil servants from numerous government departments.

It will comprise approximately 84,000 square metres of workspace across two buildings on the site of the former retail park.

Plans for the MDC predate No 10 North, with it originally proposed to support the government’s digital and data strategy and increase the number of civil servants in technology and digital roles.

Few details about the design have been revealed, but the visuals suggest the two buildings will have blocky forms with a gridded exterior lined with windows.

The senior responsible owner for MDC, Philippa Harvey, said the building will have “exceptional tangible benefits for the government”.

“MDC is not just a new building – it is a transformation of how government works, bringing together digitally focused departments at scale in a purpose-built environment, fully embedded in the community we serve,” explained Harvey.

“The new campus will help to harness the North West’s digital expertise and foster collaboration across departments and the wider digital sector in the region.”

No 10 North “not a gimmick”

No 10 North is planned to become the second centre of government, helping shift decision-making closer to the north of England.

However, as the MDC is not expected to complete until 2032, on Friday, Burnham’s team has temporarily moved into Heron House – an office building in central Manchester currently home to Government Communications Headquarters, which is an intelligence and security organisation.

In an address, Burnham stated plans for devolution and establishing No 10 North were “not a gimmick”, reported the BBC.

“There’ll be many voices out there, I can hear them all already, often London-based, but not exclusively. They like to say, ‘Oh, this will just be the new levelling up, or another sort of short-lived gimmick’, and they’ll also say ‘What’s it going to cost?’,” Burnham said.

“What does it cost for everybody to troop down to London every time there’s a meeting when you need to make an argument about something?” he continued.

“What does that cost? So actually, isn’t it better that we have a North Pole that balances the South Pole of our country, where power will always be concentrated?”

Other government buildings recently featured on Dezeen include Nordic Office of Architecture’s “open yet secure” New Government Quarter in Oslo and Shalom Baranes’s plans for the White House ballroom.

The render is courtesy of the Government Property Agency. 

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