“An atmosphere of sinister intent” is the perfect description of Piccadilly Gardens.

Selling of a third for that goddawful office building was illegal. The next design plan must involve razing it to the ground and building a real flower garden over it

Knock down that ghastly concrete wall, there is no need for a Maginot Line fortress in the centre of Manchester. The city council should be hanging their heads in shame. But of course, as we all know, shame has been abolished in the UK as Matt Hancock has shown.

Thanks for that. I remember the gardens from both the 1950s and 60s. I worked in a shop on the corner of High Street and Market street and often we'd get a sandwich for lunch from Pauldens and eat it in the gardens. It's a tragedy what has happened and that hideous building too that's robbed the space. Shameful of the Council for letting this happen. 🤬

I remember a few years back on my way home from work, a circle of people surrounding a woman beating another one unconscious, all of them recording on their phones. I pushed through the crowd to break it up, then was surrounded by about ten crackheads threatening to kill me. Mancunian pride is an attempt of clinging to nostalgia, when in reality the place is a cess pit and has been for a long time

The first time I went to Manchester city centre, I saw a lot of signs for Picadilly Gardens and decided to check it out, expecting either a grand plaza or a well-tended set of lawns and flower-beds. I distinctly remember arriving and thinking "Seriously, is this it?!" I actually walked around several of the surrounding streets thinking I was in the wrong place.

I went to Manchester when I visited the uk and I saw Piccadilly gardens and thought it was a construction site for a new business park or something, that was 3 years ago.

Thanks Ollie for your latest work - As I went to Manchester a week ago and stayed in a hotel near by I can say I felt that Piccadilly Gardens is a dump whilst the town hall is being renovated as we speak. I think that the city council should make the gardens more appealing! Overwise I think Manchester is a vibrant city and has a lot going for it. I prefer it more than London and I will keep on visiting it on a regular basis!

So glad it's not just me that thought this was horrible space. Even just walking from one side to another is a logistical nightmare, and it does feel very dodgy and unsafe at night.

I used to walk through Piccadilly gardens in 1960/70’s going to work, it was beautiful, all the flower beds, plenty of benches to sit on, and the water feature in the centre. We would offer spend our lunch break there in the nice weather. They have ruined it.

Thank you for this. On my visits to Manchester, I walked through Piccadilly Gardens many times on my way to the city once I had arrived from the station, not realising that I was doing so. On reflection, I often wondered why the city seemed so unimpressive to me. I heard about Piccadilly Gardens and thought that I must be missing something, and that on my next trip, I must find these gardens so that I can visit and spend a little time there. I never realised that that crappy little patch of land that I passed through without a second thought all those times was actually Piccadilly Gardens. There's absolutely nothing appealing about it. I can't believe that this is the best public space Manchester has to offer. I'm even a Man Utd fan, but I much prefer visiting Liverpool. Piccadilly Gardens is atrocious.

I feel like phrase 'but then the city council sold the land to private developers' can describe every problem with the built environment in Manchester today

its ironic that picadilly gardens has sod all plants that benifit bees its mascot .

Nowadays picadilly gardens is just a space you walk briskly through to get to the decent areas around it

Oh. We were here, but I don't think I realised it was supposed to be the central city square. Just seemed like more of a transitionary void space that we passed though on the way to the trams

When we lived in Salford in the 1950s and early 60s, every shopping trip "into town" and up Market Street would, if the weather was decent, involve "having a sit down", on one of the benches around the central square around the fountain in Picaddily Gardens. It was clean, safe, no drunks slobbing out there (junkies were unknown). The flowerbeds were glorious and immaculately kept. People there were all decent locals who belonged there. Manchester is a sad and depressing alien dump now.

Piccadilly Gardens has been awful since at least 1983 (when I was 15). It was, and still is, a place that you do not really want to hang around. Some 39 years later and yes, it is very embarrassing. If the land was gifted to the City why were those awful offices built? The containers are also dreadful. I have visited many lovely French and Spanish city centre gardens/squares - come on Manchester City Council - sort it out.

It's a disgusting embarrassment. It's like a third world dump. It was from a time when we were civilised. People used to go and sit there at lunchtime or have a rest from shopping. The council are too stingy to to plant a few trees, grass and flowers, to make a tranquil space. They'd rather build stadiums. Enough said! 🙈🤬

You're right. I was student in Manchester in the '70's and thought the sunken gardens were beautiful. I couldn't believe what had become of them. The present 'gardens' are a disgrace. Is no one held accountable?

Left Manchester in 89 back then Piccadilly Gardens was, well a garden. Came back to Manchester in 2019 and PG is now a Sh*thole! well done MCC

Well said! It's awful, and it wasn't much better when I was a student in Manchester in 1970. But at least then, there was less traffic and less space was devoted to roads. The rot set in when the Piccadilly hotel was built - an uglier structure cannot be imagined!

Piccadilly Gardens is the perfect indicator of modern Britain. We simply do not organise our cities around liveability, civic collectivism, or any kind of artistic principle. Much like ourselves the public spaces we do have are devoid of culture or any specific identity, and feel more concerned with money than anything else. What could have been a large open space where citizens decide what they want to make out of it has been chipped away by engineers and developers who are only capable of looking at their own rational interest (be that traffic/bus/tram movement, or rental income etc), rather than seeing the value of the space as a whole and as part of Manchester - something the council have also clearly failed to do. It makes sense that Piccadilly Gardens is so degraded when pretty much every street in central Manchester feels the same. The uplift in wealth the city has seen does not extend beyond some of the glitzy new offices and pay-to-enjoy spaces. The public realm looks like something you might see in Kazakhstan after a few particularly harsh winters, not in the middle of one of Europe's biggest cities. Perhaps as the first industrial nation (and city) - the UK, and Manchester is a sign of things to come for other places, but more plausible is that cities never developed in the British psyche as places for living - the raison d'etre of Manchester, starting in the industrial revolution, was economic output and nothing else. I think that mindset still permeates British society. We still often think of the big cities as places where jobs are and money is, but places that only exist for creating or spending money - we retreat to our dormitory monofunctional suburbs at the end of the day, with such places sprawling around Greater Manchester like some invasive disease. Even with all the new housing growth in Manchester's city centre, this feels more like a statistic that planners and developers like to brag about, but nobody wants to accept the fact that there is a growing view among the public that they don't want this horrible cocktail of American suburbanisation and British economic decline, and thus the need to radically shift the way we think of our cities, more towards how they are perceived in Spain or France or Germany, goes almost unnoticed by policymakers and councils.

It's an utter embarrassment to the city and has been since I was last there in the early 2000's - the fountains never worked, drug dealers are everywhere, its unsafe for women to walk through at night, there are too many blind spots/hiding spaces and the stink of piss and weed permeates the air. In the day you just get nutcases out of their heads on spice rambling at you. Not that the rest of Manchester is that much different but Picadilly Gardens really amps up the shittiness factor to 100. Liverpool is a fantastic example of how to make open spaces feel safe and inviting.

I worked in Piccadilly in the 80s. I remember the sunken gardens well. During the summer the embankments were full of people.

Lets face it - they made it worse. The amount of overpriced high rise flats is ridiculous - they have out priced the people of the city and for what ? Piccadilly gardens is just a hole, it’s rough as hell and after 9pm it’s just awful. It’s such a shame.

The gardens used to be nice, and now they're just an embarrassment. Spend any time in Piccadilly and you'll witness people shitting in the street in broad daylight (that's why they have the signs). The council put up the fences to stop people walking on the grass because it gets dangerous with all the needles stuck into it, it's nothing to do with protecting the grass. I never go into town any more, it's like something out of a Dickens novel, only with spice heads.

It's been totally ruined now with those shipping containers 👎

Piccadilly Gardens even in the sixties was the pits. I used to drink in a bar there. I left early one Friday because I thought something nasty was about to happen. It did. A man was murdered. I was attacked in the gents of a pub there and battered my assailant into a cubicle door. One of my mates was mugged in the public toilet in the square. After dark it was a bad place to be. The council has done apparently little or nothing to improve it since.

Very interesting and completely agree with everything you say about the poor design of the gardens and buildings... being a landscape architect who did my degree in the city. The gardens have long been the hot topic for my profession... Lets be honest the gardens have always had issues with drug taking, drunks and crime long before the design we have today. It's a space used by a vasts amount of people for very different reasons making it challenging to create a design that ticks all the boxes (not justifying the concrete wall nor protecting the grass). In my opinion its an utter disgrace the way it is today the council and designers have let the city down. Poor design, poor usage, non functional and unsafe. Based on where we have ended up today is going back to high end designers the right way forward, should there be a design competition opened to local firms done by designers who know the city and how the space is used?

As someone who works in the office on Piccadilly Gardens, I can confirm -- It is the worst public space in the world.

I love how there's a crazy amount of homeless in Manchester and the council is more inclined to clean, protect and pay for its giant concrete wall!

I used to live around there 30 years ago, always been a dump full of druggies...for so many people arriving for the first time it is their first sight of Manchester, a terrible First impression.

It was made more of a shambles when that latter office block was built there, Ollie. Being not too big to start with didn't help matters, and I never realised that it looks like it does today, but thanks to your video here, I can see that it looks an eyesore. You've highlighted this problem very well, and something needs to be done quickly, to at least bring it back to some sort of glory again.

I have worked in both City Tower and the newer building built over the old gardens - my lunch breaks were spent dodging drug dealers and mud while looking over the mess the authorities have made of what should be the city's main square. That was 10 years ago - if anything, it has actually got worse in the intervening years! I visited Nottingham a couple of years ago and came across the splendid Old Market Square. With its tram line, well-placed trees and shrubs, water features and open space, it is precisely what Piccadilly Gardens could and should look like. I'm not sure a return to the previous sunken gardens would work given the ever-present crime and safety issues, so a big open plaza with ample seating and some thoughtfully placed greenery among the concrete as they have in Nottingham would work well in Manchester. I suggest MCC take a trip down to the East Midlands to find out what a proper city square looks and feels like!

I recall the original gardens, always flowers everywhere. It was a nice place to sit and take a break. Ruined now.

Me and my partner visited Manchester this year while travelling and found ourselves here, we couldn't figure out what the hell the council was thinking.

Possible solution. 1. Knock down the ugly red office block 2. Knock down Berlin Wall. 3. Tram and bus station underground 4. All open space should be green with some trees 5. Remove water feature and have 1 decent fountain in the middle. 6. No shops/businesses on this land 7. (Bonus) knock down Piccadilly plaza. Less is more

The fountains haven't been there for ages, they never took down the bloody Christmas matkets.

Lot of things Manchester Council does well but not this. It might be the result of a lack of cash. Not many people realise how local government, especially in the North, has been starved of resources. The effing Tories abolished the Standard Spending Assessment which ensured councils received money commensurate with needs.

Anyone remember the 70s when all public grassed areas had a 'PLEASE KEEP OFF THE GRASS' sign?

Most British cities were trashed in the 1960’s and 70’s and many have never really recovered. Cheap bland buildings from that era have often been replaced with more banality. Trees? What are they? Pathetic really,

Lived in Manchester for a year and loved the place. From my experience Piccadilly gardens was a gathering point for the homeless/mentally ill and people up to no good, it's sad to see really

I remember Piccadilly Gardens from a long time ago and would not have recognised them from this. I remember sloping sides with flowers in the middle and benches all the way around. It was a nice place to relax especially if your train had been delayed or you had just got off a rail replacement service.

Back in the 70s and 80s when the sunken gardens still existed it was still a place with a bit of an edge. The public toilets were used by drug addicts, and I seem to remember a mobile needle exchange. The homeless would be asleep in the flowerbeds. However, this was not the whole story. Because wardens patrolled the park, it was possible for all humankind to use it as they wanted. The toilets weren't a no-go area simply because somebody may be shooting up in the next cubicle. As a teenager, me and my friends would often have picnics there, it was amazing how the bus fumes didn't penetrate this little oasis. Public spaces are for the public and need wardens. I have been living in Bucharest for years now and we are blessed with many parks and squares (one of which made it to your video). The key thing is the wardens. They mean the parks are open to all, clean and a real lung for this city which has particularly poor air quality. I feel sorry for Manchester, for all its history and attitude, it is in danger of being designed into oblivion by trendies with no sense of civic pride.

Walked through Piccadilly Gardens twice going back and forth from Victoria to Piccadilly at abt 6pm (for some reason, a valid one, I promise), and it's Christmas season, so the music was loud, but there were fences everywhere around everywhere in everywhere. Don't remember much from that walk except "Get the heck out of there, and get the heck out of there fast".

Excellent and sensible assessment of a deplorable lack of vision. Especially selling off a portion of the 'gardens' for that yawn of an office block, taking away the possibility making the entire area an enjoyable public open space.

It is an awful place where there is a lot of crime too. Drug dealing, two of my friends (on separate occasions) have been attacked and mugged there. It's most definitely the worst part of the city centre and if you're getting a bus or tram there, you have to be around it. I think people have just accepted it rather than anything else at all. A lot of people are too self involved to notice what's going on around them.

Absolutely spot on! The fact that the authorities love that eyesore of a concrete wall just shows how inept they are and why it will always be a dump. I’m sad to say it’s just an illustration of how unwelcoming Town is as a whole these days. There’s nothing that makes me want to jump on a tram and spend time there. !

Well said. Oh! How I remember in 1967 meeting up with my first girlfriend in the old sunken gardens and then off to Rowntrees disco at Spring Gardens. The square was a superb meeting place then.Thanks for bringing back the memories.

I moved to live in the city some years ago and hated living there and couldn't work out why. I think I finally understand after watching this.

Absolutely terrible for at least 20 years. Get rid of the whetherspoons and that Piccadilly pub.

Piccadilly Non Gardens - you have given it the perfect name.

Hands down probably the worst place in the City Centre. I even avoid getting off the trams there even if it's the closer stop to where I am going, just to avoid passing from there.

Why would anyone want to gather in this mess of a city. I'm ashamed to be from this place. the city centre has gone to crap.

Having the word gardens associated with piccadilly is like having your window box in Salford referred to as rainforest

I feel your pain! As a garden, it is an epic fail: as a functional public open space, it ignores the basic principles of landscape design. That ill-conceived and out-of-scale 'water- feature'; the flat, featureless expanse of manicured grass- not only lack any sort of visual harmony, but are high maintenance and cost-ineffective. As for the intimidating barriers and blockades, small mercy the city planners stopped short of installing iron gates sporting the slogan 'Work Makes You Free', to complete their vision. A complete reboot is out d the question in the current economic situation: the only realistic option is, as you suggest, to plant some fucking trees.

Decades of dire planning in many British cities have left them trailing behind most mainland European cities in terms of civic pride and overall quality of life. There's little 'aesthetic' or importance of the need for proper large open spaces within cities in the UK, that aren't parks (ie. Squares). This attitude still exists today. Postwar planners had a chance to rectify this and improve their cities......but nearly all of them blew it spectacularly, in cities up and down the UK. London faired better, but even London still has some atrocious planning from the 60's and 70's which doesn't properly utilize the space in which it occupies. I fear that we are repeating the mistakes we made 50 and 60 years ago. It's almost as if we've learnt nothing from the past.

As someone who moved to Australia 40 years ago yet still feels more that NW England is home, that cramped space with broken concrete reminded me of my youth. You are absolutely right - so much missed opportunity. I still come back every August and Manchester terminal 3 is just the sodding same :) It's so bad it makes me smile because it feels 'homely' - sitting on the lino floor because there are twice as many people than seats and drinking beer from a plastic glass. Just as well the locals have such a sense of humour and joke about it. It's endearing.

Never knew about the hospital and asylum buildings, what a shame they were removed :( What a great video though! I've walked through there so often and never knew about the history.

The O.G gardens were beautiful. A shared space with flowers and grass and loads of seating. The place now is about the worst place I can think of in Manchester and that is quite the accolade. We're paying the price of Bernstein & Leese's Blairite drive to give public goods to private organisations to exploit as they see fit. We need to reclaim the idea of the commons and kick out profiteering developers from how we plan, build and maintain our city.

Fantastic video! You have such a valuable insight on our local history. I knew it used to look much more beautiful and inviting, but didn't know so much of its space had been chipped away over the years - so short-sighted in respect of the office/retail building.

Old enough to remember the old sunken Picc. Gdns - and without the rose-tinted nostalgia. Rather like how decent enough council tower blocks end up being treated really badly by some residents and 'visitors' and turning into no-go areas, the problem with Picc. Gdns is that it's been taken over by unsavoury types (as Charlie Veitch video will show).

I’m strangely gratified to see there is a city council even more inept than Dublin City Council at designing and maintaining public spaces. It’s quite a feat.

Its a complete tip now. Looks like railway sidings with all those trashy shipping containers

I'll always defend Manchester and some parts of it can be really beautiful, but my god Piccadilly Gardens and the surrounding area is absolutely what hell looks/feels like. It feels SO unsafe, dirty and straight up ugly. I'll never understand how they actually managed to spend money on it in recent years and it still looks atrocious? I live in a leafy suburb now and generally avoid Pic like the plague whenever I have to go into town.

I had my first visit to Manchester a few months ago, couldn't get away from piccadilly gardens fast enough

nothing quite so strong as a Mancunian's hate for Piccadilly Gardens

Thanks for making & sharing this video. I sure hope someone from the Council sees this and it gets to the higher-ups

You've pretty much nailed it regarding Piccadilly Gardens. It is an embarrassment to our city. You offer your apologies to the architects, well I reckon it's they who should be apologising. As for our tribute act to the Berlin Wall, well I struggle to think of anything to describe it that's not obscene or offensive. (Oh, and Berlin got rid of theirs apart from a reminder.) So many other parts of our city have been improved, it's difficult to reason why Piccadilly shouldn't be the same. BUT, you only touched on the real reason. The utter dregs, flotsam and jetsam of humanity who loiter around it at any given time. Everyone else is just passing through, and who can blame them. The drugged-up, pissed, unstable, violent morons are the main reason why it's a ****hole.

Middlesbrough used to have a beautiful park in its centre it had rose and flower gardens a Victorian bandstand lovely old trees now it's just a wasteland of grass and concrete 😔

Congratulations Manchester on building your own Berlin wall, for some reason.

It's a very uncomfortable area. There is a lot of crime and I think it's architecture influences it. Back in 2019 the council said they would do something but as usual they were half arsed and did nothing. The gardens are a city wide shame, they could be a pinnicle of the centre instead they are something to avoid.

Every time I go to Piccadilly Gardens it gets worse and more ugly and dirty :( very sad

I barely recognise Manchester and I've lived here all my life. I doubt you could pay me enough to go to the city centre, day or night.

It's a complete fecking embarrassment to the city.

Piccadilly gardens also feels very unsafe

Whenever I'm in Manchester I give Piccadilly Gardens a wide berth, the whole area is genuinely depressing, and that's before the smackheads turn up. It's not just the garden part that's ugly, so are ALL the surrounding buildings, they're filthy and the businesses that occupy them are all bottom end of the bottem end. Piccadilly Hotel might look half decent if it was cleaned up and given a minor modern facelift, but you know that just isn't ever going to happen.

Couldn't agree with you more Ollie. Piccadilly Gardens has been a shithole for more than 30 years. I remember it back towards the end of the 80's and it wasn't a place you'd want to hang out even then. To be honest, it would have been better to pull down Piccadilly Plaza and Sunley Tower (or whatever it's called now) and put the Bus/Tram Interchange in its place. That way all the shitty shops would be gone, a better Interchange could be built and the full space for the gardens would be left, minus the new red/orange/brown monstrosity designed on the back of the napkin. Manchester has always been my spiritual home but the "gardens" do, as you say, need some f**king trees! 😂😂

Manchester is a great city and on a sunny day the Gardens would make the perfect focal point. What a shame their potential is being wasted.

Friggin' horrible.Like all over Europe: erase the past and replace it with modernity.In the near future the youngsters won't know anything else any longer, except for some old pictures.

I wouldn't say crossing the tram lines is unfriendly or dangerous particularly. They let you know and barely move faster than walking pace. Much rather have them than either more buses or cars, but then I'm the type that thinks Oxford Road should be completely replaced with trams and bike lanes, no cars whatsoever so that might be my bias talking

I remember Piccadilly Gardens when it was the sunken gardens, a really nice place to sit and watch life go by. My Grandfather and I used to sit on the benches on a nice day, while my Grandmother went shopping at Lewis's (now Primark), Debenhams and what was then Woolworth's. The other thing was that the Bus Station was covered from the weather all along its length, now there are just bus stops, with shelters that can only fit 3-4 people, so when it rains a group can't fit under a bus stop shelter and get soaked depending on the direction of the wind driving the rain. It really could have done with one of those new bus stations that are in Hyde, Ashton, Oldham and currently being built in Stockport, all covered, out of the elements. As for the actual "Gardens", it was a place I enjoyed visiting and sitting when a child, but now avoid, even purposely going around the outside of the area as it is a dump.

I moved to the UK 2 years ago from Sweden and when I got to Manchester I remember thinking, where is the garden?

It's a dump. It was designed by a soviet architect in 1972, only its 2022.

I did always wonder why it was called Piccadilly Gardens

I've been saying this for years. Manchester City Centre just gets worse and worse. Ugly tower blocks everywhere now. I can't wait to get away. First thing they should do is to put the old gardens back. Personally I do all my shopping in Chester these days as it's much more attractive. Liverpool is slowly being ruined too.

Tbf, every road and every pavement in town is an absolute shitshow. Fck knows where our road taxes go. If it's been raining you really have to know which paving flags to stand on and which to avoid, as you're gna end up with freezing brown water flying up your leg and all over your shoes.

My solution for Picadilly is 1. Plant trees and some flowers, 2. Minimise grass 3. Add two well-lit statues 4. One tastefully small fountain. 5. Done.

It truly is the most tragic square. And to boot, most of it is privatised with those crap containers. Embarrassing to cordon off such limited public space.

I'm a Manc too. I used to go into the City centre for all sorts of things, nowadays it is only for the most dire emergency.

Why does it feel like every local counsel in the world hates the area they’re in.

Dedicate tp Manchester: " Where have all the flowers" the song is so apt.

Honestly it irritataes me that the main focus of Manchester is just yet another big brand restaurant or bar when the city needs money spending on the roads or the trains or even just planting plants to plants that help biodiversity

The architects must've got their inspiration from a North Korean labour camp.

Been a few years since I went there. Looking at what they doing again it will probably be a few years more before/if I visit that horrible place. The German blitz didn't do as much damage to this country as the town planners have since 1945.

What is there just now is a total dump! It used to be nice place to stop and have your lunch. Manchester has been losing its soul. It is an embarrasment.

I hate the trend of modernist architecture to just add a bunch of weird abstract shapes onto a flat box. No sense of symmetry or form or even function. Just a simple shape that can be sold to the highest bidder for whatever purpose they require. It feels like living on a movie studio backlot surrounded by a bunch of grey, boxy soundstages, but instead of going inside to be greeted with some fantastical world, it's just another TK Maxx, that looks exactly the same as all of the other TK Maxxes you've been to. Nothing visually inspiring or exciting - just a box with some shapes.

This was a much needed video amazing! I will definitely be sharing this ! We need people to push the council for change we need nature not bad architects is depressing and full of crime far to dangerous to go to at night

One of your VERY BEST! Hilarious and informative. I remember the old sunken gardens... they were nice to look at, but potentially dangerous, but instead of tackling the dangers they tore them down. And the Berlin Wall is hideous! Great vid!

It is a dump and I give it a wide berth. I genuinely feel in danger walking through it, even in broad daylight. I once saw a young student type (he looked foreign, Nordic maybe) sat having a coffee, minding his own business and some of Manchester's (or Salford's) finest young scrotes started taunting him and throwing stuff at him. This was about 1 in the afternoon. It is the magnet for gang of scrotes, drug dealers and loiterers. Avoid.