Eccles town centre is an empty shell of its former self

What comes next for Eccles town centre after Salford Council put in a bid for £20m Levelling Up Funds but got rejected?

These days, Eccles is a mere empty shell of its former self, rendered unrecognisable to anyone who hasn’t visited it in a long while. The once bustling, lively hangout for residents had plenty to offer, and local businesses thrived. It had cinemas, markets, quality retail shops (Clarks’ and Woolworths), cafes, butchers, grocers and a popular pub crawl partaken by many revellers.

In its hey day, you could sit inside Mario’s cafe for a decent plate of chippy chips and gravy with lashings of salt and vinegar, get some bargain cuts of fish on the market or skilfully knitted baby clothes, a quarter of pear drops at the indoor market, or even take the kids to Bare Necessities to spend their pocket money on a packet of bangers to throw at your feet and annoy you on the walk home.

The Star was the favoured haunt for United fans, and where families would meet on Christmas and swill down a few pints before their turkey dinner was served — but that’s long gone and has now been converted into more…flats.

A working class area famous for Eccles Cakes, it’s fair to say that Eccles has become a ghost town these days, but if you dig deep enough you may discover some remnants of its former glory.

The face of the town started to change when the old markets and bus depot were replaced with a new Morrison’s supermarket, carpark and modernised bus interchange — which opened after the turn of the century. Residents were sad to lose their market stalls but peoples’ shopping habits were changing and the nearby Trafford Centre was swallowing it up like a blackhole.

Locals and business owners also blame a lot of the district’s decline on rising rent costs for shop units within the precinct while it was owned by private company Columbia Threadneedle Properties. They say it was was left for disrepair, forcing traders out.

On Christmas Eve 2022, Salford Council announced that they had purchased Eccles Precinct off the private property firm for £4.15m with the intention to eventually regenerate it, and this was their Christmas present back to the community. The council also put in a bid for £20m of the government’s Levelling Up Funds, which it was hoping to use to help breathe new life back into the area. However, the bid was rejected.

Walking around the town I once knew so well, and searching for someone to talk to, I came across more pigeons than people — and too many closed shutters to count — on a sunny weekday in the early afternoon. When the old markets were taken down over two decades ago, stall holders were given a small space under shelter, in a quiet corner on the back end of the precinct. 

Upon entering it, there were only a handful of places open for business – a scented candle stall, a knitting stall, a sewing and mending stall, and a cafe area – and even they were looking to close-up early due to the lack of footfall. The traders were friendly and still had a typical sense of humour about them — the kind you only come across up North — but you could tell that there was a sadness.

Wendy Vickers, 57, only took over her knitting unit recently because her mum had passed away suddenly. She believes the empty shopping centre is down to high rental prices, as she put it: “This unit here, my mum had for 20 years. This actual unit (she also had a set-up in the old markets before that).

“But she passed away quite suddenly, so I gave my job up and I’m here now. I used to walk through that precinct when my mum was working, and now I look at where all the shops were, there’s nothing.

“The reason there’s nothing open, is because of the rents they’re charging. People can’t afford the rents out there. Why would anybody come to Eccles when there’s nothing to even look at? Eccles used to be lovely. It’s not what it used to be.”

Her friend Yvonne Thompson, 57, who owns the scented candles and home fragrance stall agreed with Wendy. She said: “It’s like that because the council didn’t used to own the mall. It was owned by a private company and they didn’t want to do repairs or anything.”

The two women seemed unsure if they would have a future trading in the town and as I was departing, they added: “We seem to be a forgotten entity in here.”

Walking through the square, you can hear the distant drilling and construction sounds of high rise apartment blocks being built at the top of Church Street. It’s noisy but the area itself is dead, like an abandoned soap opera set. There’s a small wooden hut set up next to Wilko’s selling hot drinks.

A local lady also called Yvonne runs it, and she looks after her customers so well, with a very caring, nurturing and helpful disposition. Yvonne takes her customers out on field trips to Blackpool, and even holds weekly bingo days for them. I talk to her customers while she helps a man who has been made homeless, and speaks little English, to a local office for help.

Huddled around a table are four women who meet regularly to chat, joke and ‘put the world to rights’. They are: Pauline O’ Connor, Linda Keefe, Veronica Blore and Tina Hassan.

About the decline of their area and missing out on the Levelling Up Funding, Tina told me: “Look at the state of it. I am surprised [we didn’t get it], and I’m disgusted. If it wasn’t for Yvonne, we’d have nothing. There’s nothing. 

“Monton looks a completely different town to us, and it’s not. It’s run by the same council, so why have favouritism? How can they let something go like this?”

Linda said: “It has gone downhill. We’ve lost everything.” Veronica added: “It’s been neglected for years. There’s no benches, no bins, no flowers, nothing.”

I told them Salford Council had bought the precinct with plans to regenerate it, with or without the funding. They didn’t seem convinced, and almost in unity they said: “Let’s see what happens. We hope they make a better job of it than what it is now!”

Responding to the funding rejection, Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett said: “We are very disappointed that this project, which would rejuvenate a high street in one of the most deprived areas of the country has failed to achieve any Levelling Up Funding.

“To my mind, this project was the perfect example of a Levelling Up project and I will be intrigued to see which other projects in which other areas of the country did receive funding instead.”

The mayor’s response comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was slammed late last year for boasting about removing money from ‘deprived urban areas’ and giving it to other wealthier towns across the UK.

BBC analysis of the Levelling Up funding found:

• 52% of successful bids that can be allocated to a party were in Conservative constituencies (the Conservatives won 56% of seats in the Commons in 2019)
• 24% of them were in Labour areas (Labour won 31% of the seats in 2019)
• Projects in Tory constituencies were awarded a total of £1.21bn, compared with £471m in Labour ones.
• There was one successful bid in a Lib Dem constituency, seven for the SNP, five for the DUP, three for Sinn Fein, and one each for the Alliance Party and Plaid Cymru.

Areas have also been competing for money under the government’s Towns Fund. In that contest, of the 56 constituencies that won, 47 had Conservative MPs.

But, Eccles Labour Councillor Mike McCusker, Lead Member for Planning and Sustainable Development, seemed pretty positive about the future.

He said despite the set back, the council will still go ahead with regenerating the area because it ‘deserved it’ and it has a ‘rich history’ with a lot to offer. He spoke of ideas to incorporate local businesses, student pop-up shops, market stalls, green spaces and of course, some housing too  — though we are yet to see just how affordable it will be.

It seems that Eccles will get the opportunity to live again. Its future is hopeful, at least.