BBC Director-General launches Mediacity:UK in Salford

Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, attended an event in Salford last night to mark the signing of contracts for the corporation’s new facilities at Mediacity:UK. The BBC will be the anchor for Mediacity:UK, which is being developed on a 200-acre site owned by Peel Holdings at Salford Quays. The first phase of the scheme will contain 500,000 sq ft of space for the BBC, a 160,000 sq ft public piazza, 150,000 sq ft of offices, a hotel and residential space. Thompson revealed that he had been under pressure to scrap or scale down the plans to move the BBC to Greater Manchester when he became Director-General in May 2004. He said: “I was told ‘you don’t have to do it’. “But the proposition now is bigger than the vision we had three years ago. Salford came up with an idea that was bigger than we’d thought about.” The event was held at a former food manufacturing plant on the edge of Salford Quays, which has already been fitted out with TV production facilities and re-branded the Pie Factory. Mediacity:UK is expected to provide accommodation for more than 1,000 media-related businesses and is projected to create up to 15,000 jobs. The BBC will move five departments to the site in 2011, including Radio Five Live, BBC Sport and the BBC Children’s department. The scheme is being developed by a partnership between Peel Holdings, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, Central Salford Urban Regeneration Company and Salford City Council.