Andy Burnham’s permanent northern headquarters will be based at First Street in Manchester, rather than the huge digital campus planned for Ancoats, the Manchester Evening News can reveal.
The digital campus, on the site of the former Central Retail Park, had been widely expected to become the permanent location of the Prime Minister's northern outpost for No 10. However, the MEN now understands that First Street has been chosen instead as the location for the operation.
First Street's transformation and government presence
Sitting between the city's Civic Quarter and the Oxford Road Corridor, First Street has been transformed from an industrial site into a mixed-use neighbourhood of offices, culture, hotels and homes. First Street is home to HOME, the international arts centre which opened in 2015, and is one of the city’s most well-known cultural venues.
It is also increasingly becoming a home for the government. A new Government Property Agency hub at First Street is being occupied by civil servants from a number of Whitehall departments. Now, the MEN understands, the headquarters of Andy Burnham's No 10 North operation is also set to be based on First Street, though the exact building is not yet clear.
Background and previous expectations
The site of the former Central Retail Park was formerly the Gaythorn Gas Works, before the site was transformed. The public space is Tony Wilson Place and the surrounding streets commemorate Manchester figures including Jack Rosenthal and Isabella Banks. There is also a statue of Fredrich Engels there. It is also close to the site of the former Hotspur Press which was decimated by a massive fire in 2025.
In response to a question from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty in September, Permanent Secretary for the Cabinet, Sally Jameson, confirmed there were no plans to establish the No 10 North office within the Manchester Digital Campus stating: “early media speculation regarding the integration of No 10 North into this programme was incorrect.”
Purpose and current operations
No 10 North was established as part of Mr Burnham’s plans to put the North at the centre of national government after he became Prime Minister. The intention is for Manchester to become a permanent second centre of political power, with ministers, officials and others working from the city rather than the North being governed exclusively from Westminster.
The plan was designed to move some of the machinery of government itself out of Westminster. No 10 North forms part of the new Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, alongside the traditional Downing Street operation and core Cabinet Office functions.
It has been described as the “engine room of devolution and good growth in every postcode” and has transferred strategic responsibility for local economic growth and devolution policy into the operation. Mr Burnham has described it as a ‘situation room for growth’, where mayors and Whitehall ministers can sit around the same table, identify barriers to economic development and try to get decisions made more quickly.
Meanwhile, the digital campus site is a 5.5 acre brownfield plot in Ancoats, on the former Central Retail Park. Manchester City Council bought the land in 2017. It is expected to house over 8,000 civil servants and have 900,000 sq ft of purpose built office space. The target for the area to be completely operational is 2032 with main construction scheduled to begin next year.
Some estimates have suggested the cost of the digital campus could be over £300m. The cost and scale of the project led many to believe this new concentration of Whitehall in Manchester would be the obvious home for the PM’s northern operation. However, the long lead in time, with the groundwork only just beginning and six years and a General Election to wait, the MEN understands that a permanent home was needed more urgently.
The PM’s current No 10 North home is at Heron House, near Albert Square, which also houses the government spy agency GCHQ. In a research briefing note in early September the government stated explicitly that No 10 North currently operates from Heron House, but is expected to relocate to the Manchester Digital Campus. However, that information was directly contradicted less than three weeks later by MP Sally Jameson in a written answer. The suitability of Heron House for No 10 North has been repeatedly questioned with police costs relating to maintaining security there thought to be significant.
