Property and Regeneration: How important is the Public Realm to Manchester City Centre?

Stephen is a real estate and projects lawyer with 20 years’ experience in structuring and delivering large and complex public/private regeneration and development projects.  He specialises in advising Universities, Local Authorities, Housing organisations and other public sector bodies, and advises on the complex range of issues that affect large scale real estate and development schemes.

Described by Legal 500 as “intellectual and entrepreneurial”, Stephen’s role is to bring together multi-disciplinary teams in a way that is insightful and energetic.  He works collaboratively with a project management approach, linking and co-ordinating a wide range of legal and commercial services to ensure that risks are managed and outcomes achieved.  Managing the interfaces with the varied commercial, educational and social objectives of the client, its advisers and stakeholders form a key part of his role. Stephen was recently elected as an honorary Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and believes that success depends upon commercial understanding, coupled with a solution-orientated, collaborative and flexible approach.

Stephen Hodder has been in practice since 1983 and in 1992 formed Hodder Associates which won the Royal Fine Art Commission / Sunday Times Building of the Year Award for Colne Swimming Pool in Lancashire later that year. In 1996 Hodder Associates received the most important award in British Architecture for a single building, the inaugural Stirling Prize for Architecture for the Centenary Building, University of Salford. The Practice has now won over forty major awards.

Professionally, Stephen has been President of the Manchester Society of Architects, RIBA North West Region Chairman, and a member of the RIBA Awards committee.  He was awarded an MBE for services to architecture in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, 1998. He received an honorary doctorate in 2006 from the Manchester Metropolitan University for his regional, national and international contribution to architecture and won the Roses Design Award of ‘Architect of the Year’ in the same year. Stephen received an honorary fellowship from the University of Central Lancashire in 2013.

Mike is a Director of Arup and leads Arup’s Manchester office.  Mike’s work for his clients focusses on city infrastructure and includes major regeneration schemes such as Manchester’s Northern Gateway and Liverpool Festival Gardens.  Mike also led the team that wrote the GM Strategic Infrastructure Framework.

Mike has had a long interest in Climate Change and in 2010 led the team that produced Greater Manchester’s first Sustainable Energy Action Plan.  Last year Mike was appointed as Chair of the Manchester Climate Change Partnership, which brings together organisations in Manchester, including the City Council, to drive climate action and meet the objectives of the Manchester Climate Change Framework 2020 to 2025.   Mike is also a Northern Powerhouse Export Champion for the DTI and is Board Member of the North West Business Leadership Team.

Ian is Head of Residential Growth in the City Council. Prior to this he was Deputy Chief Executive (Regeneration) of the New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company and prior to this the Director of the Manchester Salford Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder. He has over 25 years’ experience of working in the fields of housing and regeneration.