Circle Forward: Building a circular culture for Manchester and the North West
The value of revitalising existing buildings has been a long-held understanding in Manchester. The city’s rich history is reflected in its warehouses, mills and historic high streets which now show how character can be retained while buildings adapt to new needs. The next challenge is to turn this tradition of conservation and reinvention into a consistent approach to circular construction.
For the latest instalment of Cundall’s Circle Forward campaign, we brought together professionals and industry leaders from across Greater Manchester and the North West to explore where circularity is already appearing in practice and what is preventing it from becoming routine. The discussion demonstrated that the region does not lack ambition or valuable local initiatives. What is missing is the connected delivery system needed to translate these strengths into standard practice.
Conservation and conversion are circularity in practice, if planned for the long term
Manchester’s existing building stock gives the region a strong foundation for circularity. Conservation and circular economy both begin by understanding what is already present, protecting its value and extending its useful life. Participants shared examples of retained heritage fabric and reused materials, from pressed brick carefully kept on a listed-building project to reused structural beams and raised access flooring in retrofit schemes. The Underbanks in Stockport was highlighted as an example of incremental regeneration that preserves a high street’s identity while making vacant units attractive again.
However, conservation cannot mean freezing buildings in time. Existing buildings must keep meeting changing safety, accessibility and energy requirements, and any new use needs a credible long-term future rather than a short-lived intervention that simply delays vacancy.
Cost and capacity remain significant barriers. The 20% VAT rate applied to much residential retrofit in the UK continues to favour new construction over work to existing buildings. At the same time, local authorities and community organisations may receive funding or responsibility for underused assets without having the technical, commercial or asset-management knowledge needed to sustain them.
As one participant put it:
“There can be as much policy or regulation as you want, but it’s all about the capacity to deliver this, and that’s where a lot of this breaks down.”
Roundtable attendee
Planning must create the opportunity, not simply request the outcome
A clear theme from the roundtable was that circularity succeeds or fails long before materials reach site. When demolition is procured separately to provide the principal contractor with a cleared, risk-free site, the contractor and its supply chain lose the opportunity to identify what could be retained or reused.
“When you remove the risk, you also remove an opportunity.”
Roundtable attendee
Pre-refurbishment and pre-deconstruction audits can help change this sequence, but only when they are completed early enough to influence the brief, design, procurement strategy and intended destination of materials. An audit carried out shortly before demolition may satisfy a requirement without changing the outcome
The same principle applies to tender information. General aspirations will not deliver careful disassembly. Tender documents need to identify the materials to be retained, responsibilities for removal, the trades required, storage arrangements and evidence expectations. Otherwise, these activities may not be priced or programmed.
“If it’s not in the tender document that there needs to be careful strip out, there won’t be careful strip out”
Roundtable attendee
Planning therefore needs to create the conditions for circularity, not simply request a circular outcome once the key decisions have already been made.
Early collaboration closes the gap between ambition and delivery
Programme was repeatedly identified as a practical barrier. A six-week fit-out with only two weeks before strip out leaves little chance to source reused products, whereas one project engaged its contractor and ten key subcontractors about a year before construction, giving time to source materials and build confidence.
Early collaboration also allows warranties and compliance to be handled proportionately; clients may not need a full warranty for low-risk items such as ceiling tiles.
Commitments also need clear ownership: ambitions can dilute as they pass from ESG teams to project managers, contractors and site teams, so they must be written into briefs, appointments and tenders.
Better case studies could help build confidence, but they must share more than polished photographs. As one participant explained:
“I want to know what procurement routes you went down. I want to know where you transported things to, where you stored things. I want to know the detail.”
Roundtable attendee
From local initiatives to a connected regional system
Greater Manchester already has valuable circular activity, from the Renew Hub to repair networks and community organisations supporting charities, training and local jobs. The challenge is connecting this capacity with commercial demand: a community group may refurbish a few chairs, while an office project may need 70. Manchester Central Library showed the commercial case: around 30 chairs that could have been replaced at about £1,500 each were reupholstered for roughly half the cost.
Participants also felt that the growing number of material platforms is creating confusion, with the same products appearing across several platforms. They called for a single point of access, effectively a “Skyscanner” for materials, backed by physical places to inspect products and enough storage to bridge supply and demand.
A circular economy partnership for Greater Manchester, drawing lessons from ReLondon, could help coordinate this activity. Bringing developers together with anchor institutions such as universities and the NHS could align priorities, connect forthcoming demand with available products and strengthen social-value outcomes.
What needs to change by 2030
Unlike other UK cities, Manchester aims to make these changes by 2028. Circularity needs to be embedded at project inception, not added after design, programme and procurement are set. That means asking first how an existing building can be retained, completing audits early enough to influence decisions, and giving contractors and supply chains time to find workable solutions.
The transition does not need to wait for perfect policy. Clients can trial one or two circular products per project, developers can use a single floor or show suite to demonstrate reuse, landlords can embed circular fit-out requirements in tenancy documents, and teams can monitor actual reuse rather than only waste diverted from landfill.
The roundtable showed that Manchester and the North West do not need to invent a circular identity from scratch: the region’s history of conserving, converting and reinventing buildings is the foundation. The opportunity is to connect that instinct with earlier decisions, stronger procurement, delivery capacity and a commercial-scale reuse market.
Circle Forward will now continue to Birmingham, where the lessons from Greater Manchester will be tested against another region’s experiences. The insights from the regional roundtables will ultimately contribute to a wider UK white paper, helping distinguish local priorities from the changes needed nationally to make circular construction standard practice
