A smart ecological urban corridor for the Manchester Ship Canal

The paper examines the possibilities of developing a smart ecological urban corridor straddling the 36 miles long Manchester Ship Canal (MSC). Set within the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire (where the first planned industrial estate exists), the area is characterized by river and Canal settlements and centuries-old agricultural patterns that persist today. The MSC played a significant role during the industrial revolution. More recently the development of Media City UK at one end provides a smart typology that could expand along the length of the Canal to provide a contemporary new smart urban corridor. This paper examines a number of ecological scenarios that could create smart networks in different parts of the Canal with its overlapping industrial estates, farms, villages, business parks, and ports. Utilising a Delphi Technique, a series of cross-boundary multi-disciplinary meetings and workshops with key experts, partners from City Councils, key developers, industry partners and landowners were designed to identify consensus on potential future scenarios for the MSC. The research utilised a new multi-disciplinary participatory workshop approach to develop a number of ecologically based scenarios; a blue-sky approach was used in the workshops underpinned by data analysis of a number of pre-determined catalysts for the MSC.