Our downtown has gone from a shopper’s paradise that’s hosted showbiz stars to a ‘p****hole’…it’s a concrete desert

A CITY CENTER has sunk into a concrete wasteland decades after its star-studded heyday.

The Wythenshawe Civic Centre, just a few miles south of Manchester, was once a busy shopping district.

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It was a favorite haunt of A-list celebrities including singers Dusty Springfield and Roy Orbison.

But the years of decline since it opened in 1963 has seen the town degenerate into a mecca of betting shops and cheap pound shops.

The embattled town center is now the focus of a £20m leveling scheme that could see the construction of a new public square, cultural centre, food hall and 1,500 homes.

The plans come 20 years after the area was compared to Moscow’s Red Square amid mounting decline.

“WE HAVE THE BEST MARKET GO”

In the 1990s, Liberal Democrat activist Bill Fisher described the area as “a concrete wasteland that could win awards as Britain’s unfriendliest civic space”.

He added: “The civic center looks more like Eastern Europe under communism every day.”

Paul Goggins, MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East from 1997 until his death in January 2014, said the center “started to look shabby” in 1999.

He added: “For over 30 years Wythenshawe has developed well. But the economic and industrial decline that began in the 1960s hit the area hard.

“People started shopping differently, which made it very difficult to keep the small shopping parades going. The forum and civic center that were built in the 1960s started to look shabby.”

Shoppers Vera Bedford, 70, and Kate Bridgeman, 71, recall a time when “we had the best market.”

Now they say it “turned into an asshole”.

Paula Haigh, 61, told the Manchester Evening News the area was “deadly unkempt”.

She added: “I loved the outdoor market, which was here about 25 years ago. When they moved him indoors, things went downhill.”

The center of the post-war garden city, called the Civic Center, opened in the 1960s.

It was not until 1971 that a real building with a swimming pool, library, theater and conference rooms was opened.

STAR STARRED CENTER

It was packed with people, and the nearby Golden Garter cabaret club drew showbiz icons like Dusty Springfield and Roy Orbison to town.

The first star to perform after opening in 1968 was Bruce Forsyth.

Musician John Orchard previously said: “It was a big club with big names and it was in a community area in Wythenshawe.

“You had this bizarre situation where people like Roy Orbison showed up in a chauffeured car, played his set, and then went right out the back door.”

At the turn of the millennium, the unused Forum building was costing taxpayers £1.9m.

The city center was renovated between 1999 and 2002 – but that same year the renovations were completed and the Forum Theater closed.

The center was sold to a private developer in the early 2000s.

And the city’s steady decline has continued since, with betting, charity and pound shops taking over all retail space.

But now Manchester City Council wants to take control with ambitious plans to revitalize the shopping district.

It will create a “major new focal point for the local community in a new civic square that celebrates Wythenshawe’s roots as a garden city and develops open spaces for plants, trees and a boulevard-style public area”.

Models of what the city might look like after redevelopment show a modern and green neighborhood with a large glass-fronted shopping center.

Thousands of homes could also be built under the proposals.

The council’s offer of cash under the government’s leveling program was rejected in January.

Still, it has vowed to remain “fully committed” to the project.

The Sun Online has reached out to Manchester City Council for comment.

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