Project voices: Brunswick at 10

Rob, or Robert Rex Burgess to use his Sunday name, lives in Brunswick Village extra care apartments, having moved to Manchester after retiring from
the Merchant Navy.

"When I signed the tenancy the lady said something I'll never forget, “This is your home for life.” I thought that sounds lovely.

"I've got no intention of leaving, as it's the most secure place I've lived in. I enjoy waking up every day, which I think's good for a 72-year-old."

Dymo Leung (right, below) moved from Hong Kong with his family to Manchester. He runs board games nights that help the local community, new and old, mix together.

"I started the board game night in 2022. It is very important for Hongkongers to step into the community, not just to play by themselves. Therefore, I start up many, many different kind of events that the whole community can join."

Nazmina Begum (left, above), is Chair of the Tenants and Residents’ Association and moved to the area with her husband five years ago.

"There's people who've lived there for years, there are people who've just bought the houses outright, there are people who, just like me, have just moved and have done the help-to-buy."

"We met Cynthia earlier, she puts on a massive New Year's Eve party... she's one of the old community, trying her best to integrate the new part of the community. I think that's really nice, because you don't get that in a lot of places."

"The people here are incredibly involved. There are so many reasons for the amount of community cohesion here that it’s hard to narrow it down to one or two reasons. I think the best advice I could give would be to create and support local groups and organisations to bring people together. The allotment society started two years before the actual allotment was created.

"These people were from different places, maybe spoke different languages, had completely different jobs, and had one thing in common to bring them together. But it worked."

"It had to be an aspirational place, both in its people and its housing provision. But we had to do this without gentrifying the area. This meant retaining the current community, keeping it family-centred and providing enough accommodation and resources in Brunswick to allow someone to stay in the area from the cradle to the grave.

"This was where the role of the extra-care facility came in really useful. Having this facility in Brunswick, in the heart of the neighbourhood, means that the residents get to spend time within a community and around other people."

Olga Asma is originally from Kyiv and has lived in Brunswick for 17 years. She has seen the estate change and now has an allotment which she shares with her mum.

"The allotment was supposed to be for me initially, but then mum came to stay with me, and she's a great gardener, so she took over and has done a really great job. She planted potatoes, which I thought was a ridiculous idea, as you can buy them in the shops. But she wanted them fresh. She also wants tomatoes, which I think is a waste of space, but it's her domain now. We grow plenty of garlic and if it was up to me I'd cover the whole garden with raspberry bushes and cucumbers!

"I love Manchester, it's so friendly. What else do you need, everything is here!"

"Green spaces can be transformative for a neighbourhood. Especially in an inner-city or urban area where access to nature is not always easy. In Brunswick, we saw this ripple effect where, as more green spaces were introduced, it encouraged residents to care more about their own spaces. It added a real sense of pride and ownership for the residents...

"The existing community were really keen to get involved throughout the whole process. It was great for us because we could get a real sense of what was needed. Continuous consultations with residents influenced everything about the neighbourhood – from size and location to the general purpose of the green spaces. Our intention was to develop a sense of ownership for the existing residents while building on and improving the existing neighbourhood."