A COUPLE who live in the shadow of two graffiti-covered derelict buildings say they’ve had enough – with one of them set to be demolished.
The Toast Rack and Owens Park Tower buildings were both university buildings in Fallowfield, Manchester, but now lie unused.
The Owens Park Tower was formerly university accommodation and home to Rik Mayall, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jack Whitehall.
But the 20-storey building was closed in 2021 and is now wrapped in sheets ready for demolition in Spring 2025.
Nearby, the Toast Rack, also known as the Hollings Building, is back on the market after being sold by Manchester Metropolitan University to foreign investors for £5 million in 2014.
It has remained empty ever since.
But retired taxi driver Headley Waul, 70, and his wife Linda, 54, live between the two buildings and are shocked by how the area has devolved.
Headley said: “If they did something with it [the Toast Rack] – then it would be fine.
“They put the blackboards round it and then the graffiti arrives and it’s a mess – it’s an eyesore.
“It’s a Listed building and would be great as apartments, but the graffiti is a problem.
“In 2002 when we had the Commonwealth Games on we were inconvenienced, as the university was raking in money letting their accommodation out as the athletes village.
“They made no contact with us – we had rookies on both ends of the street saying we couldn’t get to our homes and I was a taxi driver.
“That has been typical of being their neighbours – not much communication.”
His wife Linda, who works in logistics agreed, and added: “If someone spent some money that Toast Rack building would be wonderful.
“As for Owens Park Tower – we see that from our garden and conservatory. It’s a concrete monstrosity and we are glad it’s going.”
Headley purchased his semi-detached home in 1990 – 30 years after the Toast Rack was opened for catering and tailoring students in Manchester.
At the Go Local across the road from Owens Park Tower, manager Paul Naveen, 37, said: “I’ve been here a couple of years, or so and it was rundown and an eyesore.
“The students were always complaining that it needed an upgrade. It was an old building opened in 1965 and it’s the right decision to demolish it.
“It needs replacing with a new complex that has better facilities. It makes sense for the area.
“It will make the area look more beautiful. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment for a couple of years, but we have to put up with it until it improves.’
On the corner plot across the road is barber Salah Al Jeddal, 59, at his glitzy E Star Barbers, said he had lost a lot of business since students had left.
Smiling Salah said: “We have been here two years and that place was fully loaded with students. That was the reason why we chose this corner plot due to the proximity of the student accommodation.
“Normally a new business will take five or six months to get ahead and start paying for themselves, but we did it in two weeks.
“It was paying for itself that quickly. Now since they closed that Tower down we hardly get any customers – this morning just the four and that’s not good business.
As for Owens Park Tower – we see that from our garden and conservatory. It’s a concrete monstrosity and we are glad it’s going
Linda
“It’s been four or five months now that we don’t get the students.
“The area is beautiful, but we are not given lots of information about what the plans are.
“For people round here it’s important that they improve the area. That Owens Park Tower was never an eyesore for us and I’ve lived in the area since 1982.
“We are all used to it and the Toast Rack is a beautiful building like a landmark. It’s a great shame it’s not refurbished and opened as apartments, or accommodation.
“People shouldn’t be allowed to buy a big building like that and just leave it empty. It’s not good for the community.
“They should be made to show their plans as it’s bad for the area just lying empty. It attracts unsavoury types – like the drug dealers and you don’t want those around a university.”
Built in 1965, Owens Park Tower was state of the art for student digs, with sinks in every room, shared kitchen facilities as well as a dining room and five years earlier the Toast Rack was constructed.
Owens Park BOP student night was renowned as a music venue and would run until 2009.
In the 1980s The Chemical Brothers played their first gig there as students and Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien also lived in the flats.
We are all used to it and the Toast Rack is a beautiful building like a landmark. It’s a great shame it’s not refurbished and opened as apartments, or accommodation
Salah Al Jeddal
Other famous names to inhabit the Tower, included Young Ones star Rik Mayall, Sherlock Holmes actor Benedict Cumberbatch, and comedian Jack Whitehall.
Newer student digs like the Richmond Park complex built just behind it in the mid-90s were more suited to modern students and were used as the Commonwealth Games athletes village. This caused issues for local residents trying to reach their homes.
Demolition work by PP O’Connor has started on the Tower, to make way for a series of new buildings to provide space for 5,400 student beds by replacing the existing, older accommodation on site and delivering 3,300 updated bedspaces to meet the growing demand for high-quality, modern bedrooms across the popular campus.
Dr Simon Merrywest, Director for the Student Experience at the University Of Manchester, said: “Owens Park has been home to tens of thousands of students over the years, and served our community really well.
“However, as we enter our 200th year as a University, we have a chance to create new residences which are more sustainable and better suited to students’ needs in the 21st century.
“I am sure that just as many memories will be created in the future by these new generations of students.”
Meanwhile, Cushman & Wakefield were last year tasked with marketing the Toast Rack, which was originally known as the Hollings Building, by overseas investor Estrela, which purchased the building in a £5 million deal in 2014.
Now the 3.71 acre site, which comprises the Toast Rack, Horseshoe, Gateway site and Stitching Hall, has been put back on the market complete with detailed planning consent for 211 homes.
The approved planning consent would see a mix of one to four bed apartments created as well as 20,910 sq ft of gym and leisure space, 7,582 sq ft of commercial space and 154 car parking spaces split across the site.
