About Us

The Full Story

Trees Not Cars began in 2019 when the Northern Quarter Residents Forum held an event on the former Central Retail Park in protest against Manchester city council opening the site as a temporary car park whilst they decided what to do with the 10 acre publicly owned space that had been purchased for £37m.

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Trees Not Cars began an online and in person campaign to stop this happening, and instead open the site as a public park. Our petition garnered over 12,000 signatures. The council ignored this and other objections and passed the planning permission for the car park.

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Trees Not Cars successfully appealed this decision in court, thanks to money raised from supporters.

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We continue to campaign for the site to be turned into a park, unfortunately half of the 10 acres has now been sold to be developed into government offices.

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The group currently consists of Gemma Cameron and Julia Kovaliova, two working mums. We are desperately in need of more people to help drive this campaign. Please get in touch if you'd like to help.