Just as the Regent Road nightmare nears an end, another controversial city centre roadworks scheme is about to begin.

Manchester City Council is spending around £10million to make major changes to the junction where Princess Road meets the Mancunian Way and Medlock Street.

Five million pounds of funding was secured following a successful bid to the Department for Transport in 2017.

A further £2.9million came from the Mayor's Challenge Fund designed to deliver the Greater Manchester Beeline Network.

The council's highways team say replacing the roundabout with new and widened roads as well as footpaths will 'increase capacity', 'improve access for pedestrians and cyclists' and 'improve bus journey times.'

The ultimate aim to ease congestion at one of the busiest points of the inner ring road and therefore ultimately reduce air pollution.

In the bid, highways also promised to engage with 'key stakeholders' including residents and the travelling public to 'explain the rationale behind the scheme'.

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

However, residents on the nearby Bentley House estate in Hulme, known as the Redbricks, say they had no idea the roadworks were happening until signs notifying them of work beginning went up last month.

They say the only detailed plan they have been shown will lead to the destruction of Rockdove Gardens, a strip of green space that separates their homes from Princess Road and has been tended to voluntarily by the community for over 40 years.

It is home to wildlife such as bats and birds as well as dozens of mature trees that provides privacy and a natural barrier to car pollution.

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

The council say the scheme will not begin in earnest until Regent Road is finished, possibly at the end of September, and that the final design has not yet been sign off.

The 'early drawing' shown to residents at an information event, with a new footpath going straight through Rockdove Gardens and passing within only a few metres of residents' homes, was only for 'indicative purposes', the council says.

Councillor Angeliki Stogia, Executive Member for Environment, Planning and Transport, says the preference is for Rockdove Gardens to be preserved.

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

However, before a spade has even touched the ground, the situation remains highly confusing.

Rockdoves Gardens is on land owned by social housing provider One Manchester.

In a statement provided to the Manchester Evening News , One Manchester implied it is in the process of selling the land to Manchester council for the purposes of junction improvement scheme.

The income, believed to be around £28,000, will be reinvested 'within the community', One Manchester adds.

David Williams, Executive Director of Assets and Growth at One Manchester, said: "The sale of the land behind Rockdove Avenue is part of the Princess Road and Medlock Street improvement plan led by Manchester City Council.

"We understand the Council, which led two consultations in July, is planning to create a pedestrian walkway and cycle lane to enhance green transport links and reduce traffic congestion in and out of the city centre.

"In our conversations with Manchester City Council we discussed the inclusion of acoustic and pollution screening, alongside landscaping the space.

"When the sale has completed, we will write to residents, and as the Council’s plans develop, we’ll be exploring how we reinvest the money within the community."

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

"We believe the plans set out by Manchester City Council will benefit the wider community, by increasing safety for pedestrians, helping to increase walking as a mode of transport and improve overall health and fitness."

Despite their best efforts to find out what is going on, residents on Redbricks, a mixture of privately-owned and One Manchester tenants, feel left in limbo.

Volunteer gardener Sarah Salem told us: "People were crying, weeping, 'I can't live here' when they found out."

"It is in constant daily use. There's people here with severe mobility problems - this is the only green place they can access," she said.

Fellow gardener Lucy Williams said she's spent thousands of pounds of her own money on the garden, which is full of flowers and trees.

"I'd be beside absolutely beside myself if we lost it - we've put so much work into it," she said.

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

"I'm out most days - and the amount of people who come up to me and say they appreciate it. It's a green oasis in the middle of Manchester," she said, adding that it attracts an 'incredible array' of birds.

A petition signed by more than 1,300 people says that the pocket park currently protects residents from 'what is often disruptive and anti-social behaviour'.

It reads: "We should not be expected to live with a major pedestrian path that in places passes almost immediately next to our bedroom windows.

"We should not be expected to live with noisy and drunken night time behaviour."

One woman said: "All the rubbish, the vomit, the students urinating on the gate - all the bad behaviour would be shifted closer to us with no protection."

The Redbricks campaign group claimed on Twitter that residents had not been notified of pre-works beginning before an article appeared in the M.E.N.

(Image: Supplied)

"It really is a huge scandal that we weren't informed. Many of the most negatively affected people in the properties facing the junction still don't know a thing about it," Sarah said.

"I'm worried I'm going to wake up in the morning and it will all be gone," she said.

Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell is supporting the residents and is critical of the council's approach to consultation.

She said: "From the outset the communication between the council and residents has been disappointing and almost non-existent.

"Residents were not consulted on the initial plans and even now they have been consulted, the outcomes from these consultations are unclear and communication continues to be poor.

"I was disappointed to hear that residents are still finding things out third hand and were not even notified that pre-works are starting this week.

"These proposals directly impact their homes and the surrounding land yet it seems as though no consideration was given to them initially.

"Unfortunately this is something which is often a feature of schemes in and around the city centre and I do not believe that this would happen elsewhere in the city.

"As well as this, residents fear that there could be serious health implications for them if these works continue as they believe it would increase air pollution in what is already one of the most polluted parts of the city.

"Residents have been reasonable in their requests for information and they have asked for simple changes to these plans."

(Image: Supplied)

"The council needs to up its game with residents and take their concerns and suggestions into account when looking over the final plans."

Hulme councillors have also backed the campaigners over the lack of consultation.

Aside from the fate of their beloved green space, residents remain unconvinced by the council's argument that the scheme will even achieve its principle aim of reducing traffic.

The area already suffers from some of the worst congestion and therefore worst air pollution in the city.

Nitrous oxide levels are said to regularly exceed 62micrograms per cub metres, well above the legal limit of 40mgs, according to research carried out by Friends of the Earth.

One residents shared images of black soot he recently cleaned from his window after being away on holiday for only a week.

Redbricks residents point to mounting research that road-building and road-widening schemes do not reduce congestion, but in fact cause the reverse.

National campaign group Better Transport UK calls this process 'induced traffic'.

"When a new road is built, new traffic will divert onto it," the group says on its website.

(Image: Redbricks Campaign Group)

"Many people may make new trips they would otherwise not make, and will travel longer distances just because of the presence of the new road.

"This well-known and long-established effect is known as ‘induced traffic’.

"Induced traffic means that the predicted congestion benefits of a new road are often quickly eroded."

For its part, Manchester council says that the Princess Road project was always put out to tender as a 'design and build' contract, so it is not unusual that a final design has not been agreed at this late stage.

It is understood that the pre-works that have already started are minor and mainly involve surveying the area, digging trial holes and setting up a site compound.

The main scheme is most likely to start in the autumn.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

Councillor Angeliki Stogia, Executive Member for Environment, Planning and Transport, said: "Detailed plans for the Princess Road scheme are currently being finalised, taking the views of residents into careful account. These plans are subject to approval and we will share these as soon as we are able to.

"The early drawing that residents have seen was produced for purely indicative purposes and shared in a spirit of transparency as part of the process by which a contractor was appointed for the scheme.

"This is a design and build contract, which always envisaged that the contractor would fully develop the design, addressing feedback from residents and other people involved. The council acknowledges, though, that it could have communicated this process better to residents and local councillors.

"We are determined to ensure that any impacts on local green space are minimal. Our aspiration is that the scheme will not involve Rockdove Gardens. Retaining trees is also a key consideration.

"This is an important scheme which will remove the outdated and unsafe underpasses and provide far more suitable new crossing for those who are walking or cycling into the city centre - encouraging people to travel by foot or bike.

"It will also improve road safety and traffic flow on the most congested part of Manchester's busy inner relief road, especially at peak times.

"Stationary vehicles produce 40 per cent more pollution than free-flowing traffic so reducing jams at a key pinch point will help improve air quality for residents and others."