Seven reasons why Prestwich is still ‘on the up’

Prestwich has long been considered a pretty desirable place to live.

Prestwich has long been considered a pretty desirable place to live.
The suburb, often called the ‘Didsbury of North Manchester’, is hailed for its access to the city, its green space, varied Victorian homes and town centre apartments, diverse community its number of pub, bar and food outlets.

It is also on the cusp of a £100M central redevelopment, which will see the area currently occupied by the Longfield centre transformed into a new market and food hall, retail space and a new library, with new homes to follow.

Last year, Prestwich was named as one of the best places to live in the North West in the annual Sunday Times Best Places to Live guide. The town has featured among six other locations in the region in the guide which praised 72 places across the UK.
Prestwich was one of two locations in Greater Manchester to make the list, including Stockport, which was named the overall best place to live in the region.

A spokesperson for The Sunday Times said: “Prestwich is where you come if you want to enjoy Manchester’s buzz and have an affordable redbrick house with a garden. “There’s a lively restaurant scene, a choice of parks and plenty going on, and the tram makes getting to the city centre a doddle.”

Here we look in more detail at some of the reasons why Prestwich is such a special place to live

Town centre living

Prestwich enjoys varied accommodation in the heart of the town with more apartments promise din the medium term as part of the major redevelopment.

Radius Prestwich is an established modern development offering apartments with features like balconies and easy access to shops and leisure outlets.
Also, for older residents, one of the smallest housing associations in the country whose ethos is ‘relationships over rules’ runs a single, much sought after estate in the heart of the town.

In an age where some larger social housing landlords manage thousands of properties and can be impersonal and somewhat detached from their tenants,
Prestwich and North Western Housing Association have just 188 homes.

They are all contained within the well manicured lawns and litter free surroundings of the Rectory Green estate, just a stone’s throw away from
Prestwich’s Longfield Centre and Metrolink stop.

Traditional pubs

Unlike many towns in the region, most of the local pubs in Prestwich have remained open with a cluster on Bury New Road.

There you will find the Railway & Naturalist, The White Horse and Foresters Arms, and a little further down there’s the Red Lion and close by the Church Inn with its peaceful rear beer garden.

Closer to Heaton Park are the The Royal Oak, The Ostrich and The Woodthorpe while The Friendship on Scholes Lane lives up to its name as a welcoming multi-room pub. So there’s no shortage of places to ‘pop for a pint’ as the traditional local lives on in the town.

A town set for transformation

The next part of the £100M regeneration of Prestwich village is set to move forward with £1m to be put aside to demolish the Longfield shopping centre.

Bury council’s cabinet recently agreed to commit around £3.5m of capital spending to bring forward detailed plans for the regeneration of Prestwich centre. The money will be used to enable the delivery of new retail units, including a market and food hall to replace the existing Longfield, new leisure and community facilities and a ‘modern new home for the Prestwich library’.

The plans also include building 200 new homes on the current car park next to the shopping centre. The first phase of of the regeneration is the currently under construction travel hub, the main component of which is a multi-storey car park on Fairfax Road.

That is due to be complete by July 2026.

Independent shops and new openings

There are plenty of independent businesses in the town with one of the most successful the Village Greens co-operative which has recently
moved to the Radius centre.

Other ‘indies’ include Gallery 786, Rose & Lee Interiors, traditional chippy Chips @ No8 and Richer Sounds. There have also been some high profile new openings in recent months.

New to the town in the past year include upmarket bakers Gail’s and a branch of the popular Manchester based pizza outlet Rudy’s.

Bars and restaurants

It’s fair to say the town has a wide and varied bar and restaurant scene centred on the ‘gateway’ of Bury New Road.

Old favourites like Istanbul Grill and Croma rub shoulders with newer openings such as The Pearl and Lupo, just down the road in Sedgley Park.

At the other end of town on the ‘old road’ The Lime Tree has a long standing reputation for quality Indian food. The town has numerous independent bars such as Cuckoo, The Hideout, The Crooked Man Wallop and Macca’s Bar & Grill.

Keg, Cask & Bottle has recently relocated to Bury New Road in smart new premises after leaving its previous home in the Longfield.

Heaton Park

By far the largest open space in the area Heaton Park is beloved of the majority of those from Prestwich, but maybe not during the annual Parklife
festival, which attracts thousands of youngsters to the area to see globally acclaimed musical artists.

The park is the biggest in Manchester and the largest municipal park in Europe. It has a Grade I listed, 18th-century country house called Heaton Hall, playgrounds and a farm.
It is home to the Manchester Beekeepers Association.
Oasis played their legendary hoemcoming shows there this year and The Stone Roses also played concerts in the park.

It also has the only flat bowling greens in Manchester – which were built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Property prices

According to the property website Rightmove house prices in Prestwich have an overall average of £316,927 over the last year.

The majority of properties sold in Prestwich during the last year were semi-detached properties, selling for an average price of £324,786. Terraced properties sold for an average of £279,908, with detached properties fetching £454,331.

Overall, the historical sold prices in Prestwich over the last year were 2% down on the previous year and 2% up on the 2022 peak of £311,804.