Within the staid world of native authorities, the place city halls had been historically seen by ministers as supplicants of Whitehall, Sir Howard Bernstein stood out as a uncommon public servant decided to interrupt the mould of civic passivity.
As chief government of Manchester metropolis council for 19 years, Bernstein, who has died aged 71 after a brief sickness, was instrumental in remodeling his native metropolis from what he as soon as known as the doldrums of the post-industrial Eighties into Britain’s second largest industrial and enterprise centre, pulling in billions of kilos in funding.
The brand new skyline of town, with 27 towers as much as 65 storeys excessive inbuilt central Manchester alone since 2018, and at the very least an extra 20 beneath building, is a testomony to the resurgence of a metropolis as soon as labelled the nineteenth century’s “cottonopolis”.
However Bernstein’s principal legacy lies in a string of daring initiatives and initiatives that set Manchester aside from its extra cautious counterparts. He was the municipal entrepreneur par excellence, ready to problem the centralist mindset of the London-based governing class.
His achievements appeared limitless. Within the 90s alone, he ready the best way for the 64-mile Metrolink tram system; the rebuilding of the inner-city Hulme housing property after the demolition of big, brutalist concrete crescents; the Bridgewater live performance corridor; and the close by conference centre within the former Midland rail station, which introduced worldwide conferences to town.
But it surely was town’s bid for the 2000 Olympic Video games – daring to some, foolhardy to others – that laid the foundations for arguably probably the most transformative interval in Manchester’s latest historical past. An unlimited derelict space within the east of town was earmarked for a stadium, velodrome (now the headquarters of British Biking) and associated sporting services.
Working in partnership with council leaders, Bernstein used Barcelona’s 1992 Olympics as a mannequin for Manchester, and a delegation visited the Catalan metropolis. With Bernstein’s assist, the Guardian revealed a particular complement interleaved into its northern editions. Whereas the bid proved unsuccessful, it spurred a brand new wave of optimism: the east Manchester web site was subsequently remodeled for the 2002 Commonwealth Video games. Bernstein was adamant that the 2012 London Olympics (he was a member of the Olympic Supply Authority) would by no means have occurred with out Manchester’s profitable organisational expertise of the 2002 Video games.
Born close to town centre, in Cheetham Hill, he was the elder son of Miriam and Maurice Bernstein. His father, the son of Russian immigrants, offered raincoats from a room above a launderette. His was, he recalled, a cheerful childhood, rising up in a vibrant Jewish group.
After Temple Hill major, then Ducie highschool (later gaining an exterior diploma by London College), he arrived at Manchester city corridor as an 18-year-old workplace boy, and stayed there for 46 years – which he didn’t discover notably outstanding. As a “proud Manc”, why would he need to work wherever else? The reality is, many had been ultimately eager to go to him because the Manchester model grew in significance.
His early promise – and audacity – got here to the discover of Graham Stringer, the previous metropolis council chief and latterly native Labour MP when, as a junior officer within the early Eighties, Bernstein efficiently challenged growth plans for London’s Stansted airport as anti-competitive – and definitely in opposition to the pursuits of Manchester airport, which town purchased. The airport, with two runways – not like Stansted – has proved a helpful cash-cow for Manchester.
Bernstein rose to grow to be assistant chief government in 1986 and deputy in 1990. Working with Labour council leaders – first Stringer, then Richard Leese – the crew took a realistic strategy to working with a Tory authorities, to the unease of the Labour hierarchy, and Bernstein engaged the then surroundings secretary Michael Heseltine to work with him on the Hulme regeneration venture.
After the devastating IRA bombing in June 1996 – which destroyed the Arndale procuring centre and, actually, lifted the roof of the magnificent Royal Trade, the world’s former cotton buying and selling alternate – Bernstein drew on that relationship to deliver Heseltine, now deputy prime minister, to town. The £100m subsequently authorised by Heseltine for the rebuilding was used to lever lots of of tens of millions extra from enterprise by a newly created public-private sector metropolis growth firm. Leese succeeded Stringer in 1996, and Bernstein was appointed chief government two years later.
The Commonwealth Video games web site, initially known as Manchester Eastlands, is now dominated by the Etihad Stadium, dwelling to Bernstein’s beloved Manchester Metropolis, owned by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a giant native investor. Considered one of Bernstein’s regrets was a failure to steer the Soccer Affiliation to make use of the stadium – which, he ensured, is owned by town council, and leased to Manchester Metropolis – as a brand new nationwide stadium and what he known as the “Wembley of the North”. “I put a powerful case to them, ‘Why should or not it’s in London somewhat than the north?’, however they wouldn’t have it,” he as soon as advised me.
One other missed alternative, in line with Bernstein, was the BBC’s transfer to MediaCity in Salford Quays somewhat than to what he thought can be a extra prestigious web site in Manchester metropolis centre.
The editor of the Manchester Night Information, Sarah Lester, spoke for a lot of within the metropolis when she posted on X: “I’ve by no means come throughout anybody with not simply the imaginative and prescient, however an unmatched means to get issues achieved.”
That view, nonetheless, is just not common. Final yr, Save Britain’s Heritage thought the prospect of 51 extra tower blocks – whether or not granted planning permission or within the pipeline – additional threatened town’s “wealthy and vibrant character advised by its buildings and wealthy historical past”.
For all that, nonetheless, Bernstein’s legacy stretches past the comparatively slender boundaries of town itself to the broader metropolis of Higher Manchester, a mixed authority representing 2.8 million individuals and headed by an elected mayor, Andy Burnham, since 2017. The importance of the workplace was underlined in a devolution deal championed by the then chancellor George Osborne during which some Whitehall powers, notably well being and social care, had been devolved to the mayor and the brand new Higher Manchester mixed authority. Burnham is in little question that Bernstein was instrumental in pulling collectively native council leaders, throughout the political spectrum, to realize settlement for a metropolitan authority equal in standing to Higher London.
After retirement in 2017, Bernstein was a strategic adviser to Deloitte and an honorary professor of politics at Manchester College. He was additionally a strategic funding adviser to Manchester Metropolis’s father or mother firm, and honorary president of the membership, in addition to of Lancashire cricket membership for a decade. He was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Higher Manchester in 2017, and knighted in 2003.
He’s survived by his spouse, Vanessa, by his youngsters, Jonathan and Natalie, from his first marriage, to Yvonne Selwyn, which led to divorce, and by three stepdaughters, Danielle, Francesca and Dominique, and 7 grandchildren.
