Urban heritage park

An urban heritage park, as used to describe Castlefield, in Manchester has no official status. Manchester declared Castlefield to be the world's first urban heritage park in 1982, following a lead given by Lowell, Massachusetts in 1975. Using the Castlefield model, firstly conservation area status was granted and a Conservation Committee representing all the key stakeholders was started three years later. The group had four objectives: to preserve and interpret the history of the area, to influence future planning applications, to attract special allocations of funds to make improvements to the area specially relating to recreation and tourism. The group declared the area an urban heritage park later that year, and the term was heavily marketed. Twenty-five years later, the term has become accepted, and is appearing in titles of academic courses.