Heaton Park

Heaton Park, four miles north of Manchester City Centre, is the largest area of open space in the City and the largest municipal park in the UK, attracting in the region of 1.5 million visitors per year. The Park also comprises the grounds of a Grade 1 listed, neoclassical 18th-century house, Heaton Hall. The Park was restored towards the end of the 20th century in a partnership between the Heritage Lottery Fund and Manchester City Council. Heaton Park is listed Grade II on the English Heritage Register of Parks.

On behalf of Manchester City Council and Heaton Park, we initially undertook an operational review of the visitor catering at Heaton Park. Following the initial review, we developed a full catering strategy to inform the future catering requirement for the Park, along with developing the approach to attract the most appropriate organisation to operate the future visitor catering facilities.

A successful social enterprise organisation was appointed as the future operator to realise the strategy and aspirations for the future visitor catering within Heaton Park.

Advice & support has included:

• Organisational objectives & site dynamics determined
• Detailed operational & financial review
• Visitor profiling & demand analysis
• Research – national & local – primary & secondary
• Competition analysis
• Financial benchmarking & models
• Optimum locations for catering determined
• Concept options & recommendations
• Management options
• Tender documentation support & development