And FINALLY a field trip: the MSc Real Estate students on the road...

 After a year of lockdowns, online learning and the occasional visit to campus, the students on the MSc Real Estate completed their course with a fieldtrip. And not a virtual one. A real one on a coach - a 5 day city tour of Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol and Cardiff. A great way to finish a very unusual year, or as one student put it: 'Wonderful year! Thank you for such an amazing experience'.

Through a series of talks and presentations from local experts and visits to key locations, the fieldtrip introduced the students to the issues of real estate markets in major cities outside the south east of the UK. The fieldtrip was designed to integrate a range of core real estate skills and disciplines and to:

• enable a comparison of retail outlet mall formats in different locations
• develop an understanding of the role of retail development in urban regeneration
• understand the key metrics in each commercial centre
• make a comparative assessment of four UK cities

And now for some photos (thanks to PJ and Mike Patrick)...

For more information on the MSc Real Estate, take a look here:

MSc Real Estate on the website (course details)

MSc Real Estate on the blog

MSc Real Estate: Up North

The MSc Real Estate students on tour in Liverpool

During the first week of November, the students on the MSc Real Estate went on a field trip to Liverpool and Manchester. The field trip was designed to introduce the issues of sustainable use and development in the context of commercial and residential property markets in Liverpool and Manchester and to:

• develop an understanding of sustainable use and development
• examine the use, investment and development of commercial and residential property
• set commercial  and residential property in a wider economic, social and legal context

The field trip also integrates a range of core real estate skills and disciplines (covered in the first semester) as they relate to the regeneration of the urban environment. During the field trip, the students attended presentations from a number of local experts, had an opportunity to question those experts, and collected local information through visits to key locations.

On the way to Liverpool the students stopped off for a tour of Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet
(located 30 minutes drive from Liverpool). The outlet village had a £40 million makeover
in 2018 to celebrate its 21st birthday.

On the first evening the students joined Andrew Scott and Jamie Moffat from Mason Owen for a presentation and drinks reception. The next day they were taken on a walking tour of central Liverpool including Albert Dock and Liverpool One by Callum McDougall also of Mason Owen. For more information on the regeneration taking place in Liverpool visit the Regenerating Liverpool website.

Lush is at the forefront of providing a great retail experience. The Liverpool store is the largest in the world and the manager gave the students an impromptu full tour of the store, including the in-house spa. Brilliant customer service.

Mason Owen showed the students how active management had transformed a failed Debenhams department store into a large and successful H&M. Find out how the development of Liverpool One has transformed the city centre. 

On the final day the students left Liverpool to travel to Manchester where they attended an informative and entertaining presentation from Andrew Gardiner of Lambert Smith Hampton about the Manchester office markets. After lunch the students explored Manchester city centre and the developments taking place, before returning to Oxford.

MSc Real Estate Field Trip: A Tale of Two Cities

The annual field trip to the North for the students on the MSc Real Estate. The students visited two cities: Manchester and Liverpool. Why? I asked Nick French (MSc Programme Leader) and got this reply:

'Manchester is a perfect example on how a city has developed a strategy to gentrify and improve itself. It is a perfect synergy of the public and private sectors coming together to promote and implement change. The contrast between Manchester 15 years ago and today is stark. Other cities (including Liverpool) are now going through similar changes but Manchester is a market that has matured and it is a good example to show the students how real estate markets work in practice'.

What about the history of Manchester and Liverpool? The two cities have such a lot in common: great music (not just Oasis and The Beatles), legendary football rivalries (Man Utd/City and Liverpool FC/Everton), humour, urban  regeneration (Liverpool Vision and New East Manchester), industrial heritage (Liverpool World Heritage and Visit Manchester) and just a great atmosphere, but there has always been a fierce rivalry between the two - and not just on the football pitch. It started back in the 19th century with a fight for supremacy in the cotton trade which resulted in the building of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894. Take a look at the BBC's 'A Tale of Two Rival Cities' for more information.

The field trip was designed to introduce the students to issues of use, investment and development in the context of a specific commercial property market and will integrate the range of core real estate skills and disciplines covered in the first semester.

The first day of the field trip was dedicated to Manchester as follows:

• Development and Regeneration in Manchester: the Urban Splash Model - presentation from Paul Jones (Urban Splash)
• Office Redevelopment, Investment and Management in Manchester - presentation and site visit by Sam Darby (Bruntwood)
• Salford/Manchester Orientation Tour - by Jamie Bottomley (Jones Lang LaSalle) and Jonathan Schofield (ManchesterConfidential)
• Salford Keys Media City - site visit and presentation from The Peel Group
• Commercial Property in Manchester: NOMA case study - presentation from Jamie Bottomley (Jones Lang LaSalle)

And the second day to Liverpool:

• Local Economic Development in the Liverpool City Region - presentations by Mike Palin (Liverpool City Region Local Economic Partnership) and Georgina Singleton (GVA)
• Liverpool One: Development and Management - presentation by Chris Bliss (Estate Director, Liverpool One)
• Liverpool One - self-guided tour and visual assessment of the scheme

OK, so you want some photos - these come courtesy of Jess Hickey:

Wagamama - the first night

Presentation by Urban Splash

Presentation from The Peel Group at Media City

Media City, Salford Quays

Media City - under development

Postgrads in the North

Another field trip to Manchester, this time for the postgraduate students. Another excuse for me to go on about Manchester (see previous post here). This time though, a different focus. This field trip has been designed to introduce the postgraduate students taking the MSc Real Estate Management/MSc International Real Estate to issues of sustainable use and development in the context of a specific commercial property market and will:

• develop an understanding of sustainable use and development
• examine the use, investment and development of commercial property
• set commercial property in a wider economic, social, political and legal context

The city has changed so much over the past 200 years when it played a major part in the industrial revolution. Manchester went from being the centre of the world's cotton industry to a city in decline in the 1950s and 60s with the loss of the traditional manufacturing industries. The city and its people fought back and the 1980s saw massive investment and regeneration which continued after the 1996 bomb attack. Throughout all this one thing has remained the same: the northern grit, humour and creativity of its people. As a bloke from Bolton once said: They return the love around here, don't they? (read to the bottom for a clue as to who said this). Here's what happened on the field trip...

Monday 29 October started with a coach journey up the M6 to Manchester and ended with dinner in Wagamama. In between there was just time for the students to go on a self-guided tour (a walk with a map) around central Manchester.

Exploring Manchester - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

Dinner - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

Tuesday 30 October was a busy day starting with breakfast at 7.30 (am). The rest of the day consisted of a series of presentations and tours:

• Development and regeneration in Manchester: the Urban Splash model - presentation by Paul Jones from Urban Splash
• Office redevelopment, investment and management in Manchester - presentation and site visits by Jon Rymer from Bruntwood
• Visit to 1 Angel Square. This development recently won the Sustainability Award at the 2012 North West Business Insider Property Awards and is at the heart of NOMA - a new, 4 million sq ft, mixed-use redevelopment in the heart of Manchester.
• Salford/Manchester orientation tour with Jamie Bottomley (Jones Lang LaSalle) and Jonathan Schofield (manchesterconfidential.co.uk) - inlcuding a visit to Media City at Salford Quays (presentation by Peel Holdings)

Urban Splash - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

Site visits with Bruntwood - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

Salford Quays - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

Wednesday 31 October was the last day of the trip and the students got to visit another great city: Liverpool. They went to Liverpool for a presentation and tour of Liverpool One (given by Niles Dunnett of Grosvenor Fund Management). Then back to Manchester and the mighty Trafford Centre for lunch. A working lunch - the students had been  asked to make a visual assessment of the centre. Click on the links to find out more about the story behind these shopping centre developments. Finally, the return to Oxford in time for a spot of trick or treating. Although in Manchester this is saved for Mischief Night.

Back to Oxford - photo courtesy of Ye Zhou

You've reached the bottom now watch this video for your clue.

Manchester 2012: the Field Trip

The final year students have come back from Manchester and are submitting their dissertations this week (an emotional time). The field trip and work in Manchester together with the Professional Practice Test vivas make up the Real Estate Integrative Project module which is taken by all third years on the BSc Real Estate Management. So, what did they get up to in Manchester? Let's see...

Monday 26 March
An early start (for students anyway) - the coach left Oxford Brookes at 8.30am and arrived in Manchester four hours later. After lunch the students went on a walking tour through the city. The tour focused on the Urban Renaissance of the City. The students went back to their base at the Britannia Hotel and were given a presentation on Manchester by Jones Lang LaSalle (Manchester Office).

As part of the module each student was allocated a property scenario and a client (the part of client was played by a member of staff). The students worked on the scenarios in groups and submitted group and individual project reports as well as participating in a viva about their project later in the week. The sites for the property scenarios were: Spinningfields; Piccadily Basin; Brazenose House and the fourth group looked at residential sites including the Urban Splash development at Timber Wharf in the Castlefields area and retail (King Street and surrounding area).

For the other part of the module each student was asked to prepare for two vivas (oral presentations): (1) Professional Liability and Landlord and Tenant Law and (2) Professional Conduct Scenario. These vivas were designed to test students on their presentation skills, accuracy and ability to think on their feet.

Tuesday 27 March
The students started their fieldwork for the property scenarios and carried out inspections at their allocated sites. Have a look at some of the site photos:

Spinningfields site visit to Quay House - photo by Youngha Cho

Spinningfields - photo by Youngha Cho

Inside Quay House - photo by Youngha Cho

Piccadily Basin - photo by Sally Sims

Piccadily Basin site visit - photo by Sally Sims

King Street - photo from Wikipedia

 The rest of the day was spent working on the property projects and the law and professional conduct vivas.

Wednesday 28 March
The law and professional conduct vivas began at the Britannia Hotel followed by more work on the property projects. The students seemed fairly relaxed!

Who's nervous? Photo by Sally Sims

Thursday 29 March 
The students were at the Britannia Hotel again for the last of the law and professional conduct vivas followed by the property project vivas. At the end of a long day the coach brought everybody back to Oxford Brookes.

Friday 30 March
The students put the finishing touches to their property reports. The submission of these reports marked to official end of the module.


Interested in finding out more? Check out these links:

• The Rebuilding Manchester website which has lots of information about the redevelopment of the city following the bomb damage in 1996.
• The Centre for Cities website which looks at development and performance across all UK cities.

More on Manchester...

I think Manchester is worth at least one more blog entry. Youngha Cho took some great photos of Salford Quays during the field trip and these are the starting point for this post.

Dock Cranes (original)

The Lowry Footbridge (this lifts vertically to let ships pass)

The NV Buildings (residential) - shaped like sails

Salford Quays is an area near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom following the closure of the dockyards in 1982. Take a look at:

The History and the Unlocking Salford Quays Project
The Redevelopment
The Result
The Destination

As it is one of the largest regeneration projects in the UK, it has been the focus of a number of research projects. SUBR:IM, a research consortium linking science, engineering and social science to address brownfield redevelopment, used the example of Salford Quays in a number of its projects. Find out more here. 

Manchester (by the Ed)

"We do things differently here". Who said this about Manchester? I'll tell you later.

The third year students on the BSc Real Estate Management have gone to Manchester this week. The field trip is part of the Real Estate Integrative Project module and they will also be working towards their Professional Practice Test (PPT) in Manchester as part of the module. The PPT is a step towards membership of the RICS, the world's leading professional body for qualifications and standards in land, property and construction. Take a look at the RICS website for more information on the PPT.

Enough. More about Manchester please. Manchester is a great city in lots of ways: the architecture, the industrial heritage, the urban regeneration, the football and the people. Apparently many of the students come from the South of England and are being taken North to get some experience of a Great Northern City. Being from the North myself, I am a frequent visitor to Manchester and have been lucky enough to see the fantastic redevelopment of the centre following the bombing of the city in 1996. The students are in for a real treat.

They are staying in the Britannia Hotel which is grade II listed and one of the best known architectural buildings in Manchester. This is also the setting for the PPT.

Britannia Hotel - photo by Norbert Blech via Flickr

As well as architecture and redevelopment, the arts scene is Manchester is amazing. The 1980s and 90s saw the rise of Madchester with the opening of the famous Hacienda, and the birth of Factory Records all set against a backdrop of some of the best music of the time (this music link goes to the final live performance of Sit Down by James - in Manchester of course). Many people hold Anthony Wilson responsible for this period in Manchester's development and it is his quote that I started this blog with. His story is told in the film 24 Hour Party People.

If you are interested in the regeneration taking place in Manchester there is so much out there. Just google it. To get you started have a look at the links below:

A Tale of Two Cities. A research report about regeneration in Manchester and Osaka by OISD here at Oxford Brookes.
New East Manchester. The company set up in 1999 to lead the regeneration of East Manchester.
Manchester City Council. Information and images of regeneration around the city.

That's it from me - look out for the full report on the field trip after Easter.