Burnham abandons plan for No10 North site linked to Man City’s owners

Andy Burnham’s team has abandoned plans to build Number 10 North on a site linked to Man City’s owners, The i Paper understands. The Prime Minister has come under fire for his comments about the cheating scandal engulfing the football club. He said he would be “concerned” if the club’s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), left the UK as a result, before backtracking to say nobody is “above the rules”. Burnham was Mayor of Greater Manchester between 2017 and 2026. During that period, the group invested tens of millions of pounds in the regeneration of the city that helped catapult Burnham into Downing Street. Shorts The case has sparked renewed scrutiny of the UAE’s influence in Britain. It was reported at the weekend, that Manchester council signed a ‘sweetheart’ deal with ADUG in 2015 which gave the City owners exclusive ‘first refusal’ to develop any public land in a large area next to central Manchester. The i Paper revealed how this included a former retail park in Ancoats which was being lined up as the long-term home of Number 10 North, Burnham’s flagship project to shift power and funding out of Whitehall and into local authorities. A property source said they were astonished that Central Retail Park had been chosen by Burnham’s team, describing it as ‘the most controversial site in Manchester’ due to its links to the ADUG relationship. ADUG’s ‘sweetheart’ deal expired in December 2025. The council has since sold half the 10.5 acre plot to the government, which has plans to build a ‘digital campus’ for up to 9,000 civil servants. Manchester City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak (L) talks with Andy Burnham (Photo: Paul Ellis/AFP) Shortly before Burnham became Prime Minister in July, Labour’s Deputy Leader and Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell confirmed reports the campus would now also include the ‘Number 10 North’ outpost, writing on X that she was “delighted” with the decision. However, after our story, a Downing Street source said the Ancoats site is no longer being considered. The source said the decision was not due to the site’s historic links to Man City’s owners and that it had been made before the cheating scandal erupted. A small team of staff are currently operating out of Heron House, an office building in Manchester’s Albert Square which was already occupied by the intelligence agency GCHQ. It is understood a new location has been identified and details are expected to be confirmed soon. It comes as Sir Richard Leese, the former Labour leader of Manchester council and Burnham’s former deputy, has defended ADUG’s dealings in the city and insisted that he believes Man City are innocent. Speaking to the Observer, Leese, who led the council between 1996 and 2021 and remains the ‘honorary’ president of Man City, said: “They are quite clear they are innocent and that they are going to prove it.” He later told The Today programme: “I think you can’t go back in time and what has been created in Manchester City is phenomenal really. “That has to be maintained in some way, whatever the final outcome of the allegations against them.” EXPLORE MORE ON THE TOPICS IN THIS STORY