- What Eddie Smith to leave role as council lead on development
- Why Stepping down after 20 years with the city council
- What next Will leave his role in April 2020
Eddie Smith, Manchester City Council’s strategic director of growth and development, will step down next year after 20 years leading on major projects across the city.
Smith is to depart in April 2020 to pursue other interests with a successor to the council’s development brief expected to be named before then.
Starting as head of regeneration in 2000, Smith then became deputy chief executive and then chief executive of the New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company, and was instrumental in the delivery of the Etihad Campus in East Manchester, now home to Manchester City’s football stadium, the National Cycling Centre, and more.
He returned to the council as strategic director of growth and development where he worked on projects including Airport City.
Smith said: “This has been a tough personal decision but after nearly 20 years working in Manchester in a number of rewarding but demanding roles my family and I felt it was time to do something different and having a landmark birthday on the horizon has really brought this into focus.
“I have loved working here and I am proud of what we all have achieved together in regenerating this fantastic city.
“I don’t know exactly what the future holds but I do know that it won’t be in local government or the public sector or in Manchester itself because I simply don’t think there is a better place to work than Manchester City Council.”
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “Eddie has played an important part in the regeneration of Manchester. In recent decades we have seen the city transformed from a place in post-industrial decline, with a falling population and areas such as East Manchester in the doldrums, to somewhere people are eager to be which has re-established itself on a global stage.
“You only have to look at the forest of cranes on the city skyline and beyond to see the unprecedented amount of development which is taking place.”
