How can No 10 North already be under construction?
No 10 North’s future home was not built for Andy Burnham. It is a pre-existing Manchester civil service campus now tied to his devolution plan.
🔍 WHY THIS STORY MATTERS
No 10 North is a test of whether power is really moving out of Whitehall, or whether an existing civil service estate plan is being politically rebranded.
KEY TAKEAWAYS...
● No 10 North is currently operating from Heron House in Manchester.
● Its likely long-term home is the Manchester Digital Campus in Ancoats.
● That campus was already planned before Andy Burnham’s No 10 North announcement.
● The accountability test is whether real decision-making power moves north.
A t first glance, the timeline looks odd. Andy Burnham has only just entered Downing Street as prime minister. Yet reports say No 10 North is already operating from Manchester, while its likely long-term home is tied to a site under development.
The explanation is simpler than it sounds: the building project came first. The No 10 North label came later.
The Ancoats site being discussed is the Manchester Digital Campus, a large civil service development on the former Central Retail Park site in central Manchester. It was not originally launched as Burnham’s personal northern base. It was already being planned as a Government Property Agency project to bring together thousands of civil servants, with a focus on digital government work.
Official government material shows the site had a life before the No 10 North announcement. Planning permission for the campus and an adjacent park was granted in February 2025. The Treasury formally approved the outline business case in March 2026. The Government Property Agency said groundworks began in June 2026, with contractors preparing the land before main construction starts later.
That matters because “under construction” does not mean a completed No 10 North building is already waiting for Burnham. The evidence points to early works on a wider government campus whose opening is targeted for 2032.
No 10 North is currently operating from Heron House in Manchester city centre while the brownfield Ancoats site is developed. Heron House is therefore the interim base. The Manchester Digital Campus is the longer-term site.
There is still a larger accountability question. Reusing an existing government campus may make practical sense, but it does not by itself prove that power is moving out of Whitehall. The test will be whether serious decision-making authority, senior staff and ministerial time shift to Manchester, or whether the project becomes mainly a renamed office base.
For now, the safe conclusion is narrow. No 10 North is not already built. Its proposed long-term home is a pre-existing Manchester civil service campus, now being folded into Burnham’s promise to rebalance power away from London.
🔮 WHAT MATTERS NEXT...
🎯 WHAT TO WATCH NEXT:
● Whether ministers work from Manchester regularly or only symbolically.
● How many senior civil servants are relocated from London.
● Whether No 10 North gains real authority over economic and devolution decisions.
● Whether the Manchester Digital Campus timetable shifts before its 2032 target.
🎯 MOST LIKELY OUTCOME:
● No 10 North becomes a visible Manchester base, but its significance will depend on staffing, seniority and decision-making power.
🎯 WHAT COULD CHANGE THE PICTURE:
● Clear evidence that major economic decisions are being made through Manchester rather than Whitehall.
🎯 WHY THIS MATTERS:
● A northern office only changes government if authority moves with the nameplate.
GOING FURTHER
Regional mayors to take key roles in UK policy decisions as part of No 10 North plans | The Guardian
Burnham’s No 10 North ‘will be based on brownfield site on edge of Manchester’ | The Guardian
Manchester Digital Campus confirmed | GOV.UK
Manchester Digital Campus gets green light | GOV.UK
Work underway on site of Manchester Digital Campus | Government Property Agency
No 10 North in Ancoats – is it a good place?No 10 North in Ancoats – is it a good place? | Northwest Bylines
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in Europeans TODAY on 6 August 2026.
▪ Cover: Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
