On Friday, BBC North director Peter Salmon announced the names of new buildings - Bridge House, Dock House and Quay House - within MediaCityUK that will produce a range of programming, including BBC Breakfast, North West Tonight and Radio 5 Live. The new development will be home to between 2,300 and 2,500 BBC staff.
Alongside digital and creative media agencies, the University of Salford will teach 39 media courses from a new campus within MediaCityUK. More than 1,500 students will be taught here when courses, which include undergraduate degrees in broadcast journalism, journalism and TV and radio, begin in 2011, says the university.
The relocation of a large number of BBC journalists and programmes has been greeted by some with concerns over job security and disruption; others see it as a necessary step to produce more diverse output with news less focused on London and the South.
But it is undeniably a huge project: during phase one alone 700,000 square feet of office space and 250,000 square feet of studio space will be built on the 36 acre site, according to MediaCityUK, which says completion of this work is scheduled for 2011.
Getting a sense of the size of such a development is difficult, but thanks to IT manager Mark Whitfield an archive of images has been collected detailing the site's progress from start to present day. Working as an IT manager working close to the site, Whitfield has taken more than 15,000 photos of the site since May 2007 to create the MediaCityUK Photographic Timeline Journal.
"I had the idea when taking pictures of Salford Quays on a blue sky day, for my website. I liked the idea of charting such a significant development from the ground up and maybe learning a little about mass scale construction and some of the techniques employed," he told Journalism.co.uk.
"There were certainly moments when I got a little obsessive and took a few hundred shots a month and conversely, moments when I thought I should stop altogether but I am glad I didn’t. I am a big fan of Salford Quays and have worked in the area for 15 years as an IT Manager for a Software House off Broadway. I have even themed our website at http://www.insidertech.co.uk on the general area using the colour tones and pictures I have taken."
Whitfield has grabbed photos during his lunch and coffee breaks, snapping shots from positions by the Imperial War Museum North, the Broadway and the Designer Outlet. He hopes to carry on photographing the site until the end of phase one next year.
"I think the MediaCityUK site represents a great opportunity for media companies to reside and also boosted by the kudos and potential affiliation with both BBC North and the University of Salford media faculty which has just announced 39 new courses for media study. This will provide appropriate cross pollination for the site and also encourage media study in Salford and surrounding areas," he told Journalism.co.uk.
Whitfield has also set up a group on the professional networking site LinkedIn for people working at MediaCityUK to swap details and make contact. But most importantly his photos and videos of the site will be an archive to what the BBC and other creative companies hope will be a new start in the north.
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