The Lord Mayor of Manchester presided over the event, accompanied by the Airport City Manchester joint venture partners, to cut the ribbon to officially launch Enterprise Way and commence the start of the community cycle ride.

The ‘Let’s Ride’ Pop-up event also included a lively event village featuring local food, drink and entertainment, as well as hosting a number of bike-related operators, including Mobike, Bambino Biking, AllGood Cycling and Wheels for All.

Lynda Shillaw, CEO of MAG Property and Airport City JV partner, said: “We’re creating a vibrant community at Airport City Manchester and we’re focused on promoting lively and engaging ways to bring different people together. We’re delighted to work in partnership with British Cycling to host the Airport City Community Ride to officially launch the opening of the new £15m Enterprise Way in a fun and healthy way.”

Joel Lavery, Head of Partnerships at British Cycling, said: “We were delighted to team up with Airport City Manchester for the fantastic community cycling event on the new Enterprise Way. We’re incredibly excited about the enormous opportunities here in our home city of Manchester as a result of the Airport City project, and it’s great that we’re able to help engage local communities and businesses through cycling from the very beginning.”

The construction of Enterprise Way began in March 2017 and was delivered by main contractor and Airport City JV partner, Beijing Construction Engineering Group International (BCEGI). The new link road, on the site adjacent to Manchester Airport, forms a key element of the infrastructure that will connect new development plots to the rest of the landmark £1billion site and the wider transport network.

As one of the UK’s largest business destinations in development today, Airport City Manchester has already seen the creation of up to 3,000 new jobs and attracted substantial investment across the 821,000 sq ft developed to date, including high-profile global companies including Amazon and DHL.

Airport City Manchester will continue set to generate major economic benefits to Greater Manchester and the wider northern region, through the creation of up to 16,000 jobs over the next 10-15 years and the Enterprise Way Community Ride also presented the opportunity to activate the initial part of the Airport City CSR strategy, which is focused around placemaking, health and well-being and community engagement.

The delivery of Enterprise Way highlights the scale of this unique site and frames the wider development opportunities across the Airport City scheme, following the significant 45 acre land sale at Global Logistics to TPG and Stoford in July 2017. This latest project is part of the £30m investment that has been committed by the Airport City Manchester JV partners into the development so far.