Salford is next door to Manchester, but don’t fall into the trap of describing it as being ‘part of Manchester’. It might be in the Greater Manchester area, but Salford is a separate city, and the locals are fiercely proud of their identity.
A crucial part of a successful business trip is booking the right accommodation, but frequently the experience of hotels and B&Bs can be underwhelming.
Alternatively, corporates can stay in a serviced apartments in Salford, which offer an altogether much more fulfilling experience. In a Situ Salford apartment, we are pleased to offer business travellers everything they need to have a comfortable stay. Facilities that are typically offered in our long and short-term serviced accommodation include fully equipped kitchens, on-site washing machines, spacious dining and open plan living rooms, homely bedrooms, free Wi-Fi and allocated parking spaces. Housekeeping services are also included in serviced apartment stays.
Ultimately, our fully furnished serviced apartments in Salford are designed to make guests feel like they are staying in their very own ‘home-away-from-home, where they can live and work self-sufficiently and independently.
Salford is in the modern metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, although historically it has always been in Lancashire. The city covers 37 square miles and is home to 255,000 people. The towns of Eccles, Worsley, Irlam, Cadishead, Swinton and Pendlebury are all within the city boundary. In a city, you don’t expect 60% of the land area to be greenspace, but that’s exactly what you get in Salford.
Salford is a collection of towns, rather than a city with a central district and suburbs, but the nearest thing Salford has to a city centre is the area around the university and the Chapel Street area, immediately adjacent to Manchester city centre.
Salford’s railway stations are served by local services to many other areas of northwest England, with the mainline stations in Manchester giving access to the other major cities of the UK. Road access to Salford is also good - the M602 is a short motorway that comes into Salford, and which links to the M60 (Manchester’s orbital motorway). From there, you can easily reach the M56, M6, M61 and M62.
Salford is home to a university of more than 20,000 students. Attracted by the idea of studying in a modern, vibrant city, many of these students choose to stay on after graduation. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of young people living in certain areas of the city, especially Eccles and the eastern districts.
Salford was once home to a huge dockyard, which closed in 1982. The Quays area was given a huge new lease of life in 2010 when the MediaCityUK development opened, and the BBC chose Salford as the location of its new North of England headquarters. ITV also have a presence at MediaCityUK. More people now work at Salford Quays than was ever the case when it was a working dock. Financial and professional services are some of the other major industries in Salford.
Business support organisations in the area include:
For whatever reason you are visiting the city, whether it is for a small networking event or to relocate your company, just remember there are many high-standard, corporate Salford city centre apartments available that can cater for your business travel needs.
The city has many things worth seeing, but one of the most visited tourists spots is Salford City Football Club. Funded by several former Manchester United players, Salford City is rapidly rising through the leagues, although Salford has always been a rugby league city. Salford Red Devils play in the elite Super League at the state-of-the-art AJ Bell Stadium, opened in 2012, sharing the ground with Premiership rugby union team Sale Sharks, who are now firmly established in Salford even though they bear the name of a different part of Greater Manchester.
Perhaps Salford’s most famous son is the artist L.S. Lowry, who lived in Pendlebury for 40 years. There is now a huge permanent display of his work at the Lowry Arts Centre, which also houses two theatres and hosts other art exhibitions. The Lowry Centre is just across the water from MediaCity, and we’ve already seen how MediaCity has transformed Salford. The Quays/MediaCity area is also the city’s go-to area for the best bars and restaurants – such as Marco Pierre White’s New York Italian, the Shahi Masala Indian restaurant, the Dockyard gastropub and Pier Eight, which is inside the Lowry Centre itself.
We’ve already remarked on how Salford is keen to emphasise that it has a separate identity from that of Manchester. Every May, the city hosts the quirky Sounds From The Other City music and arts festival, which the organisers say seeks to “draw attention to the off-kilter beauty of Salford, the often overlooked ‘other city’ to Manchester”. The eclectic festival venues include doctors’ surgeries, churches, pubs and community centres. Ultimately, there's plenty to do here, and it is for that reason that we recommend a long stay serviced apartment in Salford, to make sure you don't miss out on anything that the city has to offer.
Salford’s central district is just eight miles from Manchester’s international airport, which serves around 200 destinations worldwide. Alternative airports nearby to Salford include Blackpool Airport and Doncaster Sheffield Airport, around 47 miles and 88 miles away from the city respectively.
Corporates can book to stay in Salford apartments as close as possible to any airport of their choosing, meaning travel to and from arrival and departure flights won’t be too lengthy.
There is a railway station called Salford Central, but there is a wider choice of services from Salford Crescent, just one stop down the line. Salford Crescent is essentially the University of Salford’s campus station, and destinations served by trains from here include Bolton, Preston, Wigan, Southport, Stockport, Leeds, Rochdale, Blackpool and Blackburn.
Then it’s just a short hop to Manchester, from where there are regular trains to Manchester Airport, and to all of the other major cities in the UK.
As for rail services in other Salford towns, Worsley, Pendlebury and Cadishead have no station, but Swinton is one stop away from Salford Crescent and is served by the same trains. Manchester-Liverpool stopping trains serve Eccles and Irlam.
As you might expect for an urban area, almost every area of the city is linked by high-frequency bus services. The main bus operators in the area are FirstGroup and Arriva. To find out more about bus services, schedules and tickets, visit the Salford City Council website.
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