Plans to demolish a “hated” city centre wall have been submitted after a regional daily campaigned to brighten up the area surrounding it.

Last March the Manchester Evening News has called on Manchester City Council to return the city’s Piccadilly Gardens to their “1950s splendour”.

The campaign was launched after readers told the newspaper the Gardens had been blighted by drug dealing and crime in recent years.

Many also called for a wall bordering the gardens to be knocked down as part of any redevelopment.

How the redeveloped Piccadilly Gardens could look

The MEN received more than five times the 4,000 signatures required to trigger a town hall debate on the issue, with all 96 of the authority’s councillors unanimously backing the campaign.

Now an application to replace the wall with a brand new pavilion to contain shops and bars has been placed with the town hall planning department by owners Legal and General.

The £2m designs show a new structure on roughly the same footprint as the existing wall, while new lighting and trees would be scattered throughout the gardens.

Council leader Sir Richard Leese told the MEN: “This is the best news for Piccadilly Gardens since it was redesigned over a decade ago.

“When it’s complete it will entirely change the whole atmosphere and attraction of the gardens and make Mancunians proud.”