1,000 more new homes for city centre
MANCHESTER PLANNING CHIEFS PASS SKYSCRAPERS AS PART OF HUGE PROJECT TO BUILD HOMES DESPITE PROTESTS FROM EXISTING RESIDENTS
MORE than 1,000 new apartments have been approved for Manchester city centre - including matching twin skyscrapers on the edge of Castlefield.
The council’s monthly planning meeting saw two 36-storey towers approved for land near the old ITV site at Water Street, an 18-storey block at Oxford Road’s former BBC site, a clutch of new buildings on Princess Street and a further 24 flats in Castlefield basin.
One of the Castlefield skyscrapers would sit next to Water Street and the V&A hotel, near to the Museum of Science and Industry, and would form part of the mammoth St John’s regeneration project.
The copper-coloured block will include 305 apartments - a mixture of one, two and three-bed flats - and shops at ground floor level. None of them will be affordable, but according to the planning report a cash payment is likely to be received instead for the provision of cheaper housing elsewhere in the city.
Alongside the new tower will be a matching silver-coloured skyscraper of the same height next to the canal basin, containing an identical mix of apartments.
An eight-storey block intended for creative businesses, which are seen as key to the wider St John’s project for the former Granada Studios site, was also approved. Elsewhere in the city centre, another tower was approved for the redevelopment of the former BBC site on Oxford Road, known as Circle Square.
That will see an 18-storey block of 384 serviced apartments built on Charles Street, next to the residential development already under way as part of plans for a new neighbourhood near the River Medlock.
The apartments were approved by Manchester planners despite complaints from nearby residents that they are ‘nothing more than student halls’ and turn the area into a ‘student ghetto.’
Officers noted in their report that they were indeed likely to be marketed to post-graduate and international students but said this was in accordance with council policy.
On the long-vacant corner of Princess Street and Whitworth Street - on the site formerly marketed as Origins previous plans to build a hotel have now changed to flats.
In addition to two residential blocks already approved last year, a third building will now take the number of flats on the site to 351 after market testing by developers Urban & Civic showed ‘there was no demand for a high quality hotel at this location.’ The plans include a terrace overlooking the waterfront at Canal Street with independent restaurants and shops at ground floor level, or potentially an art gallery - but not bars, according to the report.
Several councillors pointed out there had been a series of previous proposals put forward and approved for the site and expressed concern that this latest version should finally actually go ahead.
Meanwhile, a smaller - but controversial - development at Slate Wharf, in Castlefield, would see 24 flats built in a new four-storey block in the canal basin.
Fifty letters of objection were submitted by members of Castlefield Forum ahead of the meeting, arguing the plot should be kept as open public space - and urging the council to buy the plot for that purpose. Officers concluded the site served no specific purpose and said they were minded to approve, so long as developers Waterside were willing to pay towards affordable housing elsewhere. All 1,369 apartments were agreed.
They are ‘nothing more than student halls’ Nearby residents complain about an 18-storey block of apartments