New plans for popular gig venue get green light
CHANGES to the popular gig venue Victoria Warehouse have been approved - including a new top floor terrace and a running track on the roof.
The plans centre around building a new seven-storey car park, making changes to the existing gig venue warehouse and reconfiguring the existing hotel on site, of which only 40 rooms are currently in use.
The Victoria Warehouse site on Wharf Road in Stretford is made up of three early 20th century warehouses with a detached, six-storey building that is currently home to a hotel at the east.
The first two levels of the western warehouse form the wellknown music and exhibirs exhibition space.
The site’s owners asked Trafford council for permission to reconfigure the buildings to provide 200 high quality rooms in the hotel, build a seven-storey car ar park with 183 spaces ces and build a roof extension extenthird on top of the hotel for a roof terrace and function room. They also wanted to put a new roof on the western warehouse as well as convert the second and third flo floors of the building, ing, a above the O2 Victoria tor Warehouse, in into office space and install two new lifts and a staircase. They also plan a new running track and clubhouse h on the roof of the building next to th the events centre. Plann Planning committee members approved the application unanimously.
At the same meeting, plans to demolish the former Greatstone Hotel on Chester Road in Stretford and replace it with apartments, next to three Grade II listed heritage sites, was refused.
The council had received a number of letters from nearby residents in support of the application due to its provision of ‘much needed’ new housing for the community.
But local Gorse Hill ward councillor Coun Mike Cordingley was not of
the same opinion - along with the rest of the planning committee.
While councillors praised the fact that the plans made use of a brownfield site and would provide the required number of affordable homes, members were very concerned about the small size of the 56 flats planned for the site.
The plans were rejected unanimously by Trafford council’s planning committee due to the layout, scale, massing and ‘poor design’ of the plans.