Court to rule on £18m police station flats plan
LONG-RUNNING DISPUTE OVER BID TO CONVERT FORMER HQ
A BITTER dispute between Salford council and a company that wanted to turn the city’s former police HQ into high-spec apartments is to be settled in the High Court.
Developers are taking legal action against the council over alleged breach of contract after their plans to turn the Salford Crescent building into flats were rejected.
Stama Development told the M.E.N. last year that they were left ‘with no alternative’ than to start proceedings.
Now the case is scheduled to be considered at a hearing at Manchester’s Civil Justice Centre in March.
Negotiations to settle the matter out of court have so far failed.
Five current councillors and several former ones will be called to give evidence at the hearing.
Court records show that Stama brought the case against the local authority in June 2019. Stama’s plan to turn the former police HQ into flats was rejected in 2017 because residents would have ‘dull views’ and little green space.
Developers wanted to transform the former police station - which has been lying empty since 2005 - into an £18m housing complex and had entered into a contract to buy the site from Salford council, providing planning consent was secured.
Property Alliance Group (PAG) - Stama’s joint venture partner on the project - first threatened to take legal action against the local authority back in 2017, saying it had already sunk £230,000 into the project.
Council bosses have consistently said that the rejection was justified.
PAG, an established developer based in Trafford Park which has completed more than 40 schemes across Greater
Manchester, wanted to turn the site into 117 new flats, and build 23 townhouses in a yard at the back.
However two years ago the council revealed a masterplan to create a new “city district” on 244 acres, with the police station in the middle of it earmarked for demolition.
The Stama scheme had been recommended for approval by council officers and had the backing of a local residents group following two years of talks to amend the original designs. However, senior council officers responsible for the city’s regeneration opposed the plans.
PAG had entered into a contract with the council to buy the building for £1.7m subject to planning approval for the scheme.
After planning permission was refused they say the council terminated the agreement, citing that the time period to finalise the deal had expired. They allege that the council are in breach of the contract for doing this.
If the scheme had been approved
work would have started on site in October 2019 and would have been completed within three years.
While council planning officers said the building met all residential criteria, senior officers from the council’s own development team, in charge of the city’s regeneration, said the scheme was a “poor contribution to The Crescent streetscape and the attractiveness of the wider area”. They also flagged the lack of parking and of private garden space for residents.
In a statement issued last year Salford council said that councillors had made a fair and transparent decision, adding: “Salford City Council refutes any allegations that the council has acted improperly in this matter.”
Salford council was asked for a comment on the case now going to court but did not respond.
A spokeswoman for PAG said: “This isn’t something we could comment on at this stage in the legal process.”