Deal will avoid court case over apartments
POLICE HQ DEVELOPERS TO DROP LEGAL BID IF ALTERNATIVE SITE AGREED
A DEAL has been struck between Salford council and a company that wants to turn the city’s former police HQ into high-spec apartments in order to postpone a potentially costly and embarrassing court case.
Developers began 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.
The case was 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. The M.E.N. understands the developers were seeking a multi-million pound settlement.
Five current councillors and several former ones were to be called to give evidence at the hearing – some on behalf of the developers.
Court records show that Stama brought the case against the local authority in June 2019.
The legal proceedings date back to 2017, when Stama’s plan to turn the former police HQ into flats was rejected because residents would have ‘dull views’ and little green space.
But the council and Stama have now agreed to stall the court case for six months so attempts can be made to find an alternative site in the city for them to develop.
If a suitable site is found the legal action will be dropped.
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, for £1.6m.
But the scheme was rejected in 2017 by councillors who said that homeowners would have no gardens and that their windows would look out on dull and uninspiring views.
Council bosses have consistently said that the rejection was justified.
But in 2019 departing Labour councillor Stephen Ord referred to the case when he quit the council chamber, calling the refusal ‘one of the local government scandals of the decade.’
Town hall bosses deny any wrongdoing and say that their planning process was properly followed.