A regular blog and updates from Mike Cordingley, Councillor for Gorse Hill Ward in Trafford – Gtr Manchester.
The masterplan is back at planning committee on the 11th November 2021.
The changes seem to be formalisation of reduced positive commitments that had already been announced, the disappointing scrapping of a new sports centre and some changes to the cricket club’s commitment.
Nevertheless it does put the Civic Quarter into an accessible form and offers a chance to look at the current ambition.
Quite an unexpected planning application. The plans involve taking out the current rear extension and using that space with the car park for additional apartments. There’s not a huge amount of detail as at this stage the plans are just in outline but it does entail three levels of underground car park accessed from a lift.
The above picture gives a cross section from the side with the new area shown in darker grey. The planning application reference is 105261/OUT/21.
Close of consultation is this Friday 29th October.
Plans for a 171 bed hotel, comprising 9 no. storeys of hotel accommodation and ancillary uses including ground floor café, plus basement and screened rooftop plant area and tower feature have been submitted.
The current building shown below would be demolished.
This is an anticipated submission, a previous application having been rejected for being too tall amongst other matters.
I’m instinctively supportive of a hotel being built in this area so close to Manchester United. Retail space in the Red Chippy Village is almost exclusively focused on supporting match days. It’s clear that the vitality of the area would benefit from more people being around outside match days.
Councillor Mike Cordingley
Whether this is the right application is something that residents should have a say on and I’ll be very interested in the reaction.
Mike Cordingley
Following rejection of a larger hotel with parking considered to be insufficient, developers have resubmitted a reduced application with more parking.
The application is open for comments
The developers for Stretford Mall and Lacy Street, Trafford Bruntwood, have submitted a scoping report request.
The nature of the development in our town centre makes it a requirement to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment with the planning application.
This scoping request is a preliminary exercise to tease out the subject matter that will need to be included within the Environmental Impact Assessment.
Whilst a scoping request is not particularly noteworthy in itself, the description submitted in terms of the plan for Stretford is exciting:
By planning standards this was a hard-hitting report.
The principle of the demolition of the existing buildings and their replacement with residential development was considered acceptable.
However, for reasons set out in full later in the report, the assessment of the scheme against NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) policies relating to heritage ‘provides a clear reason for refusing the development’.
There were also other issues which weighed against the proposal relating to:
The report also drew the members attention to the fact that most of the dwellings would not meet the nationally described space standards so the poor level of amenity was exacerbated and also indicated an overdevelopment of the site.
The proposal was for 57 apartments in an ‘L’ shaped block with a five storey frontage to Chester Road adjacent to the Gorse Hill Park gates on the site of the Greatstone Hotel.
Planning committee unanimously supported the officers’ report and refused permission on the submitted plans.
Councillor Mike Cordingley is a member of the planning committeee
