Out of Town: Radclyffe Park

“TEN years ago, Ordsall wasn’t the happiest place,” says Scott Neal, marketing manager for Manchester-based developer LPC Living. He isn’t wrong.

The area had been the subject of riots in the early 1990s and had a reputation as one of the most deprived parts of Salford – a city which itself has hardly been a byword for urban chic.

Things have slowly changed, though, and the Radclyffe Park scheme that is the subject of TheBusinessDesk’s first Work In Progress represents £50m worth of a phased development programme of redevelopment which has brought more than £150m of investment into the area.

LPC has perhaps been the most active developer in Ordsall to date – completing its first scheme, Gresham Mill, around seven years ago and following this with the much more ambitious Quay 5 apartment scheme on Ordsall Lane. This scheme was marketed close to the top of the property boom in 2095, and all 231 apartments sold within six weeks of coming onto the market.

Since then, the property crash has made things more difficult – the drop in values in the city centre residential market has understandably had a knock-on effect on fringe locations such as Ordsall and Ancoats.

As a result, LPC Living has had to tweak both the Radclyffe Park scheme and future phases of its adjacent Hulton Square development so that they contain fewer apartments and more two- and three-bed family homes.

A 156-bed Travelodge hotel on the edge of the site replaces proposed apartments “which wouldn’t have been viable in this market”, says Neal.

However, the fact that both Radclyffe Park and future phases of Hulton Square are being progressed shows that the oft-forecast potential of Ordsall finally appears to being realised.

Radclyffe Park is being built on the site of the former Radclyffe primary school, which is one of two that was closed following completion of the new £6.5m Primrose Hill school in 2007.

The site is housed between the new school to the north and Ordsall Park to the south. The first phase of the  mixed-use scheme, which is anchored by a 50,000 sq ft supermarket pre-let to Morrison’s, contains 12 retail units, 62 duplex apartments, 17 townhouses, parking for 359 cars and a new 156-bed Travelodge hotel.

The hotel and supermarket will face out onto the busy Trafford Road dual carriageway facing Salford Quays, and Neal said that it is likely to bring more people in from the quays into Ardwick, which has been something of an enclave until recently.

The scheme has been designed by architects Falconer Chester Hall and is being built by Russells Construction. Work started on the supermarket in October and will complete in the summer.

LPC Living’s development director, Simon Ashdown, argues that Radclyffe Park “gives the area a focal point”.

“Trafford Road had always been a barrier between Ordsall and the Quays, but this will help to break it up,” he said. The scheme is just 500m from the Quays and Peel’s new MediaCity development, and Ashdowh believes that the retail units will provide a draw for relocating staff.

Ashdown said that LPC Living has had some enquiries from staff relocating to Salford Quays, while estate agents have also expressed more of an interest in marketing properties in the area .

“MediaCity is helping to put the area on the map, and there are people who will look to build a business here that need homes who won’t even have been aware of it eight months ago.”

Despite this, Neal said that both Radclyffe Park and Hulton Square were aimed at “another market”. Four of the 12 retail units are already under offer, with at least one of those that have signed up moving from the nearby district centre, which is to be demolished next year to make way for more housing.

In total, LPC Living is lead developer for the whole of Ordsall – an area covering around 180 acres.