Planning round-up: Cheetham Hill scheme revived; Developers wary of Booth Hall & another Liverpool hotel proposed
A PROPERTY developer who is part of Prince Charles’ Gloucestershire polo set has revived his firm’s plans to build 500 apartments in Cheetham Hill, Manchester.
Cirencester-based Kuldip Dhillon’s Satnam Investments has submitted new plans to build three tower blocks, 19, 17 and 13-storeys high, at Red Bank close to Cheetham Hill Road in the city’s ‘green quarter’.
Satnam was granted permission for a similar proposal in 2006. The council’s planning committee will consider the application on Thursday.
Some 70% of the scheme’s apartments would have two bedrooms and there are plans for more than 600 car parking spaces. It also includes 30,000 sq ft for offices, retail and leisure.
The council has received six letters complaining of potential loss of light and objecting to increased traffic and disruption. It concedes the development is “intensive and high density” but believes it would be beneficial to the area.
However, council officers have advised that Satnam should not be given a three-year permission because, “in its current format it is unlikely to be deliverable in the current climate and into the future.”
Instead the company is likely to receive 12 months. “If the scheme is not forthcoming in that time,” writes the council in a planning report, “it is considered that further negotiations should take place with the applicant in order to bring forward a scheme that can be realistically delivered and therefore help regeneration in this important part of the city centre fringe and the Irk Valley.”
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DEVELOPERS have shown little appetite for the conversion of a 100-year-old building on the site of the Booth Hall Children’s Hospital so the NHS has submitted plans to have it knocked down.
The NHS wants to sell the site on to developers with permission for 3
00 homes. Its original plans, granted permission in 2008, included the demolition of most of the hospital in Blackley, north Manchester, but the retention of the administrative block, pictured.
The NHS now says it has struggled to attract developers who are concerned about the additional cost of converting old buildings.
“It is acknowledged that it was previously considered important to retain the former administration building on this site, due to its key presence in the centre and entrance of the site, its reflection of the history of the former hospital use and it’s architectural merit and design by a noted architect,” says a report.
“However, since the demolition of the surrounding hospital buildings and the loss of the administration building’s historic setting, it is considered that the significance of the structure has diminished visually. Furthermore, it is important to consider the future of this now derelict and unsightly land, and the lack of demand for apartments across the city, which will significantly affect the viability of moving this scheme forward.”
Booth Hall was closed after the opening of the new Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, near Rusholme.
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A plan has been submitted to Liverpool City Council for another city centre hotel.
Applicant TP Hotel (Liverpool), which has given the council a contact address in Malaysia, wants to convert the upper floors of 11-17 Parker Street into a 134-bed “short stay” hotel.
The ground floor of the site is currently occupied by the retailer Superdrug.
