Bridgefield scheme could be brought to market this year

A LEISURE-led scheme on the former Bridgefield site in Stockport town centre could be brought to the market by the end of the year, according to the council’s service director for place improvement, Paul Lawrence.

Development of a scheme anchored by a multi-screen cinema operator and a new Debenhams is a key priority for the town centre’s improvement, Mr Lawrence said, as it improved linkages and traffic flow with the Merseyway shopping centre and could help to stimulate the town’s night-time economy.

Speaking at a recent property & construction lunch held by Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Mr Lawrence said that Stockport was generally acknowledged in Greater Manchester as “the place that should be more successful than it is”.

Although it has some of the most affluent suburbs in the city-region in places like Cheadle, Bramhall and Heaton Moor, its town centre has suffered from a chronic lack of underinvestment.

“You could say that it’s still stuck in the 1960s – it’s certainly not had much investment since,” he said.

That was set to change a few years ago when Australian developer Lend Lease proposed its £500m retail-led Bridgefield regeneration scheme, but when the property market turned sour it pulled the plug on the project in 2008.

Stockport Council recently acquired the long leasehold on the existing Debenhams building and car park, and earlier this week the the council’s executive also approved buying up more buildings on the site to create a new public square linking the leisure scheme to Merseyway.

He said that Stockport faced the same challenge as most other prominent towns outside regional city centres did in convincing developers to bring office and retail-led schemes in to their towns, but added that the council had “made it clear we are prepared to intervene to get things moving” through its purchase of sites for its Bridgefield scheme and the Grand Central development last year.

Mr Lawrence said that he hoped that pre-lest with both Debenhams and the cinema operator could be signed this year, which will then allow it to bring the scheme forward to the wider marketplace.

This would also provide fresh impetus to Merseyway shopping centre, which he described as “not a thing of beauty” that covered the source of the Mersey – where the Tame and Goyt rivers meet – when it was built. The centre is now effectively in the hands of the UK taxpayer, after Law of Property Act receivers were appointed in 2009 after its former owners defaulted on loans owed to Bradford & Bingley.

Another priority is the town’s market, which Mr Lawrence described as “a hidden gem”, which doesn’t achieve anything like the footfall it should.

The council has begun to rectify this by beginning to appoint a new operator for the market, with a tender document due to be issued within the next few months.

The nearby Underbanks area has just gained £100,000 under the Portas Pilot scheme, which it will use to help revitalise the markets and build a creative arts complex that will host outdoor film screenings.

At Grand Central, demolition has been taking place of the former bowling unit and the Heaven & Hell nightclub to provide temporary surface parking for commuters until a new 1,000-space multi-storey car park is built – for which the council hopes to gain partial funding from the Department for Transport. Once the car park is built, developer partner Muse plans to bring forward an office-led, mixed-use scheme that will also contain a hotel.

It is also planning a series of traffic calming measures on the A6 to help increase permeabilitiy through the town centre.

“We think that with the BAM building nearby, this is the best place in Stockport for Grade A offices,” he said.

Meanwhile, at Woodford a two-day consultation took place last weekend hosted jointly by Stockport and Cheshire East councils over plans for Woodford Aerodrome, which was sold by BAE Systems earlier this year in a £100m deal to JCB heir Joe Bamford’s company, Avro Heritage.

Its proposals for the site involve merging two developable areas amounting to 42 hectares of land at the northern end of the site, which would be transformed into a 950-home “garden village”.

This would pave the way for a joint venture between Avro Heritage and Redrow-owned Harrow Estates to build on the site. Mr Lawrence said that he hoped the supplementary planning document for the site could be approved by September so that a planning application for the scheme can be submitted by the end of the year.

Avro Heritage then plans to use the proceeds of any land sales to Harrow to develop the southern part of the site, where it is planning a film studio, an equestrian centre and other attractions.