Urban Splash scraps Ancoats Dispensary demolition plan
PROPERTY developer Urban Splash has withdrawn its application to demolish the grade II-listed Ancoats Dispensary in Manchester.
The move gives campaigners – who have been camping out at the site – the breathing space to apply for a £5m grant from the National Lottery’s new Heritage Enterprise fund, which will seek to stimulate economic growth by unlocking the commercial potential of unused historic buildings and sites.
Restoration architect Alex Finlason, of the Pickard Finlason Partnership in Hale, has pulled together interested parties, including Urban Splash, and argues a successful grant bid will secure the building’s future. The campaign group has already lined up a potential tenant – AWOL Studios, which rents space to artists and start-ups.
Ancoats Dispensary has been closed since 1989 and the building has been owned by Urban Splash since 2001. The firm had previously planned a project to bring it back to life by putting in around 1,800 sq ft of commercial space and 16 apartments.
However, the scheme was due to receive £1m in funding from the North West Development Agency, which was cut when the coalition government came into power. Last year Urban Splash applied to demolish the building which has already lost its roof due to work that began before the prospect of funding support vanished. In April councillors in Manchester were advised to give final approval to demolition works but they agreed to defer the decision.
Urban Splash chairman Tom Bloxham said: “Over the past six months we have been working closely with architect Alex Finlason of Pickard Finlason Partnership and representatives of the Save Ancoats Dispensary Group to explore whether, collectively, there is potential to make one final attempt to save the Ancoats Dispensary building from demolition.
“The Heritage Lottery Fund’s new Heritage Enterprise Scheme would appear to provide a fresh opportunity to secure funding to bring the listed building back into use and whilst we recognise that getting this funding is not certain and there will be a great deal of competition for this new funding stream nationally, we are optimistic that – with the hard work that is being undertaken by the group and the support that the building generates locally – the funding application will be successful.
“In the light of the forthcoming application to the HLF, Urban Splash has therefore recently withdrawn listed building application to demolish Ancoats Dispensary to provide this new initiative with sufficient time to develop into a credible and viable plan.”
He added: “Unfortunately, given the extensive consideration that has already been given to other viable uses and funding sources, if this new initiative were to fail, there seems little prospect of any viable use coming forward and reluctantly the demolition application would have to be re-submitted. We very much hope this is not the case and Urban Splash is lending every support to the Group. Nothing would give us more pleasure than to save this important building.”
Mr Finlason said: “Our proposals to bring back the building into an effective and productive new use have been developed and a viability study concluded… The group and the team with them have put in an immense amount of work, with public consultations, local needs assessments, and liaison and in developing our plans. We have everything firmly crossed that our support continues.”
Linda Whillans-Carver, campaign co-ordinator of Save Ancoats Dispensary Group, said: “After two years of campaigning this is music to our ears. It is a reward for all the hard work carried out by a group of local people, supported by others from as far away as the US who have never lost sight of a vision.”
The neo-Gothic building featured in a painting by LS Lowry, and is considered to be the home of modern orthopaedic surgery in Britain. The campaign group will submit an application to the Heritage Enterprise scheme and next month and will find out if they are successful in November.
