Peel/council JV revisits Ancoats apartment block

A JOINT venture between Manchester City Council and the Peel Group is planning a new apartment block in Ancoats but there will be no affordable housing, despite the council’s own policy stipulating a 20% requirement.

Manchester Ship Canal Developments (MSCD), which is 50% owned by a city council vehicle called the Manchester Mortgage Corporation, is seeking permission for an eight-storey block with 111 apartments just off Great Ancoats Street on the edge of the city centre.

In a report prepared ahead of Thursday’s planning meeting, the council said affordable housing – which is accommodation rented by housing associations or sold through a shared ownership model – was not required because MSCD had an interest in the site before 2007 when it drew up its 20% policy.

In a separate statement Cllr Jeff Smith, executive member for housing and regeneration, said there was already enough affordable housing in Ancoats. According to the 2007 document, some 50% of homes sold in the city in 2002 were considered affordable to people on average incomes but by 2006 this had fallen to 23%.

A 2013 study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that Manchester was one of a number of cities where at least 50% of major housing schemes failed to meet local affordable housing targets.

Cllr Smith said: “The affordable housing requirement of any new development is assessed case by case in each neighbourhood. A key part of our housing strategy is to re-balance the housing offer. Ancoats is an area which has a disproportionately high level of social housing, where it is important to develop different types of housing tenure, rather than more affordable housing at this time.”

David King of Priced Out, which campaigns for affordable house prices, said: “Cash strapped councils risk losing site of their purpose when they forgo affordable housing commitments. Funds raised from developments like this can be easily lost in other budgets.”

The plot, off Advent Way, is currently used as a surface car park and was the subject of an earlier permission which was never built. The proposal follows two other residential MSCD schemes in the area called Muse and Cube as part of the regeneration of what was dubbed the Lower Eastside Valley. So far four out of seven schemes proposed in an original 2007 outline application have been developed.

Council officers have recommended the scheme is approved, despite complaints from 20 residents of Muse and Cube who fear they will lose light. THere have also been criticisms of the building’s design and worries over parking.