Anwyl proposes resi at Cheadle Royal
An island site at the heart of the Stockport office location, previously marketed for offices, is being lined up for 54 homes in plans now lodged with the local authority.
APD has designed the scheme on behalf of Anwyl Construction and Muse Places, the legacy developer of Cheadle Royal. Asteer is advising on planning.
The 4.4-acre plot is located at Lakeside off Brooks Drive, and is bordered by three-storey office buildings. It is free of structures, with trees and green buffering to the offices around its edges.
Sixteen of the homes are proposed as affordable, with the housing to include one- to four-bedroom homes from walk-up apartments to detached houses. In all, 102 car parking spaces are proposed.
The site is reachable from both Heald Green and Gatley rail stations, with the Cheadle Royal hospital bus stop also close by.
As set out in Asteer’s planning statement, Muse has been working with the freeholder CRH Charitable Trust since 1994, when the property company then known as Amec was chosen as developer for the 67-acre site, next to the then-under development A34 Wilmslow-Handforth bypass.
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Early development included large floorplate HQ-style offices and leisure uses, with David Lloyd, TGI Friday and Premier Inn still at the development. Later development saw additions such as the Oakfield business village.
In planning terms, at this point there doesn’t appear to be any major issues – the land does not amount to either formal or informal open space, being allocated for employment land like the rest of the CRBP allocation.
With market changes, commercial development is no longer thought to be a way forward for a site described as a sustainable location for housing, with local retail and amenities within a 10-minute walk. Local consultation has been carried out.
Factors such as time elapsed since allocation, planning history and marketing of the site should come into play, said Asteer, which draws on a report by JLL into how the site had been marketed as a design & build opportunity – a 2015 brochure trumpeting the last Cheadle Royal plot, suggesting 100,000 sq ft of offices across several blocks, failed to find any takers.
How the D&B office opportunity was floated for the Lakeside site now proposed for housing. Credit: planning documents
The world of work has changed since. Of particular note is the decline in demand for large-scale South Manchester offices post-pandemic, with annual take-up now averaging 450,000 sq t against 600,000 sq ft before Covid.
On top of that, this has become the latest application to point out Stockport’s lack of an up-to-date Local Plan, making familiar arguments about housing need and the lack of anything like a five-year supply.
Asteer quotes the Gatley Golf Club appeal decision from this January, which spoke of Stockport’s constant under-delivery of housing since 2018, and its “acute and serious levels of housing need”. In various recent cases, Stockport has found itself unable to argue against development due to its weakened position.
Unlike some recent contentious sites, this is not in any way Green Belt, with the existing allocation and its unusual location being the things that make it notable. Effectively it is an island of land surrounded on three sides by private roads, in the Lakeside and Brooks Drive highways within the business park, and by an ornamental lake.
There is an additional plot to the north, where Muse is understood to be in talks for care home provision.
The 16 homes to be classed as affordable – 30% of the total – are mapped out at this stage as eight one-beds, two two-beds and six three-beds.
Anwyl’s plans can be viewed on Stockport’s planning portal, with the reference DC/095428.
Royal Crescent, home to Premier Inn and other leisure venues, curves around the eastern part of the site at the bottom of the image. Credit: planning documents
The loss of high-quality employment sites in prime locations like this would seem to be the inevitable result of SMBC’s long-running war on common sense and coherent planning policy.
Not unreasonable for Anwyl/Muse to try and maximise return, but current downturn in demand in South Manchester – as opposed just to Cheadle Royal which still seems busy – doesn’t seem a sound policy reason to get rid of the best sites, assuming people want to live in the middle of a business park.
By Edward Street
This looks like a rather peculiar location for a low density housing development. I think keeping it as employment land or green space works a lot better surely? At a stretch apartments but not this.
By Anonymous
I’d be a bit depressed living in an office park. No life after 5pm
By Clouded Leopard
Who wants to live in the centre of a business park with jets taking the roof off every 2 minutes..
By Patrick
I suspect loss of the potential employment floorspace won’t be a massive issue as Stockport aims to deliver more of such stuff in centres – including Stockport town centre and Cheadle Hulme. Those are better locations for it, notwithstanding the existing office park in this location.
But 31 dwellings to the hectare? They’re taking the absolute proverbial. Should be apartments, should be delivering at least double if not treble what is proposed
By Anonymous
A distinct lack of green amenity space.
By Anonymous
What a bizarre proposal. I’m not against housing here but this is completely at odds with the scale and massing of what’s around it. This should be a much higher density housing scheme. Back to the drawing board!
By Anonymous
Bizarre. Why not consider a cemetery?
By Anonymous
The traffic around that site getting onto the A34 is already chaotic, I’d hate to imagine how much worse it will be with the houses being built in this strange location.
By J
Who would want to live in the middle of the business park? Agree apartments would sit much better, but the transport links/frequency are truly terrible in the local area so everyone would need a car and this junction is already struggling to cope… and this is all before 700 more homes are built in Heald Green by Bloor and the 1,500 at Handforth Garden Village just down the road!
By Anonymous
So that’s the end of the home of the Geese who have been coming here for over 30yrs
By David Maycock
It’s gridlocked there Monday To Friday morning and afternoon they will never get out onto A34.
By David Maycock
Here we go again…ooh there’s some grass we haven’t built on!!
When will the idiot planners and councillors realise we can’t keep building in this area. We are overcrowded and the roads are clogged up. NO MORE HOUSES!
By The Voice of Reason
Dear God, what an absolutely horrendous proposal.
By Big Des
I work on this site and have no objections to the proposed build except one, access routes in the business park are abysmal, we need another exit on the other side at Anne’s Road which is viable, it is a nightmare to get in the site in the morning and out at rush hour, this needs to be considered or I believe there will be some contention with the proposed houses.
By Steven smith NAS UK
I live in Heald green for over 30 years how much more traffic do we need it’s already unbearable but it doesn’t matter what we think it’s all about money
By Anonymous
Terrible location for family housing underneath the flight path with flights landing every few minutes over summer season. Long term detrimental health impacts for any children who grow up living here. Who would want to live in the middle of a business park anyway? Bonkers
By Jeremy Bongo
What a shame it would be to lose that lovely green space. What about the many geese who have made that area their home?
More traffic for the already grid-locked Kingsway? No, no, no!
Why not demolish the derelict building at the side & build on that land with access via St. Ann’s Road North.
By Julie