Consent nears for £15m Stretford resi
Trafford Council is to approve its own plans for 53 houses on the site of a former Royal Mail sorting office off Lacy Street and is also searching for a contractor to deliver the scheme.
Designed by Pozzoni Architects, the Stretford project would be made up of two-, three-, and four-bed houses as well as two-bed apartments, with 25% of the development designated as affordable.
The Stretford development would cost in the region of £15m to build, according to tender documents for the design and build contract up for grabs.
The site has stood vacant since 2018 when the Royal Mail relocated to Old Trafford, with the council acquiring the site the following year. A former probation centre that also occupied the site has been demolished along with the sorting office.
The Lacy Street site is part of a wider 27-acre masterplan for Stretford that also includes the mall, which the authority is redeveloping in partnership with Bruntwood.
Last month, Bruntwood and the council unveiled plans to demolish much of the mall and deliver apartments. The scheme is to receive funding from the GM Good Growth Fund.
The wider project team for Lacy Street includes advisors Avison Young, with Urban Green on landscape, ecology, and BNG advice.
To learn more, search for reference number 117039/FUL/25 on Trafford Council’s planning portal.
Considering the council’s own design guide how is this style, scale or type of development appropriate? Where’s the architectural relevance to context, scale appropriate to a major arterial route, innovation in building typology.. It’s just another road-led, medium density, bang average housing proposal, in the wrong place.
By Anonymous
Rents and house prices are increasing steeply across Trafford because of a severe shortage of housing (self-inflicted by the council). Yet the best the council can offer up on such a prime site, close to town centre amenities and Metrolink are…. houses. Where are the apartments? Where is the density? Where is the desire to help Trafford residents saddled with high rents and housing costs? The most NIMBY council in GM
By Anonymous
Looks good. YIMBYs need to learn that families exist and not everything has to be shoebox apartments.
By Anthony
Considering how close the site is to the Metrolink the density is woeful.
Why does it not comply with minimum density of 120 dwellings per hectare in Places for Everyone for sites within 400m of a Metrolink Station?
By UnaPlanner
Anthony – plenty of houses across GM. If you want a house with a garden you are extremely well catered for in GM. It’s apartments and walkable neighbourhoods that GM is severely lacking in, especially outside central areas. This is about introducing a more balanced housing stock, but Trafford Council don’t have the stomach to try anything new. That’s why I support yanking planning powers away from parochial local councils and placing the GMCA in the driving seat for major planning applications.
By YIMBY
They appear very basic from the images considering they are on a major gateway road. An missed opportunity in my opinion.
By MJ
I’m with Anthony here. Seems a decent gentle density scheme here of townhouses with gardens. Perfect for families. Cities are not just for 30 year old graduates.
By Rye
It’s a shame they dropped the canal-front commercial units. Considering the councils own regeneration plan with bruntwood featured renders of such a canal frontage, and then they come up with this. Missed opportunity for commercial units facing the canal here.
By Rob
I would like to know where all the new residents that are going to live in these houses and apartmentswill find NHS dentists, get appointments at the doctor’s as it is almost impossible to get one less then 3 weeks later and places in local schools.I am sure I will not be the only person to mention this.Are we getting more doctors surgeries, new schools in the local area?.
By Anonymous
They shouldn’t be building more homes and flats as we don’t have a A&E departmen open 24/7 we have to travel to ST Mary’s Salford Royal Wythenshawe Manchester Royal infirmary if they want to build more homes and flats then they have to reopen the A&E department at Trafford General
By Anonymous
Rubbish density considering proximity to tram station and huge let down with no retail/leisure. Could have really unlocked access to the canal and been a great canal side destination.
By Anonymous
At an earlier consultation about the regeneration of Stretford, we were informed that the development on Lacey Street would include recreational facilities, to highlight the Bridgewater Canal; perhaps a cafe, cycle hire, paddleboard, and Kayak hire. This would be very popular and improve Stretford’s image. What’s become of these plans?
By Jan Sumara
So many of these new schemes look like low-end Victorian tenements, but without the aesthetic quality. They look bad enough when they’re built, but in 50 years’ time they’ll look terrible. Come on, Manchester. Surely you can do better than this.
By Anonymous
The addition of houses here is welcome, however, abandoning the canal-facing commercial element is a disaster. Houses for families yes, wasting valuable canal frontage on the doorstep of a Metrolink, no. The two blocks shown on the right above should both be apartments. This is a shocker.
By Anonymous
Such a missed opportunity. I get they don’t have any real development experience/capacity but surely they could have partnered with someone who does. Great opportunity to create some activation of the canal
By Cheggers