Contractor chosen as Gatley scheme nears start date

Rowlinson Construction has been appointed to deliver the redevelopment of the art deco Tatton Cinema in Gatley, one of Stockport Council’s longest-running property sagas.

Dickens Property Group secured planning permission for the project, which will include a 4,000 sq ft convenience supermarket and 33 retirement apartments, in November 2017, having revealed and then submitted its plans in 2015. No date for work to start on site has yet been given.

Co-op, which closed its store in nearby Church Road last May, is understood to be lined up to take the store.

The Tatton Buildings’ frontage has two shop units either side of the old cinema entrance, with numbers 1 and 2 Tatton Buildings still in use to the left. The retail unit and seven apartments above are to be built out from the frontage of the existing building and numbers 3 and 4, while a new four-storey building of 26 two-bedroom apartments will be built at the rear, along with car parking.

The 1930s-built cinema closed in 2001 and after going through several brief ownerships, the site was acquired by Dickens in 2005. Dickens’ first application, in 2009, was turned down through lack of parking provision. The building suffered a fire in 2016.

Nicol Thomas is the scheme’s architect.