ECF’s 263 Salford flats tipped for approval
The £69.4m Old Adelphi would see three blocks of apartments, including 112 affordable homes, built on a three-acre site that was once home to two notable and now-demolished structures: the listed Adelphi Building and the Stirling Prize-winning Centenary Building.
Salford City Council’s planning committee will debate the proposals from ECF – a joint venture between Muse, Homes England, and Legal & General – at its meeting next week. City council officers have recommended the project for approval.
Old Adelphi has been designed by Buttress Architects and sits within the £2.5bn Crescent Salford masterplan from ECF, University of Salford, and Salford City Council. The site is part of zone 5 of the masterplan, which was allocated for residential and creative uses with pocket parks and active travel links.
The apartment blocks would be accessed from Peru Street, Adelphi Street, or Cannon Street. Credit: via planning documents
Two of the three blocks would be L-shaped. These blocks, known as A and B, would also contain the market homes in the proposals. These would consist of 66 one-bedroom, 81 two-bedroom, and four three-bedroom apartments – 17 of which would be duplexes. Residents of these flats, which would all be for market rent, would have access to a lounge, movie/game room, and gym.
The third block, known as C, would hold 112 affordable apartments. The vast majority of these would be one-bedroom homes, with 11 set aside as two-bedroom apartments.
All three blocks would be six storeys at their highest mark. There would be a courtyard between them and shared access to eight accessible parking spaces near Peru Street.
There would also be a commercial unit of 900 sq ft on the ground floor of Block A.
An independent viability study conducted by Capita Property & Infrastructure put the total cost of Old Adelphi down as £69.4m. The gross development value of the project was listed as £66.8m.
In addition to Buttress, the project team includes CBRE, Re-form, Hydrock, Clancy, Tyler Grange, Hannan, Stephen Levrant Heritage Architecture, Virtual Planit, AEC, Max Fordham, Hollis, Graphite Security, Civic Heritage, RMS, and Social Value Portal.
You can learn more about the project by searching reference PA/2025/1422 on Salford City Council’s planning portal.
Would or will?
By Anon
All “would”s until planning permission is secure!
By Julia Hatmaker
I like the use of quotemarks to indicate the plural of “would”. Clever 🙂 I am very observant 🙂
By Anonymous
To “Anon” at 11.36am – I assume that’s why the headline is “tipped for approval” rather than has obtained approval??
By Phil Ingham
I guess it’s a Muse scheme so nothing is certain!
By Anon
What a poor replacement for the Adelphi building.
By Heritage Action
Another balcony free residential building – depressing and a poor outcome for future residents.
By Balcony watch
I like the design. Very nice.
By John
The windows are too small. Single aspect flats with such small windows will be dark and gloomy. Why not build bigger windows?
By Anonymous
Why no homes to buy so people can put down roots? Inner Salford is full of “build to rent” flats and temporary transient communities.
By Anonymous
@ June 04, 2026 at 9:23 pm
By Anonymous
It might be something to do with Part O building regs and how they are interpreted.
By Anonymous
More unaffordable appartments. What is ‘affordable’ nowadays to most people
By Salford born Bred.
Great location with good transport links into manchester city centre
By Salford Born Bred.
Looks like another nice scheme by ECF. I wish they’d have done more in Liverpool over the years but perhaps understandable.
By Anonymous
Who would want to park a car anywhere around the whole development.as a plumber working on those buildings for 30 years I. Hope they spend on the sewer system as it blocks regularly and I mean block,s ask the locals my advice instruct a thorough survy or get burned.good nluck looks a nice development to me.
By Petermufc11
It is widely recognised in UK design policy, housing research, and architectural best practice. Developers often avoid them for cost and efficiency reasons, not because they are inferior.
So add no balconies to the occupants lack of amenity and again we have developer led little boxes.
Give people places to live not to exist, we saw what happened to the mass developments of the 60 / 70s – they are all demolished.
By Steve5839