Salford City Council approved the plans in March 2020. Credit: via planning documents

Frogmore reaffirms commitment to ‘best site in Salford’

Work on Cotton Quay, a major mixed-use development featuring almost 1,500 homes and two hotels, could begin this year, according to the developer. 

“We are keen to get it delivered,” George Edwards, development surveyor at Frogmore, told Place North West.  

“We think it is the best site in Salford.” 

Edwards said the company is hoping to get on site and begin early-stage works this year. He added that a reserved matters application firming up the outline elements of the scheme could also materialise in 2023. 

In March 2020, Salford City Council granted hybrid planning consent from Frogmore and partner Royalton for the redevelopment of an eight-acre site next to Ontario Basin and dissected by Waterfront Quay. 

The full element of the consent was for 490 homes, 25,000 sq ft of commercial or retail space, a hotel, and a multi-storey car park with a rooftop play area including a climbing wall. 

Outline permission was granted for a further 1,000 homes, a second hotel, and 10,000 sq ft of commercial space. Cotton Quay also features plans for a Lido, to be created within St Francis Basin. 

Following planning approval, and completion of the Section 106 agreement more than a year later, Frogmore’s ability to get to work was hampered by ongoing market volatility.

“There have been some global events and instability that have caused problems for us like all [developers] in terms of getting on site and pressing the button,” Edwards said. 

Despite the amount of time that has passed since the approval, Edwards said there are no plans to drastically rework the project. The development Frogmore plans to deliver will be pretty much identical to the one approved just under three years ago, he said.

Cotton Quay is designed by architects Studio Egret West, Carey Jones Chapman Tolcher, and Studio Partington. Lichfields is the planner and Arcadis is the QS on the project. 

Frogmore acquired the site from TH Real Estate for an undisclosed sum in 2018. 

TH, which sold the 10-acre Central Retail Park site to Manchester City Council for £37m in 2017, had previously won outline consent for around 800 units at Cotton Quay in May 2016. 

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A few more balconies would be nice, but looks good, let’s get this, Media City phase 2, X1 Michigan Towers and the other developments built asap to really improve the area. I do hope though that they start running an increased service of 10 trams per hour, each a “double-tram”, to cope with the higher demand.

By MC

This will start on site very soon

By ChorltonRed

These new proposals just don’t look particularly pretty unfortunately. Other than top tier world cities that are extremely expensive to live, most place can’t afford to build nice designs anymore.

By Another Manc

Media City and Salford Quays are towns on their own now, incredible really in such a short space of time.

By Anonymous

Wow, I’ve just figured out which bit of the quays this is. I’m going to have to find somewhere else to park on a Sunday! Will be handy for Old Trafford though.

By Anonymous

Looks unreal and right next to my flat I welcome it !

By Anonymous

Lack of balconies is disappointing 🙁

By Balcony warrior

hope this turns out as good as it looks on the visuals – will transform the quays similar to Nordhaven in Copenhagen

By Arch

This really is transformational, can’t wait for it to be delivered

By Frank

To think, in 1970 as a 15 year old starting work with The Manchester Ship Canal Company this was 8 Dock full of ships I used to look over to from the Dock Office where all the clerical staff worked. I would not have believed then how the docks have been transformed from over 50 years ago….fantastic really !

By Rodders

Great skyscraper design, best I have seen in Manchester so far

By DB

Absolutely horrific design. It will ruin the area. They’ll be lucky to complete it in 10 years judging by the pace of development elsewhere in the Quays. The development is far too large in height and unit numbers. Anyone living there will suffer from a lack of sufficient surrounding infrastructure and services.

By Anonymous

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