Go-ahead granted for Crewe gateway flats
The conversion of Breeden House and Regency Court will bring 108 apartments to the town centre. Elsewhere, a 101-home proposal for Holmes Chapel was rejected, with concerns raised by neighbouring employer Bespak joining an objection from Jodrell Bank.
Cheshire East Council’s southern area planning committee met today to discuss the applications.
Breeden House & Regency Court
The conversion and extension of office and retail space at Breeden House and Regency Court went down well with committee members, who voted unanimously to approve the proposals from Birmingham-based Packwood Ventures.
Packwood intends to rework and extend the existing three storey building fronting Edleston Road and High Street into a building that at its tallest would be seven storeys, using a ‘TopHuis’ MMC method.
The site sits within the southern gateway development area of Crewe town centre, across from the grade two-listed Christadelphian Church.
The reworked building would offer nine ground floor retail units fronting Edleston Road. The flats above would all be one- or two-bedroomed.
Both buildings are flat-roofed, with sections of two or three storeys, and are mostly made up of sub-divided office space, almost all of it vacant. The retail units within Regency Court are also empty.
As noted regularly this year, Cheshire East Council is short of its five-year housing land supply, leading officers to declare that the addition of 108 homes to the housing stock should be given “significant weight”.
The scheme was warmly received in the chamber, with Cllr Roger Morris observing the development momentum in the southern gateway area, citing the nearby Youth Zone scheme. Cllr Andrew Kolker called it “a wonderful design”.
No affordable housing is proposed, on viability grounds, a position the council’s independent assessor agrees with. The applicant’s belief is that the total development cost will be around £13.6m, with an 18-month build programme expected.
The professional team includes planner Mialex, Urban View, Urba, Astute, e3p, AB Heritage and Beamsley Ecology.
The application on Cheshire East’s planning portal is 24/4968/FUL.
Bridgemount Develpments, Holmes Chapel
Working with Asteer Planning and eScape Urbanists, Bridgemount faced an uphill struggle from the word go, with officers recommending refusal, in light of an objection from the University of Manchester.
Not unusually for Holmes Chapel proposals, the site falls within the consultation zone for the Unesco-listed World Heritage Site, and the university opposed on the grounds that it would impair the efficiency of the radio telescope, a factor that also puts the project in contravention of a policy within the local plan.
As observed in the chamber, much smaller plans than this have been nixed by the telescope’s presence.
Jodrell Bank has been in the wider news this week, with government innovation department UK Research & Innovation expected to cease funding the observatory from April 2028.
The centre has faced threats before, it was observed in the meeting. And further weight was given to those opposing the scheme by a presentation on behalf of pharmaceuticals firm Bespak. The company’s former owners had sold the application site with a covenant preventing residential development, the speaker said.
Bespak is a key employer in the town, and has plans to invest a further £350m in expanding the campus that could bring 150 jobs to Cheshire – the kind of commercial project that could be threatened by objections from neighbouring residents.
Thus, Bespak objected on the grounds that development would be incompatible with its neighbour, a position agreed on by several members, and added as a reason for refusal.
Bespak’s spokesperson said: “We know that housing supply is an important issue for Cheshire, but economic development is equally important” adding that the expansion would be severely threatened by approving the housing.
Again, the southern area committee voted as one, this time rejecting the application.
The CEC application reference number is 25/1859/OUT.
