Green light for Peel’s Quayside leisure destination

The developer has won approval for reworked proposals outlining a food and beverage venue at the Salford shopping centre’s southern walkway. 

Salford City Council has granted Peel L&P permission to build a waterside food, drink and retail destination, featuring a market food hall. The project forms part of the developer’s plans to invest £5m upgrading Quayside over the next half a decade. 

Originally, Peel had planned to create a larger, £26m scheme called Watergardens on the site. This would have been aimed at large F+B operators, but the vision was reworked due to the pandemic. 

The waterfront promenade connecting the Millennium Bridge to Quayside, which featured in the Watergardens proposal, is not included in the updated plan. 

The updated proposals are aimed at independent traders and feature: 

• Six pop-up units created from shipping containers  
• New terraces for outdoor dining  
• Enhanced landscaping   
• An indoor independent food hall and community space. 

The first traders will be ready to operate by Christmas, according to Peel. 

Stephen Wild, Peel L&P’s director for strategic investment and growth, said: “We’re excited to be given the go-ahead on what will give residents, workers and visitors to the Quays and MediaCity a stunning new space overlooking the waterfront to dine, have a drink or buy local produce.  

“Our local residents wanted to see a more independent offering and we’re looking forward to providing a platform for exciting, new brands from the locality and wider region.” 

Peel L&P’s revised planning submission for the waterfront dining destination followed the launch of the Salford Quays 2030 vision earlier this year, which aims to better enable Quayside at MediaCity to play a role as the town centre for Salford Quays. 

The project team for the Quayside project includes architect Chapman Taylor, landscape architect Gillespies and property consultancy Alder King.