The scheme was given the nod at committee in 2021. Credit: Hodder + Partners

Manchester rubber-stamps pair of 56-storey skyscrapers after three-year delay

21 November 2024 13:17 Dan Whelan Comments ()

Great Jackson Street Estates, controlled by investor Aubrey Weis, can go ahead with its 1,000-apartment Park Place scheme after the developer and the city council signed a Section 106 agreement.

Manchester City Council’s planning committee approved the pair of 56-storey towers in July 2021 but the scheme has not started on site due to a dispute about the project’s deliverability.

The authority, which owns the freehold, offered GJSE a 250-year lease on the site but the developer rejected it.

The two parties went to tribunal in 2023 with GJSE attempting to remove restrictive covenants in the existing lease with the city council. The city council prevailed.

With a decision notice handed down and a Section 106 notice signed, it appears that the two parties have reached an accord that will see the site come forward.

Both the city council and the developer were contacted for comment.

Under the terms of the decision, GJSE has three years from now to make a start on the Hodder + Partners designed project.

The Weis group and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority are currently locked in a dispute about loans awarded to developer Renaker, which has developed several towers with the help of combined authority loans close to the Park Place site.

Weis claims the loans have “distorted” the city’s property market, the GMCA refutes this claim.