McGoff tables plans for 17-storey scheme next to Manchester’s Marble Arch
The pub has voiced its dissatisfaction regarding plans for a 153-apartment development on neighbouring land off Rochdale Road.
McGoff has submitted an application for the 17-storey apartment block a couple of months after reworking the scheme in a bid to placate objectors.
The original plan was for 145 flats within a stepped 10-, 15-, and 17-storey project next to the Marble Arch pub. However, following pushback from the pub and local councillors, the proposals were tweaked in March.
While the original scheme was planned for land directly next to the pub, the revised plan will see a 13-metre gap opened up between the Marble Arch and McGoff’s development. An area of public realm will be created in this void.
As a result, the former Victoria Inn, which has most recently been used as a convenience store, will be knocked down in a change to the original plans, which proposed refurbishment.
WSP is advising on planning, Jon Matthews Architects is leading on design, and Planit is advising on landscape. Booth King Partnership, Davies Partnership, and S&C Engineering are also advising on the scheme.
To the rear of the application site, work on phase one of the Manchester project – a £50m, 237-home BTR scheme featuring 11- and 13-storey blocks – is nearing completion.
To learn more, search for planning reference number 145583/FO/2026 on Manchester City Council’s planning portal.
The pub has voiced it’s dissatisfaction at the prospect of hundreds of potential new customers
By Head Scratcher
What a terrible looking building, with zero architectural merit.
By Anonymous
A dull design but it will provide more customers for the pub.
By Anonymous
The pubs got plenty of customers and continues to be very popular. What with the thousands of new customers arriving in the last 5 years and the thousands more about to arrive from the ugly new builds almost finished next door, already, the area doesn’t need another unnecessarily trash building like this.
By Anonymous
I wonder what the pub’s objection is, exactly?
By Serious Drinker
The pub does decent business and is one of the best in the city. Need some more imaginative architecture. Scale and massing are all wrong albeit this part of Manchester needs a lot of development. Should be quality development though so close to town. Use some different, younger architects.
By Anonymous
What constitutes good architecture? For many people, a roof over their head is a more important consideration.
By Anonymous
I could genuinely design the same looking building in basic 3D software. How a professional architect can put their name to this is beyond me.
By Andee
A horrible building that could have been designed with AI. The retention of the Victoria Inn should be non-negotiable.
By Heritage Action
Such poor design, replicating other dull buildings that have been approved across the city. Wait 30 years and we will rue the lack of thought and imagination that has been put into some of these schemes.
By Anonymous
Here’s an idea: why don’t the Council planners tell McGoff to keep the Victoria Inn too?
By my reckoning, the developer is achieving 750 homes per hectare between this scheme and their phase 1; if their viability rests on achieving that quantum of units at the expense of a heritage asset then more fool them.
As it stands we’re losing an old building with refurbishment potential AND getting a boot ugly edifice in its place, so very much a lose-lose situation. On top of which, you fail to note there is ZERO affordable housing. So make that lose to the power of three.
By Anonymous
Yes, we must build the homes we need, but does everyone have to live in a soulless multi-storey box? Are these affordable homes or just crash pads for the wealthy? Looking at the artist’s impression of the Marble Arch and the box next to it, you see exactly how housing has got rid of every trace of character in the pursuit of quick profits.
By Francis
It’s uncompromising design, but isn’t that uniform and boring? Hey at least it has a pub next door, they might need it living in there.
By Statler & Waldorf
I agree this is a dull design but I disagree with some of the other comments about the high-rise buildings put up in Manchester over the last 30 years. Many of the city’s high-rise buildings are beautiful and have brought jobs and regeneration to many areas of the city centre which had lay derelict for decades.
By Anonymous
Really not loving this design, if anything a step backwards from the previous version imho. For want of a better word, there’s no charm to the design, there’s a lack of warmth, interest or subtlety. Basically the proposed building looks like it could be anywhere.
By Mike
Ah the old ‘pocket park’ i.e. two trees. Planners should not fall for such nonsense.
By Steven P
Do try to keep up anon 12.31…….that is exactly what the previous scheme did but the Marble arch and others objected…….hence
By Ricky
Have we not learned anything from the concrete monstrosities that were thrown up in the 1950’s and 1960’s?
This shocker of a design couldn’t happen in London, where most buildings apparently have to meet much higher standards in terms of their attractiveness.
By Popular Side Percy
Shocking design
By Disgruntled Goat