!Audacious Church expansion and Mocha Lidl primed for go-ahead

Proposals for additional space to accommodate a growing congregation and for the redevelopment of an eyesore site in Lower Broughton could be approved when Salford City Council’s planning committee meets next week. 

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!Audacious Church expansion 

Credit: David Cox Architects

Developer: !Audacious Church  

Architect: David Cox Architects 

Planner: Euan Kellie Property Solutions 

Plans for a five-storey link building and a seven-storey car park are included in amended proposals to extend the Trinity Way church. 

The 38,000 sq ft link building, featuring offices, toilets and other facilities, would connect the existing !Audacious Church, a single-storey steel building off Bury Street, with the proposed 364-space car park. 

A smaller, two-storey extension to the rear of the church is proposed to provide additional storage, according to the planning application.  

The scheme is designed to boost the existing 1,400-capacity of the venue, which regularly welcomes more than 5,500 people across three services every Sunday. 

The church, founded 13 years ago, currently leases space within the neighbouring Deva Centre to make up for a shortage of space within its facilities. 

In 2017, Salford City Council granted !Audacious Church consent for a larger expansion of the site, which included increasing the capacity of the church and adding a five-storey extension to the building’s north-east elevation, a multistorey car park, and a seven-storey link building featuring a café, kitchen, foyer and children’s play space.  

However, elements of the original plan have since been scaled back or, in the case of the north-east elevation extension, removed. The extant consent is due to expire next month. 

The revised brief for the redevelopment and expansion of the church concentrates on “meeting the needs of the church for the next 5-10 years, based on its existing level of growth”, according to a design and access statement prepared by Preston-based David Cox Architects.  

“The scale of the project is likened to a modern-day cathedral, a true landmark that announces what it is to passers-by through its size and appearance”, the statement adds.  

It is also conceded that at present, the church’s modest appearance is “uninspiring and adds very little to the street scene” the architect said.  

Euan Kellie Property Solutions is the planning consultant for the project. Urban Green are landscape architects and ecology and arboriculture consultants on the scheme.

Mocha Parade Lidl

Credit: Lidl

Developer: Lidl UK 

Architect: Space Architects 

Planner: Rapleys 

Demolition of the vacant retail parade began last week, as Lidl prepares to start building a 13,500 sq ft supermarket on the site. 

The retailer’s plans are tipped to be given the go-ahead by Salford City Council after the authority refused another Lidl project just over a mile away off Cromwell Road. 

Salford selected Lidl as its preferred retail partner for Mocha Parade last January and plans for the store were lodged earlier this year. 

The site is bounded by Sussex Street, Lower Broughton Road and Great Clowes Street, close to the River Irwell. 

Lidl also proposes creating a wildflower meadow to act as a flood basin in the south west corner of the site. 

In 2012, Countryside Properties submitted plans for the redevelopment of Mocha Parade as part of its 1000-home New Broughton development. 

Countryside proposed demolishing Mocha Parade and creating a replacement local centre featuring almost 50,000 sq ft of retail space.   

The plans were approved but never progressed.  

Elsewhere at Mocha Parade, developer Castle Gate Projects has been granted approval to create a medical centre.  

Castle Gate’s scheme would see the consolidation of two existing Salford practices, Mocha Parade Medical Practice and Lower Broughton Health Centre, into a three-storey L-shaped building on the corner of Lower Broughton Road and Great Clowes Street.   

Under the proposals, a single-storey former food bank would be demolished to make way for the project, although that work is yet to commence.