Brownfield funding boost for Collyhurst, Ancoats

More than 2,700 homes planned for Greater Manchester, including at city centre sites such as the Northern Gateway, renamed Victoria North, are to receive a share of £41m of Government funding to help deliver homes on previously developed land.

The £41m is the second tranche of Greater Manchester’s allocation of the £400m Brownfield Housing Fund, intended to unlock brownfield sites for residential development. The first tranche, awarded last year, totalled £81m including an additional £15.8m the Greater Manchester Combined Authority secured in February, to deliver more than 4,000 homes across 24 schemes.

The latest allocation takes the city-region’s total allocation from the Whitehall fund to £97m. Of the 2,720 homes planned for this second tranche, around half – 1,350 – would be affordable housing. This is in addition to the 1,100 affordable housing units expected to be delivered through the first phase, the GMCA said.

Manchester City Council is to receive £7.8m of the total administered through the second tranche of funding. This will go towards supporting the delivery of 522 homes across five sites. These include:

• Collyhurst Village, Collyhurst – 139 homes (part of the £1bn Victoria North project)
• Back of Ancoats, city centre – 275 homes
• Silk Street Development, Newton Heath – 69 homes
• Ancoats Dispensary – 39 homes

Manchester City Council also received funding from the first trance, which is being used to help fund planned homes at New Cross Central, Mulbury City in New Cross, and Salboy’s Viadux in the city centre.

Salboy’s 40-storey Viadux scheme proposes 375 flats

Specific plans for the latest schemes will now be developed ahead of consultation and the subsequent submission of planning applications. In addition, five schemes have been placed on a reserve list, representing a further pipeline of 1,336 homes.

The city council has pledged to deliver 32,000 homes between 2015 and 2025, of which at least 6,400 have been designed as affordable.

The chosen schemes across Greater Manchester must be ready to receive their funding allocation by 30 June. If schemes are unable to progress by that point, funding will defer to a reserve list of projects, the GMCA said.

It expects the total five-year funding from both tranches of the Brownfield Housing Fund to help deliver up to 8,300 homes across the city-region. Borough leaders were asked to approve the latest allocations at a GMCA meeting last Friday. The brownfield sites have been assessed on their viability and how well they support the principles of the wider Greater Manchester housing strategy.

This is currently being respecified in the new Places for Everyone – the ‘plan of nine’ authorities designed to replace the previous Greater Manchester Spatial Framework – which is also expected to have a ‘brownfield first’ preference towards development to meet Government housing targets.

Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford and the GMCA’s lead for housing, planning and homelessness, noted: “We have always said we want to bring forward the most sustainable brownfield areas across our city-region for development, and with the Brownfield Housing Fund we’re doing exactly that.

“This funding will allow us to regenerate brownfield sites, support districts in working towards meeting national government targets, and deliver just shy of 2,500 good quality affordable homes, helping us to address the undersupply of housing and meet growing need.”