Peel’s Partington homes return to Trafford planning committee

Outline proposals by Peel Land & Property to build 550 homes alongside the Manchester Ship Canal in Partington are once again on Trafford Council’s planning agenda, more than seven years after plans were first given approval.

Peel has lodged an application to extend the time limit to build the 550 houses on a 39-acre site at Lock Lane, after first securing outline planning permission for the development in July 2010, with all matters reserved apart from access.

Alongside the 550 homes, Peel provided an outline of how the site could be developed to include a canalside promenade, with green space alongside the ship canal.

Peel originally had a five-year time limit to submit a detailed planning application for the site, which would have outlined the housing mix and landscaping, but decided against pressing forward with the scheme due to “unfavourable economic conditions”, according to planning documents.

The housing mix for the development has not been specified but is expected to accommodate “a variety of sizes, types and tenures of property”.

The land, on the opposite side of the Manchester Ship Canal to Cadishead, still remains undeveloped.

The five-year extension of the original planning application was previously discussed at a committee meeting on 9 March last year, where councillors granted permission subject to a legal agreement.

This was to include a provision of 3.6 acres of open space on the site, and a £384,000 contribution towards highways improvements, particularly at the Manchester Road/Flixton Road/Isherwood Road junction, and public transport enhancements.

Since March, Peel has been in discussions with planners over the wording of the conditions in the legal agreement, prompting the proposals to return to the planning committee at a meeting next Thursday.

Among the changes are alterations to planning conditions around landscaping, tree protection, and contaminated land. These were originally to be required for the entire scheme, but will now be required for each individual phase, which planners said was “reasonable given the scale of the development”.

Council planning officers have said the committee should be minded to grant permission to the development, subject to the updated Section 106 contributions being agreed.

A report to the committee said the scheme would have “substantial” benefits to the local area which would “weigh very much in favour of a grant of planning permission”.

The legal agreement also specifies that a reserved matters planning application for the site must be made within three years of the outline planning permission being granted.

Turley is the planner for the project, with SCP as transport consultant.