Partners to access GMCA loan for Stockport Interchange

The joint venture between Cityheart and Rise Homes is in line for a £21.5m cash injection through the Housing Investment Loans Fund to kickstart the 196-apartment project.

This is the second time the development venture has gone to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for funding, having sought a £9.3m equity investment for the Stockport project in June.

Approved in 2019, with Cityheart and Rise appointed in March 2020, the development is a private rented sector tower that forms part of the mixed-use Stockport Interchange scheme.

The wider Stockport Interchange project features a renewed bus station and a two-acre public park.

Willmott Dixon is the main contractor for the scheme.

The total value of loans made from the GMCA’s Housing Investment Loans Fund to this point stands at £510m, with equity investments of £26.5m.

Cityheart was founded in 2005 by ex-David McLean development boss Mark McNamee.

In a wide-ranging interview earlier this year looking at the firm’s plans for Wigan Galleries, which it is working on with BCEGI, McNamee told Place North West that “every place is individual – in material terms, there is nothing that any town centre needs to have. Each one is peculiar to its own circumstances.

“The biggest driver is that the public sector and residents buy into a project and want it to work. It is then up to us to join in and facilitate and project manage that vision for them. It’s about working as a team.”