Whittaker: Peel Waters ready to invest and start another 30-year vision
Peel Waters managing director James Whittaker is undaunted by what he describes as an “endless” pipeline of waterside regeneration projects and is adamant the company will see them through.
Place North West caught up with Whittaker at the Embassy Village groundbreaking ceremony, where he spoke to representatives from the more than 50 businesses who contributed to what will be the final cog of Peel’s Manchester Waters project – a 40-room village and community for rough-sleepers.
With MediaCity recently checked off – the developer sold its remaining 25% stake to Landsec earlier this month – Whittaker said Peel is looking forward, not back.
“We are ready to invest in the next project,” he said.
MediaCity
In November when Peel exited MediaCity, pocketing £83m, it seemed like the end of an era.
Peel Waters first ventured into Salford Quays in 2007 with an application and a £650m investment – a figure that Whittaker now considers to be one of his “biggest commitments” – just before hitting the choppy financial waters of 2008.
Whittaker recounted the industry’s monetary challenges during the recession but praised the persistence of the banks and investors who kept with Peel during the crunch.
He said: “Everyone was withdrawing from a lot of projects, but they believed in us, and they stuck with us, and we saw it through.”
The success of MediaCity cannot be understated, as one of Greater Manchester’s pioneering waterside regeneration projects, the intention was always to develop a scheme with “scale, mass, and a vision of creating a city”, Whittaker said.
The Manchester Waters scheme will build on Peel’s success in the area with MediaCity. Credit: via Peel Waters
When discussions with the BBC about moving north began to gain momentum, Whittaker said the broadcaster was drawn to the idea of “businesses collaborating together, from the SMEs to large business to studio spaces”. Providing homes for relocating media professionals in the same area made the proposition even more enticing.
This mixed-use model with a central economic draw would go on to be replicated across the North West.
Whittaker, commenting on reaching the end of the MediaCity development’s cycle by offloading Peel’s final stake, said: “We are really proud to have created a whole regeneration project around Salford Quays, and now we are ready to invest in the next project.
“We still have investments around MediaCity, we still want to regenerate and invest, especially in Trafford Wharfside – with the masterplan around Old Trafford, we are heavily involved in that.”
Trafford Wharfside’s masterplan aims to enable the delivery of up to 5,000 homes on 215 acres between the Manchester Ship Canal, Old Trafford stadium, and Europa Way.
He added: “This is the start of another 30 to 40-year vision.”
Liverpool
Last week, Whittaker paid a visit to Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore Dock and Everton’s £500m stadium. He said: “We’re only a month away from completion of that, so I can’t wait.
“It was amazing to see, it’s a brilliant stadium.”
Whittaker hopes the Bramley-Moore Dock development will “bookend” Peel’s projects across Merseyside and “create an anchor for the city”.
Everton’s stadium is expected to be ready in the coming months. Credit: Peel Waters / If We Ran The Zoo
South of Bramley-Moore Dock, 150 acres between Princes Dock and Northern Dock is being developed by Peel as part of its £5bn Liverpool Waters masterplan.
When pressed on Peel and Liverpool’s speed of delivery, Whittaker defended the company: “In terms of speed, [our motto is] determination, patience, and perseverance.
“The reason why you have to have patience is because of the politics involved in delivering development…and the planning process.
“[And now] the process of getting through build regulations, which takes another nine months.”
He continued: “We’ve actually delivered 1,000 homes already in the last three years. Princes Dock, no one talks about that, they just talk about – ‘where’s the next one.'”
Whittaker was also keen to point out that chancellor Rachel Reeves had announced that Central Docks would get £55m funding from Homes England to unlock the delivery of 2,350 homes at Central Docks, part of the Liverpool masterplan.
Whittaker said progress at Central Docks would be similar to that of MediaCity, but likely in a more phased, longer-term approach.
Central Docks will host a 4.7-acre park called Central Park. Credit: Peel Waters
“We don’t have that £650m now to invest, whereas back in 2008 we did because we had sold half of the Peel Ports businesses, which gave us the money to deliver it.”
Commenting proudly on Peel’s Liverpool progress, Whittaker said: “We’ve done a thousand homes, we’ve got the Isle of Man Steam Packet, the link bridge, and we’ve done the cruise landing terminal.”
Peel completed the £71m ferry terminal which will serve travellers to and from the Isle of Man in June this year.
Whittaker finished: “It’s a phased development plan, it always will be, you don’t want to rush the market because you’ll build too many homes.
“We’ve always said from day one, this is a 30-year vision, so you’ve got to work in the 30 years, not the first three.”
What’s to come for Peel?
Over the next five years, Whittaker expects many of Peel’s projects to reach completion, particularly the Trafford City Manchester Docks project, which would extend to Embassy Village.
When asked what he felt was Peel’s most ambitious project, he said: “In terms of biggest scale, I would say Trafford City.”
Trafford City will host the £250m Therme spa-leisure development, the £75m Wavegarden centre, an ice arena, and a £2.5m Padel club.
Trafford City’s Therme will be a key attraction for Manchester’s visitor economy. Credit: via Rule 5
Of the Trafford City project, Whittaker said: “We’ve half done it, and we’ve got half to finish – we’re on that journey.”
Whittaker sees the role of “play” as a crucial draw for a region’s development. He compared the Therme project to its sister site in Bucharest, which sees more than 1.6m customers come through its doors annually – a third of whom are tourists.
He continued: “What a project like that does for us as an economy and the tourism industry is massive.
“The effects on hotels, retail, and restaurants – it’s huge.”
Manchester’s Therme spa will be “the first of its kind in the UK” and will be double the size of Bucharest’s Therme.
Whittaker expects Therme alone to welcome more than 2m customers a year in total, suggesting: “If you work on the same pro-rata, then you’d have around 700,000 new tourists coming to Manchester each year.”
A recent report from Centre for Cities on visitor spending in UK cities highlights that the area around Trafford Centre and Old Trafford Stadium sees up to 14% of the distribution of visitor spending across Manchester’s neighbourhoods, equivalent only to that of the inner-city centre, based off 2023 data.
The report indicates that there is a “gravitational” pull of visitors towards tourist hotspots and therefore any city should expect revenues in these areas to be “disproportionately” high, and take advantage of that fact.
Whittaker is keen to take full advantage of this data. Alongside large-scale leisure developments lies the potential for “high-end lifestyle hotels” to “uplift the bedroom offer in the city”, he said.
Of Trafford City’s development potential, he said: “The list is endless – but we are going to see it through in the next five years.”
I’m sorry, but Peel has lost all credibility as far as Liverpool Waters is concerned. It’s just an endless stream of ‘re-commitments’ and ‘fresh visions’ with zero action. They’ve cried wolf once too often and no-one’s listening any more.
By Anonymous
Isn’t it other people who have invested in Liverpool Waters and the Government are giving them £50m+ to get on with the central Docks.
By Liverpool4Progress
An exceptional portfolio Manchester Salford Trafford Liverpool Wirral Glasgow Kent – with 25 years of infrastructure investment supporting the portfolios future. Congratulations to Peel for advancing the city waterside regeneration
By TJL
What happened to “Shanghai style waterfront” I know it was never going to happen but a bit of ambition would be nice.
By Terry
Peel claiming they delivered the Isle of Man terminal, the link bridge and the Everton stadium….all separate initiatives by the company concerned or the government. No investment by peel , same with princes dock all separate investments……what cruise liner terminal? …..in summary peel just I own the land and just wait for investment to come in
By George
They haven’t delivered any homes at Liverpool Waters, others have. They just flipped the land on.
By Sharif
Once a property superpower and now failing to deliver at all of their waterside schemes. It’s hard to believe and the property world will still be asking Peel what’s next in another 4-5 years. A developer that doesn’t develop and has fallen behind others doing it better
By Anon
Who are Peel? Do they still develop anything anymore?
By Anonymous
Maybe they can spend some of that Media City sale money on fixing and renewing the swing bridges in Warrington. Peel Ports shun their responsibility.
By Wolfie
Hmm. If Peel – always major advocates of the “no-one likes us, we don’t care” school of PR – now feels the need to embark on this sort of campaign, things must really be slowing down for them.
Any word on what the Peel Ports bit of the empire is planning now the link road has been scrapped, or will they just be concentrating on very slow property development at Liverpool and Wirral Waters?
By Anonymous
Whittaker in this article speaks of a 30 year proposal when there is only 21 years remaining on the planning approval, and clearly thinks the public are stupid enough to believe him when he says in his own words “Its a phased development plan, it always will be, you don’t want to rush the market because you’ll build too many homes”, Mr Whittaker really? There is a housing and rental crisis, Liverpool needs to build homes now!!! You are getting 56 million, and now want everyone to believe that there is no rush to build … as it will bring on too many homes – rubbish!!
By Peter Clarkson
I wonder if Peel fear the impending changes to compulsory purchase legislation. There’s little doubt in my mind that many other schemes would’ve progressed much faster in the hands of other landowners.
By Anonymous
What’s happening with the “Atlantic Gateway” corridor between Merseyside and Greater Manchester ???
By MrP
The developments so far at Pomona in Manchester (“Manchester Waters) are pretty awful. 2 prefab blocks which already look 30 years out of date and some bigger silver blocks with no local stuff to do except a long walk off the site. It’s piecemeal and it all looks poor. Get on with it, build taller and do it to a better standard.
By Not a Peel fan
Whats happened to port Salford
By Anonymous
@Mr P “Atlantic Gateway” was Peel’s last wheeze when the environment for public funding tightened under the last government. Like many of their vision documents it was essentially meaningless and simply a vehicle to extract public subsidy.
By Peel watch
If all that land had been kept public under democratic control, would development have happened faster? Perhaps. But not its private so all we can do is moan. We cant change anything.
By Anonymous
Haven’t heard of a deal been done on Central Docks for at least 5 years…. what actually have Peel being doing? I don’t imagine any deal will get done in the next 5 years either…. when they say they are going to invest – never known Peel to spend a cent of their own money….. Do they mean they are going to “invest” the tax payers £56 million so they can add value to Peel – is that what Whittaker means?
By Colin Davis
It’s Trafford Waters and it only started last year, try harder.
By Anonymous
I believe you.
By Pinoocho
Hey folks – I think people’s issues with Peel’s pace have now been fully addressed in the comment section, so we’ll be closing comments until someone has something new to add.
By Julia Hatmaker
Seems like Port Salford is a thing of the past, no mention of the project .
By M.Wright