Around 200 BTR units, affordable apartments and apartments for the elderly are proposed for the housing offer
February 19, 2021, 12:27
Sarah Townsend
The landowner is soliciting developers to help propose three sites that would deliver the first 400 of 3,000 homes in the £ 1 billion project on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal.
The planned residential projects include a partly affordable, partly open market development; One project focused on care and senior housing and a rental project that Peel L&P would bring with support from a funding institution, the company’s development director James Whittaker told Place North West.
In 2018, Peel L & P received general approval for Trafford Waters, a mixed-use project on a 63-acre development site opposite the Trafford Center. The program is expected to take two decades to complete.
Since then, however, the developer has not been able to continue the project until an agreement was reached with local authorities on the operating costs of the A57 Salford Western Gateway Bridge, a lifting bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal that is part of the larger £ 32 million Western Gateway bridge. The infrastructure program is and connects Peels TraffordCity with Salford, in the middle of the Trafford Waters site.
Now the group has agreed in principle to finance the bridge’s annual operating costs, which are expected to be around £ 300,000 per year. “We hope to have a final agreement in the next few months,” Whittaker told the media earlier this week.
The agreement with Salford City Councils and Trafford City Councils, both of whom refused to comment on the potential deal beyond saying that discussions were moving forward but no final decision had been made, would open the site for development and Peel L&P resume work to enable Trafford Waters to move forward.
As part of the plans, the site is to provide 3,000 apartments, around 800,000 m² of commercial space, 125,000 m² of retail, food and beverage space, a primary school and 300 hotel rooms on one or two lots. The development is expected to benefit from the expansion of Trafford Metrolink into Trafford city center and Manchester, as well as a new intersection at Junction 10 of the M60.
Whittaker: “We are still seeing good demand for our supply.”
Whittaker told Place North West that until the bridge contract was signed, prior to the application, the company had been holding meetings with Trafford Council on proposals for the first phase of residential development with a total of around 400 homes.
Peel L&P has also started speaking to third party developers interested in introducing the first two programs – the semi-affordable, semi-open market house and the senior housing and care project. Supply contracts still have to be signed. Potential partners are understood to be local rather than national developers.
“In good winds and subject to the conclusion of the bridge agreement, we hope to submit planning proposals for these plans later this year and begin construction in 2022,” said Whittaker. The first two projects are expected to be completed in mid-2023, while the rental apartment with around 200 apartments will follow a two-year construction program and be completed the following year.
Development costs for these first projects would be around £ 75 million, added Whittaker. The delivery of the rest of the Trafford Water would take place over a period of up to 20 years and would be part of the ongoing renovation of the larger TraffordCity district of Peel. These include the £ 250m Manchester spa complex, the McKinney Group’s proposed £ 60m surf hub Wavegarden, a £ 2m pedestrian mall with eight FA-sized spaces and the Replacement soccer dome.
“We are still seeing good demand for the full range of applications that Trafford Waters and the larger TraffordCity neighborhood will have,” said Whittaker. “Covid has made people think differently about downtown offices and the future may now be to move to locations outside the city center that are well connected and have homes, shops and leisure facilities on their doorstep.
“We believe there will be significant office requirements among North Shoring companies and others looking for headquarters in this location. This is how we will introduce the commercial element of Trafford Waters to potential users.”
The development site spans 63 acres in Trafford, Greater Manchester
