Graham, Tom and Ian

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Barnes Hospital development progress

by Lib Dem team on 6 December, 2012

We had a useful meeting this afternoon with the development team working on the Barnes Hospital site. They’re keen to get something happening very quickly as they want to keep the hospital building and there’s concern it may not be saveable if it’s left for more than another year or two.

The developers will be having public consultations before – they hope – submitting a planning application in the first few months of 2013.

Their proposal is to restore the Barnes Hospital building, turning it into around 80 small apartments. To make that work financially, there would be a range of one and two bed apartments and three and four bed houses – around 300 dwellings in total on the site.

The sole vehicle access would be the current entrance from Kingsway.

We’ve raised some concerns about the routes vehicles would take to go into Manchester or onto the motorway from the site; and about the need for a good quality path for pedestrians and cyclists to get into Cheadle village.

We’ll let you know about public displays so you have your own chance to see the plans in detail and question the developers yourself.


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   7 Comments

7 Responses

  1. Mike Savage says:

    Excellent news. Having seen the building recently I honestly thought it was beyond redemption, let us hope there is a swift start to works that prove me wrong. However this is going to be a development where the developer holds all the cards, if we want this wreck sorting out it will largely be on their terms.

    The issue of pedestrian access to Cheadle is a bit puzzling, apart from it being a bit muddy in places is there anything wrong with the public bridleway already there?

  2. Iain Roberts says:

    The path is a bit muddy, quite narrow in places and not suitable for cycling – really needs to be widened and improved. I don’t want everyone jumping into their cars when Cheadle village is just a few minutes walk away, but if it’s down a narrow, muddy path then most will do just that.

  3. Estelle Weiner says:

    This is really good news. A residential site once up and running isn’t like a commercial park. At the latter most vehicle movements are at rush hour times – as with the Cheadle Royal site.
    We don’t seem to have vehicular traffic problems from the residential developments near Eden Point, nor at the Summerfields links to the A34 bypass, that I am aware of.

  4. Frederick Kenny says:

    In principle this is good news but 300 residential units seems like an awfully high intensity, and access to the M60 east and west and Manchester for say 500 vehicle movements a day seems problematic. I hope this can be made to work as it would be a shame if the old Gothic style building had to be demolished.

    Pedestrian walk ways need careful consideration as on the ones at Cheadle Royal I have had a few close scrapes with speeding bikes around the underpass sections where there are steep descents.

  5. B. Horstmann says:

    Now we are getting lights at the sliproad, a repeater set north of the Barnes site entrance, activated when construction begins, would enable site traffic to get out southwards safely. A roundabout at the Gatley road would enable northbound traffic to turn, but I know that that option hasn’t been felt occeptable.

    The path by the Bleachworks site was supposed to be raised and made suitable for buggies, cycles and disabled scooters, specifically for the projected Barnes development and I was disappointed that we let them narrow it so much. As now it can also get flooded I spoke to the architect for a previous developer, who happened to be on site when I passed, and we discussed the path arrangement, which was to be raised and open aspect. Pity that got lost. We should have tried to upgrade the status of the path.

  6. david smylie says:

    Yes, its great the old building is at last going to be reused but it is a very high density proposal.
    How much thought has gone into access for traffic wanting to turn North toward Manchester? we could do without another set of lights.

  7. Iain Roberts says:

    Hi David – that’s the main issue I’ve raised with the developers and planners so we’ll see what they come back with.

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