These are all the significant developments tabled with councils across the city-region
The planning application relates to a property in Little Lever(Image: Manchester Evening News)
A plan to build a garage that ended up being a house has sparked controversy this week.
What was supposed to be a double garage in Bolton ended up as a single-storey home on the grounds of the Grade II-listed Ladyshore House. Now retrospective plans have been put in in order to keep the house.
If plans are not approved, the home may have to be torn down.
Elsewhere in Oldham and Chorlton this week, there are big plans to transform their centres. The final decision on replacing Oldham’s Civic Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall with housing is impending.
Over in Chortlon, the Chorlton Cross shopping centre has been touted for demolition, with six blocks of flats and shops eyed up in its place.
Here is a breakdown of each borough’s submitted planning applications this week
Bolton
A retrospective application has been submitted to change the use of the building (Image: Manchester Evening News)
They had planning permission to build a garage – but built a house
A bungalow has been built despite the site only having planning permission for a double garage.
The single-storey home was built in the grounds of the Grade II-listed Ladyshore House, which lies on a private road in Little Lever, Bolton. A retrospective application has been submitted to change the use of the building, which is within the green belt, to a home.
Plans for a double garage at the site were approved by Bolton council in 2019. But according to documents published by the town hall, work on a single storey home was completed instead in April, 2022.
The retrospective plans state the building is ‘of ostensibly the same size, design and positioning’ as the original proposals but adds that the ‘as-built’ bungalow is higher, longer and wider than the approved garage plans.
Bury
Bury Interchange is set to be rebuilt
New ‘temporary’ entrance to Bury town centre tram stop will be needed for at least three years
A temporary new route to Bury town centre’s tram stop is to be created as plans accelerate to demolish and rebuild the towns’s transport interchange.
In the past few days, a planning application has been lodged by Greater Manchester (TfGM), which seeks to build an access staircase between Angouleme Way underpass and the Metrolink platform. The new entrance is needed while the redevelopment at Bury Interchange – expected to take three years – takes place.
The site in question is a portion of the footpath which runs parallel to the Metrolink platform on the underpass below Angouleme Way before gradually stepping up to meet Angouleme Way.
Manchester
More than 250 flats are coming in the plans(Image: PJ Livesey via planning documents)
Manchester suburb’s ‘beating heart’ will be ‘turned inside out’ with huge new plans
New plans to transform the ‘beating heart’ of a Manchester suburb by ‘turning it inside-out’ have been finalised.
A massive project to demolish the Chorlton Cross shopping centre and replace it with six blocks of flats featuring ground-floor shops, a new ‘makers’ yard’, and green spaces was submitted for planning permission last week.
Developers PJ Livesey say Chorlton will undergo a huge change as the shops will turn the suburb’s centre ‘inside-out’.
Oldham
The Civic Tower might be turned into a hotel. (Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
Former Civic Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall to be bulldozed for housing
Major plans for Oldham include bulldozing the town’s iconic brutalist events space, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, alongside the former council offices.
The theatre’s days have been numbered ever since surveyors discovered RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete), a material prone to collapsing, in 2023. In its place, Muse intends to erect a six-storey U-shaped residential block with 93 apartments – 35 one-beds, 52 two-beds, and six three-beds.
The developers are also seeking outline permission for a further 745 apartments across five buildings ranging between 11 and 16 storeys. Some of these would also feature shops or communal areas in their ground floors.
If granted, the new scheme would spell the end of a long-running planning saga. (Image: Muse / Oldham Council)
Planning saga at Oldham Mumps could finally be resolved
After several previous plans fell through, a plot of land at Prince’s Gate, near Oldham Mumps may finally find a new lease of life as a residential block.
Formerly tipped for development into an M&S and then a Lidl store, city-developers Muse now intend to turn the space into 331 new flats across three towers. The 16, 12, and six storey high apartment blocks will contain 159 one-beds, 141 two-beds and 31 three-bed units.
The red-brick structures, designed to blend in with nearby architecture, will also feature communal areas, co-working spaces and cycle storage. Commercial units will also be integrated into the ground floors, which could become home to ‘retail, café, creche, health service or educational use’.
Salford
A picture of Ordsall in Salford. Image taken by local democracy reporter Declan Carey in June 2025.
The plans which some fear could ‘destroy’ a Salford community
Between the red-brick terraces of Ordsall, Manchester’s glimmering towers come into view.
Soon, Salford’s side of the River Irwell could get a skyscraper of its own, with plans for one of the country’s biggest buildings more than 70-stories tall at Regent Retail Park.
Plans by Henley Investment Management to build 3,300 homes in a massive development are approaching decision time.
A source at the council said the plans could be decided at a crunch planning meeting on July 17.
Stockport
How Edgeley Park could look in the future. Image: Stockport County. Free for use by LDRS partners.
Concern over certain element of Stockport County’s stadium expansion plan
A patch of ‘valuable’ woodland is at the centre of a row over Stockport County’s stadium expansion.
Campaigners say the club’s plans would cause ‘irreversible’ damage, with the loss of a woodland area behind the Together Stand to make way for a new car park. The Hatters want to add more than 7,000 seats in a stadium redevelopment.
The club hopes the land behind the south stand could become an 86-space car park.
A final decision will be made by the town hall’s planning and highways committee on July 3.
Tameside
Lidl store similar to the one envisioned for Audenshaw(Image: Lidl GB)
Plans for Greater Manchester’s newest Lidl take step forward
Lidl is pushing ahead with plans to build a new store in Audenshaw.
Earlier this year the discount supermarket revealed their intention to build a new site where The Pearl Restaurant currently resides on Manchester Road, Tameside.
The Indian restaurant’s lease comes to an end in 2029, after which the supermarket hopes to build its new store.
The supermarket has recently contacted the council’s planning team to see if prior notification is needed to demolish the restaurant.
Trafford
Former home of GMP HQ to be demolished to make way for Man Utd fans car park
The site once occupied by the headquarters of Greater Manchester Police could make way for parking spaces for Manchester United fans and Victoria Warehouse gig-goers.
The owners of the empty 12-storey building vacated by the force in 2011, the Far East Consortium (FEC), have submitted a planning application which would see the remainder of the building – its former communications hub – demolished.
A separate application has been received by Trafford council’s planning team from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA).
It proposes to turn the land where the building stood into an ‘event only’ car park for a temporary period of two years.