![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_StocktonsChorlton.png\")
Rows over the 50-storey tower on Great Ancoats Street (left) and Chorlton revamp (right) will continue into December(Image: Liquid Funding Business\/PJ Livesey)<\/p>\n“If we are going to accept another unimaginative SimpsonHaugh architectural cereal box then I propose a site visit to see what will be inflicted on the city.\u201dRows over the 50-storey tower on Great Ancoats Street (left) and Chorlton revamp (right) will continue into December(Image: Liquid Funding Business\/PJ Livesey)<\/p>\n
Two massive rows are expected to continue for weeks after a planned 50-storey city centre tower was slammed as \u2018unimaginative cereal box\u2019.<\/p>\n
Manchester council reviewed a bumper crop of planning applications at a bad-tempered town hall meeting on Thursday (November 20), with planning officers recommending councillors approve 1,732 homes across the city.<\/a><\/p>\n Some 752 apartments were planned for the site of Stockton\u2019s furniture shop in Piccadilly, spread across 25 and 50-storey skyscrapers. But the proposal is now on hold for a month after local councillors hit out at the plans.<\/p>\n \u201cI do not think I have seen a proposal brought forward with utter contempt for councillors in the area, for residents, and for the council\u2019s policies,\u201d Piccadilly Coun Sam Wheeler, Labour<\/a>, said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis breaks the framework SimpsonHaugh wrote by four storeys. That topped out at 45 storeys and this is taller than that. So we are seeing, at the first development, you can ignore the [strategic regeneration framework], you can ignore councillors, and you can ignore residents and that\u2019s simply not correct.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are going to accept another unimaginative SimpsonHaugh architectural cereal box then I propose a site visit to see what will be inflicted on the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighbouring residents in Oxygen Tower, a 33-storey block, also claimed the tower would cause \u2018major, permanent, harmful reductions in the light levels\u2019.<\/p>\n However, Andrew Bickershaw, appearing for developers Liquid Funding Business said the scheme would also generate thousands of jobs and new greenery. He said: \u201cThis proposal represents 750 homes, office space, and a new park covering 55pc of the site.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will play a key role in embedding this previously neglected part of the city centre to the commercial core of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Another row over a major scheme, to regenerate the heart of Chorlton<\/a> with 262 flats, a new maker\u2019s yard, and shops, was also deferred.<\/p>\n Dozens of protesters packed out the public gallery urging councillors not to back the project, and threatened to suspend the meeting by heckling the developers\u2019 speech.<\/p>\n They criticised the plan for how many homes would be packed into the former Chorlton Cross shopping centre. Save Chorlton Centre spokesperson Jackie Lindsay said: \u201cThis is 172pc denser then the high-density limit for district centres.<\/p>\n \u201cThese buildings are massively overbearing. It\u2019s a huge gated community more suited for the city centre not neighbourhood centres. It\u2019s a street going nowhere hemmed in between two buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n But Chris Argent, appearing for PJ Livesey, dismissed the idea Chorlton would get a \u2018gated community\u2019, arguing the inclusion of 49 affordable homes would help ease the suburb\u2019s housing crisis. He said: \u201cDelivering a viable scheme is incredibly challenging and the precinct is no different given it must maximise public benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a critical point. If the proposal is not delivered there\u2019s no plan B. A far less dense scheme would mean housing issues persist.\u201d<\/p>\n Ill-feeling seeped into another row over a plan to build 212 all affordable apartments and townhouses, including specialist over-55 facilities, where The Reno nightclub once stood in Moss Side<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ex-councillor Alistair Cox said developer Mossacre St Vincent\u2019s (MSV) plans \u2018totally let down\u2019 the suburb with little space for families. However the committee decided the need for cheaper homes outweighed the worries, voting to approve it \u2014 prompting shouts of \u2018shame!\u2019 from the gallery.<\/p>\n Another approved housing development was a 498-home scheme on the former Riverpark Road Trading Estate, near The Etihad and Co-op Live. Developer Great Places pledged more four in 10 would be available for social rent or via shared ownership.<\/p>\n The housing association added the 277 flats and 221 houses, being built where the city\u2019s \u2018bullring\u2019 abattoir once stood, will help complete the Eastlands<\/a> development, kick-started by the Commonwealth Games 23 years ago.<\/p>\n Again, tetchiness dominated discussion as Coun John Flanagan slammed \u2018the contempt we have been subjected to\u2019. He told the town hall: \u201cWe got an email at 5 o\u2019clock on a Friday from the developer saying they would have five days of consultation from Saturday. It\u2019s unbelievable to think, but that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Overall, 718 homes were approved by the committee, as were bids to open Ardwick student accommodation for summer schools, converting a Withington<\/a> house into a children\u2019s home, building eight houses in Wythenshawe<\/a>, developing offices and moving the brutalist Holloway Wall in the \u00a31.7b Sister project at the ex-UMIST campus, an extension in east Didsbury<\/a>, and extending operational hours of a recycling plant in Sharston.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_View-03_Hero-Old-Mill-Street_first-draft.jpg\")
The scale of the taller tower is bigger than anything Great Ancoats Street has seen(Image: Liquid Funding Business)<\/p>\n![\"videoHeadline\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763747790_188_poster.jpg\")
Public interrupt and get told off at Manchester council as Chorlton redevelopment is discussed<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_From-Fmr-Picturehouse.jpg\")
How apartment blocks, set to be built on the Chorlton Cross shopping precinct, could look. Seen from the former Picturehouse(Image: PJ Livesey)<\/p>\n![\"videoHeadline\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763747793_87_poster.jpg\")
Manchester planning meeting discusses flats on the site ‘The Reno’<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1_Riverpark.jpg\")
How the Riverpark homes could look(Image: AEW Architects for Great Places)<\/p>\n