Countryside and Bellway submit plans for 690-home Salford development

Countryside and Bellway have submitted plans to move forward a 690-home development on a former golf course in Salford. 

Details of the reserved matters for the Brackley Golf Course site in Little Hulton, submitted to Salford Council on Friday include scale, layout, appearance, landscaping matters and secondary access. The application is expected to be presented to the council’s planning panel in the summer.  

The developers bought the 67-acre site of the golf course, which closed six years ago, at the end of last year for £40m. The reserved matters application follows the outline approval for the 690 homes in 2019.

The scheme contains no affordable housing as there was no council planning obligation for Little Hulton to do so at the time. But the outline permission did secure “significant” contributions to local open space, education facilities and improvements to nearby highways infrastructure.

Homes on the site will be a mix of two-, three- and four-bedroom houses for private sale and for rent, all of which will be built using off-site construction. 

Salford council, which jointly owned the site off the M61, is understood to be receiving  £18.5m from the sale of the site to the developers – the biggest single capital receipt in its history.

On completion of the purchase of the site in December last year, Joe Turner, managing director, Manchester and Cheshire East, Countryside, said: “Countryside has an excellent track record of repurposing derelict and vacant premises and converting them into sustainable communities where people can be proud to live. This exciting development will be yet another example of us doing just that.”

George Stevenson, land director of Bellway Homes Manchester division, added: “This will be a considerable development that will deliver much needed family housing in Salford. It is exciting to finally get the site acquisition over the line so we can start planning and implementing the delivery of 345 homes.”

MHE Investments, which was the leaseholder of the site, and Salford City Council, which was the freeholder, selected Bellway and Countryside as their preferred house builders. The plot was originally a colliery before being turned into a golf course in 1991.

The developers hope to start building in the mid to late summer this year with the first homes completed in February or March next year. 

Countryside last month said it was cutting staff and reviewing options for its modern methods of construction factories following a review of the business. This followed a profit warning by the business in early January, which prompted the departure of chief executive Iain McPherson, and a full site-by-site review of the business by the chairman, John Martin.