Former cinema car park to be sold off for 'important' town centre housing

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The former Ritz Cinema car park in Stockport town centre is to be sold off for housing. The authority's economy and regeneration scrutiny committee is recommended to back disposal of the land when it meets on Thursday night.The Fletcher Street site is currently used as a surface-level car park but council bosses say their vision for the site is as a’ high- quality residential development in this important town centre location’.

A report set to go before the scrutiny committee says it would bolster regeneration of Town Centre West, the 4,000-home ‘urban village’ driven by the borough’s Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC). “This development supports the wider ambition of the MDC’s masterplan for Stockport to become the most sustainable, liveable town centre in Greater Manchester with schemes already on site at Weir Mill and announced at Stockport 8,” it reads. Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link. “It will help to deliver against ambitions for 4000 new homes and further promote investor confidence in the town centre.” The report adds that redevelopment of the site would ‘address an environmental ‘eyesore’, making ‘a visual improvement to the current derelict buildings on the adjacent site’.

Disposal of the site would generate an unspecified ‘capital receipt’ for the car park, which has raked in around £50k per year for the town hall over recent years.

Since the sale was originally agreed in December 2020 a number of problems have arisen including complex technical and legal issues with the site, inflationary factors and market changes.