Salford Central

The Salford Central Masterplan is a 20 year regeneration initiative. It is one of the UK’s largest development projects, ranking 25th in Planning magazine's 2013 survey of the country’s 100 biggest regeneration projects.

Salford City Council is working on the development with English Cities Fund (ECf), a joint venture company consisting of Muse Developments, Legal and General and the Homes and Communities Agency. 

The Salford Central Masterplan is made up of two inter-dependent but distinct areas; Chapel Street and New Bailey.

The scheme has the capacity to provide:

• £650 million investment
• 11,000 new jobs
• 197,000sqm of commercial space
• 24,000sqm of retail and leisure space
• 849 new homes
• 390 hotel rooms
• new car parking
• improved pedestrian and cyclist routes
• new public open spaces

The Masterplan is supported by planning guidance and a development framework (adopted by the City Council in 2008/09); Salford City Council’s largest ever planning application (a 15 year outline permission across a 17.7 hectare area was granted in 2010) and a Compulsory Purchase Order (confirmed by the Secretary of State in March 2012). 

Key elements of the project include revitalising Chapel Street and creating New Bailey, which is an exciting extension to Manchester's Central Business District situated in between the River Irwell and Salford Central Station.  

The Middlewood Locks strategic site is also situated within the Masterplan boundary.  The Salford Central Development Framework envisages a vibrant mix of uses for Middlewood, with a large residential element, making the most of the reinstated canal basin for waterside development and establishing connections through the site. 

Progress to date

Projects delivered to date in Salford Central include:

• the £10m transformation of the A6 corridor, which has delivered 17,000sqm of improved highways and public realm in and around Chapel Street
• completion of English Cities Fund’s ‘Vimto Gardens’ mixed use residential and retail scheme fronting Chapel Street, delivering 83 apartments and 14 town houses in addition to ground floor retail and commercial units
• installation of a new footbridge linking New Bailey to Manchester’s Spinningfields district which will lead to a direct pedestrian route to Salford Central Station through the New Bailey regeneration area
• completion of the first phase at New Bailey includes a 143 bedroom riverside hotel (Premier Inn), new junction arrangements and a multi storey car park at Irwell Street
• conversion of the long vacant ‘Brown Brothers’ engineering site on the corner of Chapel Street and Trinity Way into a 4 star independent boutique hotel and spa ‘The Ainscow’. Over 90% of the workforce was recruited locally through a recruitment and training partnership developed in conjunction with the Broughton Trust and Salford City Council

Onsite and forthcoming projects include:

• the first phase of office development within Salford Central, One New Bailey with associated public realm, is under construction and due for completion in 2016. One New Bailey is an eight storey, 11,600sqm scheme, with ground floor retail and a new public square fronting Stanley Street and the Spinningfields footbridge
• the next phase of residential delivery is underway in the Chapel Street area. This is a development of 36 town houses known as Timekeepers Square.  The scheme will provide high quality family housing in the Bexley Square Conservation Area situated adjacent to several listed buildings including St Philip’s Church (Grade II*) and Salford Cathedral (Grade II*)
• the first phase of riverside residential development within New Bailey started on site in Autumn 2015. This will deliver 90 apartments next to the new Premier Inn
• Scarborough Group, the developer of the Middlewood Locks site, is progressing the first phase of scheme delivery which is 1000 residential units in 2015

This page was last updated on 7 April 2016