A MAJOR plan to build up to 550 flats and a 160-bed hotel in four tower blocks up to 25-storeys high in Warrington town centre will be put to councillors next Wednesday.
The tower blocks would be one floor higher than London’s ill-fated Grenfell Tower and 16 floors higher than Warrington’s tallest existing residential building, the nine-storey Kingsway House.
Officers are recommending the outline scheme on land at the junction of Winwick Street and Tanners Lane be approved.
Offices and retail space would also be accommodated on the site, together with parking for 200 cars.
A report to be considered by the borough’s development management committee says the proposed development would make efficient use of a previously developed site within the town centre for a mixture of uses which are appropriate in the town centre.
It would also make a contribution to the supply of dwellings within the borough. Ten per cent of the homes would be “affordable”.
Most of the 1.2 hectares site is currently used for car parking but there is also a car wash and a retail unit. It is owned by the council.
Nearby are two Grade 2 listed public houses, The Kings Head in Winwick Street and the Three Pigeons in Tanners Lane. Also nearby are the new University Technical College and The Base buildings and the proposed site for the Warrington Youth Zone.
A number of other Listed buildings and heritage assets also occupy nearby sites.
One representation has been received from the public, expressing concern about the height.
Pictured: a model of how the scheme would look from Winwick Street
3 Comments
Ye Gods! Will they never learn. The slums of tomorrow
What do you suggest as an alternative? Bulldoze some woodland on the edge of town and build 550 conventional houses over five acres of countryside. The UK has to build a city the size of Coventry every year just to accommodate you know what. It’s not the buildings that turn themselves into slums, it’s the people living in them.
Our roads are already heavily congested and grid locked at times so have the WBC taken into account of what effect all the extra road usage that would be generated by all the occupants of these flats/apartments.
jack Cox