Manchester’s Middlewood Locks Gets Funding Boost

Manchester’s Middlewood Locks Gets Funding Boost

Manchester has been undergoing something of a construction boom in recent years, with more and more new properties appearing on the city’s skyline.

The Middlewood Locks project, on the outskirts of the city in Salford, stalled for a number of years but now the first of the scheme’s new homes are slated for delivery next year.

The project aims to deliver a range of apartments, as well as office space, retail and leisure facilities, on the 24.5 acre site, which is within easy walking distance of Manchester city centre and Salford Central train station.

To help it move along, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has released £35 million in funding to fast-track the construction work, ensuring the quick delivery of phase two of the project and allowing the timeframe for phase three to be brought forward.

Phase one will deliver 571 new one to three-bedroom apartments, which are due to be ready from spring next year. Phase two will provide an additional 546 such homes, spread across four ten-storey blocks.

Nick Walkley, HCA chief executive, explained why the organisation has provided this financial support to the scheme.

“A key part of the funding was to support the infrastructure works as this will enable the future residential phases to be brought forward faster,” he asserted.

As a result of this support, there is likely to be yet more scaffolding in Manchester erected in the coming months as the homes in Middlewood Locks take shape.

Of course, Manchester is one of the northern cities set to benefit from the arrival of the HS2 rail link, and there is currently debate about how best to accommodate the new rail link.

According to Construction News, one suggestion is to construct an underground terminus, because building a new station above ground could “adversely impact on the available development land outside of the station”.