Cabinet approval is sought for the appointment of a development manager to lead on the revamp of the council-owned Bird Hall Lane industrial estate.
A report by Stockport Council’s development & regeneration team will be considered by the local authority’s cabinet on 28 June.
The seven-acre Bird Hall Lane site, in a long-established industrial area, is described in the report as dated and inefficient, with the £4.4m allocated to the scheme from the successful Cheadle Towns Fund presenting “an opportunity to maximize its operational and employment output and support clean growth”.
Stockport’s intention, as set out in the report, is “to redevelop the Bird Hall Lane site into a modern business park, which aims to demonstrate market-leading high environmental technologies and performance, alongside job creation, economic growth and amenity improvements to the surrounding area”.
A provisional proposed site layout consisting of 110,000 sq ft of industrial space has been put forward. The scheme is likely to include solar power and potentially air source heat pumps, while battery storage to manage high and low energy use periods is also being considered.
All current occupiers are providers of council services and will be relocated if necessary.
March’s Cabinet meeting approved additional funding to advance designs for the eco business park to planning application stage. A design team had been appointed in autumn 2021 to develop early stage proposals.
Should the cabinet sign off the plans, the council’s property advisor CBRE would then lead on procurement through the STAR platform, initially through the publication of a prior information notice.
Although this route will likely push back delivery of the project by up to five months, it would still be deliverable within the Towns Fund timeframe, with any increase in costs offset by savings in design and delivery, the report said.
In any case, the process can be started while the council awaits central government approval for the scheme, its summary business case having been submitted in March this year.
The eco business park is one of three main strands in the £13.9m Cheadle Towns Fund programme, along with a new railway station and a comprehensive active travel network.
