Rochdale approves mill conversion
Redwaters and Prescot Business Park will work together to restore the grade two-listed Crimble Mill to deliver 214 homes across the 56-acre Green Belt site near Heywood.
Rochdale Council approved the proposals at its planning and licensing committee meeting yesterday. The decision was made in line with officer recommendations.
CJ Partnership and Urban Green designed the scheme, which will convert the former cotton mill to provide 33 apartments and 11,700 sq ft of ground-floor commercial space.
The dilapidated buildings next to the mill will also be redeveloped. Plans will see these buildings demolished to make way for a further 31 three- and four-bedroom houses.
Finally, the greenfield plot within the wider site will see the creation of 150 three- to five-bedroom houses.
In total, seven one-, 23 two-, 106 three-, 57 four-, and 21-bedroom homes will be provided.
There will also be improved access to the development, with alterations to the road bridge into the site and upgraded public rights of way.
Crimble Mill closed more than 20 years ago and has been vacant since 2015, the same year that Prescot Business Park acquired the site.
According to an officer’s report, the project demonstrates “very special circumstances” in order to justify Green Belt development, with proposals including the restoration of a grade two-listed heritage asset.
Plans were submitted for the development last July.
Urban Green is working as the landscape architect, arboricultural consultant, and on wider masterplanning for the scheme. CJ Partnership is the masterplanner for the mill complex segment.
Lichfields is the planning consultant. The project team also includes Blackett-Ord Conservation Engineering, CB3 Design, Roger Hannah, Redmore Environmental, RJT Consulting, Tetra Tech, and E3P. Lanpro is the archaeological consultant.
Want to learn more about the plans? Search for application number 22/00588/FUL on Rochdale Council’s planning portal.
More greenbelt being abused.
By Anonymous
I get why they are converting the mill but why use green belt to build more homes there are plenty of brown field sites around the borough of Rochdale.
By Anonymous
Hope something is sorted for the Warwick Mill in Middleton.
Just a shame of the waste of a lovely buildings
By Anonymous
This is disgusting. There is enough brownfield land round Heywood for them to build on, how will this effect, schools, doctors etc not including traffic It’s all money making from the council
By Anonymous
Yet again the council ignored the objections of local people and are looking at the council tax revenue it will generate.pity the council didn’t make the mill owners do something about its condition in the 7/8 years they have owned it.
By Paul johnson
@Anonymous at 5.55pm, the article explains why. It *is* a brown field site
By Sten
This is a perfect site to be developed for housing, conserving a historic mill in the process. Otherwise, it would probably have crumbled away. An occasion where one shouldn’t be overly purist about greenbelt
By SW
For those not familiar with the site. The Greenbelt in question is an industrial storage yard, which doesn’t look much different from a scrapheap. The grade II* listed mill is in a very poor state and on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk register. This might be Greenbelt, but it is previously developed land and it is, thanks to the restoration of the mill, the very definition of exceptional circumstances. I’m a local resident and walk past the site several times a week.
By Nick Barton